Indiana’s 1st Congressional District: A Sociocultural and Political Analysis

In October 2019, Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott (D) publicly mulled challenging eighteen-term Indiana Congressman Pete Visclosky (D) in the 2020 congressional primary. Within days, Visclosky’s campaign filed an extensive public record request on McDermott’s mayoral tenure that promised to overwhelm the Hammond City Clerk’s staff—a proverbial warning shot that instead earned the notoriously hot-headed mayor’s ire. Wary of facing his first serious electoral challenge since 1986 and looking to handpick his successor, Visclosky announced in November that he would not seek re-election.

Visclosky’s decision vacated Indiana’s 1st congressional district for the first time since 1984, the year Visclosky—a former aide to the late Rep. Adam Benjamin (D) and the son of an interim Gary mayor—defeated first-term African-American Rep. Katie Hall (D) in a fiercely racialized primary. Visclosky earned a reputation as a backbench workhorse, overcoming abiding rumors of ethical lapses to quietly ascend the Appropriations ladder. Visclosky deftly funneled federal funds to his district and consolidated power in his ethnically and racially divided district, retiring as Subcommittee on Defense chair—a boon to his district’s industrial economy.

Hugging Lake Michigan’s shoreline in Chicago’s shadow, Indiana’s 1st congressional district encompasses Lake and Porter Counties and a sliver of LaPorte County. The district is home to decaying industrial cities, small towns, strip mall sprawl, new luxury homes from the $200s, and cornfields, positioning it as a Midwestern microcosm. Beyond the Music Man song about Harold Hill’s hometown, the newly designated Indiana Dunes National Park is Northwest Indiana’s best-known feature.

Several Lake County towns function as Chicago suburbs and exurbs. Twenty-one percent of county residents’ primary jobs are located in Cook County, Illinois, with nearly half of the commuters into Illinois working in Chicago. While the local economy has diversified amid national manufacturing decline—Indiana approved four casino boats near the Illinois state line in the 1990s that employ thousands of workers today—heavy industry is still king.

The 1st district is home not only to Gary Works but also Whiting Refinery—respectively the country’s largest steel mill and sixth-largest oil refinery. Manufacturing, transportation, and construction buoy an unusually broad base of middle-income jobs and a longstanding labor tradition. Accordingly, the region’s culture is markedly blue-collar in hue; a plethora of billboards abutting I-65 advertise personal injury lawyers specializing in workplace, trucking, and motorcycle accidents and the larger-than-life Shrine of Christ’s Passion.

Along with large Irish and African-American populations, Lake County’s storied industrial history forged one of America’s largest and most varied Eastern European concentrations; ~15% of the district claims Slavic heritage. Overall, the district’s population is 63% non-Hispanic white, 19% black, and 15% Hispanic.

The D+8 district is solidly Democratic in its current iteration. But Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy rapidly accelerated ongoing partisan coalitions shifts. Since 2016, Republicans have bled scores of upscale, educated voters but have improved their standing with secular, working-class Democrats—perhaps Indiana’s 1st district’s largest voting bloc.

Come Indiana’s 2022 decennial redistricting, Republicans are again likely to wield sole control of Indiana’s mapping pen. Presumably backed by historically large state legislative majorities, Indiana Republicans could take a more aggressive approach this decade than former Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) allowed in 2010—and cracking the right-trending 1st district would prove the party’s best opportunity to elect an eighth Hoosier State Republican.

As the evolving district approaches an uncertain redistricting, its changing political geography is worthy of study. In the rest of this article, sourcing census data, select election results from 2012, 2016, and 2018, and primary knowledge of the district’s culture, politics, and economy, I divide the district into seven distinct sociocultural regions and analyze each region’s political trends.

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Regional Analyses

IN-01’s Seven Sociocultural Regions

Election Results by Region

Region 1: Post-Industrial Decay (East Chicago, Gary)

Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome, but Gary, Indiana…

Northwest Indiana—more specifically Region 1—is America’s largest producer of steel. Upon its 1905 incorporation, Gary fittingly named itself after Elbert Henry Gary, founding chairman of U.S. Steel. As did other northern one-industry cities, Gary and East Chicago throve throughout the first half of the 20th century. At the height of the Progressive Era in 1917, industrialist Clayton Mark built Marktown, East Chicago’s utopian workers’ community. By 1930, Gary was nearly 30% Eastern European and 18% black, its roaring wartime production economy having attracted tens of thousands of immigrants and southern blacks alike—including Joe and Katherine Jackson, parents of the Jackson 5. Both Gary and East Chicago were de facto segregated, with nearly the entirety of their black populations highly concentrated in central Gary and east of the Indiana Harbor Canal in East Chicago.

