Indiana Senate race: Mike Braun wins GOP primary in huge upset over 2 sitting congressmen

In a huge upset against two well-established names in Indiana Republican politics, wealthy businessman Mike Braun won Indiana’s high-stakes GOP Senate primary.

Braun, who fueled his bid with millions of dollars of his own money, defeated U.S. Reps. Luke Messer and Todd Rokita in what has been called the nation’s nastiest and most expensive U.S. Senate primary.

The Associated Press called the race at 8:48 p.m. with Braun garnering 41 percent of the vote and Messer and Rokita receiving about 29.5 percent each.

The results represent a stunning rebuke of two sitting congressmen and a powerful indicator that the anti-establishment sentiment remains strong among Hoosier Republicans who helped catapult Donald Trump into the White House two years ago.

Braun, a former state lawmaker and owner of a national distributor of auto parts, painted himself as an outsider with real world experience who could shake up Washington. He entered the race in August after Messer and Rokita had already spent months attacking each other.

At a victory party at a brewery in Whitestown, Braun told supporters that the race came down to whether people were happy with business as usual. He called politicians who come from the private sector the "new dynamic we need in Washington."

Braun will now face off against Sen. Joe Donnelly, who is widely considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the November election. The race will be one of a handful that determine which party controls the Senate next year.

Indiana Primary: Check in on results by county and by party

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Braun will have little time to relish Tuesday’s victory. Democrats already are planning to attack him with advertisements highlighting his GOP opponents' criticisms throughout the primary. But he’ll also get plenty of reinforcements. Trump will visit Elkhart on Thursday to rally Republicans behind Braun, and national GOP groups are expected to pummel the state with advertising on Braun’s behalf.

Throughout the campaign, Braun argued that Messer and Rokita were nearly indistinguishable career politicians. In one of the campaign's most memorable advertisements, he carried cardboard cutouts of his opponents around his hometown of Jasper, where voters struggled to tell them apart.

But as he surged, Rokita and Messer highlighted his routine voting in Democratic primaries in the past and his support last year for a gas tax increase to pay for roads.

Those efforts either came too late or didn’t resonate strongly with voters.

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Much of the campaign’s vitriol was fueled by Rokita, who embraced Trump's brash rhetorical style and often used derogatory nicknames to refer to his opponents. His campaign even authored a children's book in the style of Dr. Seuss to attack Messer for residing in Washington, D.C. His style rubbed some voters and many Indiana GOP establishment figures the wrong way.

Messer, on the other hand, tried to rise above the fray early in the campaign, but was quickly dragged into the pattern of attacks and counter attacks that came to define the race. He was the darling of Indiana's Republican establishment, but it became clear Tuesday night that wasn’t necessarily an asset. He also holds the fifth-ranking leadership position among Republicans in the U.S. House.

“Politics sometimes offers life lessons,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said on Twitter. “Todd Rokita and Luke Messer had a college rivalry that continued all the way to tonight’s #INsen primary. Now they’ve destroyed each other’s chances, allowing a third candidate to win. Better for pols to bury the hatchet — but not in each other.”

With the primary behind them, Republicans are hoping that the negativity of the race doesn't hurt Braun. While he entered the race after his opponents, scrutiny increased as he outspent his opponents and came to be viewed as the frontrunner.

A recent IndyStar story, for example, found that during his brief time in the legislature, he pushed several pieces of legislation that could have benefited his private timberland holdings, which are among the largest in the state.

And stories by the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette and the Associated Press have raised questions about his distribution and logistics business practices, including his use of government subsidies, the importing of auto parts from overseas, lawsuits from employees who say they were underpaid or otherwise mistreated and dozens of trucking safety violations.

But ultimately, Republican voters chose an outsider with business experience over two competitors with longer tenures in government and politics. The question is whether hard feelings from the race will linger and depress Republican enthusiasm in November.

Rokita, in a concession speech at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, congratulated Braun, but did little to encourage his supporters to get behind the party's nominee.

"Not every fight is fair. Not every candidate can stroke a personal $6 million check. That’s life," he said. "The result tonight was different than we had hoped, but I will continue to fight for you."

His supporters, too, had trouble ginning up enthusiasm for Braun.

"Am I going to go out and work on this race? No, I’m not going to do that," said Indianapolis City-County Council Republican Janice McHenry. "For Todd, I would have."

Still, party leaders expressed enthusiasm about Braun's nomination. Vice President Mike Pence, who maintains a major influence in the Indiana GOP, called to congratulate Braun, and Gov. Eric Holcomb texted him from a trade mission to Israel.

“It’s been a hard-fought primary, with three great candidates putting their names forward," Indiana Republican Party Chairman Kyle Hupfer said, "but it’s now time for Hoosier Republicans to come together and work as one team to defeat Democrat Joe Donnelly and give Hoosiers another conservative voice in the U.S. Senate."

Democrats, however, plan to continue pounding Braun. American Bridge, a Democratic Super PAC, released a new ad within moments of Braun's victory. It features video of Rokita and Messer accusing him of buying a Senate seat and asserting that voters should not trust him.

David Bergstein, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Braun "emerges tonight badly damaged from one of the most divisive primaries in the country."

“With no more childish primary antics to hide behind, Rep. Braun will be forced to run on his record of self-dealing and using the power of the Statehouse to enrich himself — like when he carved out a tax break for himself while repeatedly raising taxes on Hoosiers — and voters will hold him accountable in November," he said.

Braun's victory also neutralizes to some extent Republicans' relentless attacks on Donnelly for having owned stock in his brother's company, which outsources some of its labor to Mexico. The National Republican Senatorial Committee even hired a mariachi band to appear at one Donnelly campaign event last year.

Braun's company, Meyer Distributing, also imports auto parts from factories abroad, which Democrats argue could be produced in Indiana.

But even with the advantages of incumbency, Donnelly will face a challenging environment in a state that voted for Trump by a 19-point margin in 2016.

On Tuesday night, Donnelly acknowledged the attacks on Braun during the primary — including his past voting in Democratic primaries — but said he stayed “focused on my job” as the Republicans battled each other.

“I know there was a lot of back and forth on the other side,” Donnelly told reporters. “But I think it’s a lot more important what you’re going to do on health care than how you voted eight years ago.”

IndyStar reporters Vic Ryckaert, Emma Kate Fittes, Tim Evans, Marisa Kwiatkowski and James Briggs contributed to this story.