Mike Braun defeated two members of Congress during the Republican primary, investing millions of his own dollars in the race and running on an anti-Washington message. | AP Photo/Darron Cummings Indiana Mike Braun beats Joe Donnelly, flips Indiana to Senate GOP

Republican Mike Braun defeated Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly on Tuesday in Indiana, flipping a key Senate seat coveted by the GOP for six years.

Braun had 54 percent of the vote to Donnelly’s 42 percent when three networks called the race with about half of all precincts reporting.


President Donald Trump carried Indiana by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016, underlining Donnelly’s status as a top target for Republicans in this year’s midterm elections. The first-term Democrat ran as an avowed centrist, touting his willingness to work with Trump and running ads late in the cycle decrying the “radical left.”

But Donnelly also focused relentlessly on health care and even boasted about being the deciding vote to save the Affordable Care Act — a sharp turnaround from how red-state Democrats had discussed Obamacare for years.

Braun, a businessman and former state legislator, defeated two members of Congress during the Republican primary, investing millions of his own dollars in the race and running on an anti-Washington message. Braun took that message into the general election, focusing on his business experience and attacking Donnelly for insufficient support of Trump on health care, taxes and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whom Donnelly opposed.

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Republicans aimed to define Donnelly early in the campaign, nicknaming him “Mexico Joe” after an Associated Press report that a family business profited from Mexican labor — though Trump changed the playbook when he decided to label Donnelly “Sleepin’ Joe” during a rally in Indiana.

Democrats attacked Braun relentlessly on health care, accusing him of not supporting protections for pre-existing conditions and criticizing the high-deductible insurance plans Braun offered to employees of his own company. Democrats also attacked Braun’s business record of importing goods from China.

The race became the center of the Senate map at the end of the election: Trump rallied there twice in the closing weekend of the campaign, and former President Barack Obama headlined an event for Donnelly on Sunday.