But as quickly as foreign steel ascended in the 1960s to eclipse domestic product, so did Gary and East Chicago’s fortunes fall; rapid and total white flight to new outlying suburbs gutted the cities. The cities today are pictures of Rust Belt depression, best known for blight, deep poverty, and violent crime. The 2016 ACS measured Gary’s population as 81% black and 6% Hispanic and East Chicago’s as 38% black and 54% Hispanic. Nearly all of Gary’s whites reside in two neighborhoods on its northeast and southwest fringes, with roadways and green space separating the areas from the rest of the city.

A white-ethnic Democratic machine ran the city of East Chicago for decades, coopting Hispanics to consolidate power. Robert Pastrick, the father of former DNC Treasurer and Charlie Black’s Prime Policy lobbying partner Scott Pastrick, served as mayor for three decades before falling to federal corruption charges in 2004. The federal government has convicted the city’s past three mayors on corruption charges.

Region 1 is deep-blue, with no Republican managing to capture even five-percent of its votes in the studied elections. Along with Detroit and Milwaukee, Gary and East Chicago were ground zero in 2016 for Hillary Clinton’s massive failure to turn out urban black voters at rates comparable to 2008 and 2012—Clinton earned 8,010 fewer votes than did Obama in 2012. Trump improved both relatively and absolutely on Mitt Romney’s Region 1 performance, pointing either to increased turnout or Republican support from the area’s tiny white base or modest Obama-Trump crossover from black voters.

Region 2: Working-Class Strivers (Black Oak, Hammond, Lake Station, Michigan City, Whiting)

Region 2 is diverse and working class, with small, interspersed pockets of poverty and middle-class families in sections of Hammond. In 2018, its cities ranged in median household income from $39,037 (Michigan City) to $48,488 (Whiting). On a cultural note, Hammond’s Industrial Strip famously waives its cover charge for card-carrying union members.

Whereas Gary and East Chicago historically relied on a single industry and cratered upon its rapid decline, Hammond’s diversified economy—built upon light manufacturing and transportation—was more durable. Accordingly, the city has seen significantly less decline from its 1960 population peak and much slower white flight than did Gary and East Chicago; Hammond’s population was 85% white (Hispanic inclusive) in 1990, 62% non-Hispanic white in 2000, and 40% non-Hispanic white in 2018.

Other Region 2 cities include Michigan City, Lake Station, and Whiting. Befitting its name, Whiting is a former Sundown Town; the town was 57% non-Hispanic white in 2018. Michigan City lost its Pullman-Standard railroad car factory in the 1970s, but it maintains several manufacturing facilities and a sizable tourist economy centered on Blue Chip Casino and its 22-story hotel—respectively Northwest Indiana’s largest casino and building.

George Pullman considered Lake Station for his nascent railcar company before choosing what became Chicago’s Pullman District. In 1908, then-tiny Lake Station changed its name to East Gary in a bid to convince US Steel executives to invest in suburban developments in the town; by 1977, the city returned to using its historical name to distance itself from Gary.

Gary’s Black Oak neighborhood, the city’s only white-majority section, rounds off Region 2. Black Oak is characterized by modest single-family houses and mobile homes. Gary annexed Black Oak in 1974, but the neighborhood has seen little white flight on account of its situation within a suburban school district and separation from the rest of Gary via I-94.

Republicans consistently earn 25%-30% in the region—Romney took 27.52% in 2012—but Trump surged to 33.55% of the region’s vote in 2016. Despite ongoing diversification, recent GOP gains here may be durable. While the region saw a small turnout drop in 2016, Trump earned 2,011 more votes than did Romney. In 2018, Mike Braun (R) ran behind Todd Young’s (R) 2016 performance by two-percent, but he held steady at 28% in Region 2.

Region 3: Middle-Class Minorities (Merrillville, Miller Beach)

Region 3 is characterized by the black middle class. In recent decades, Merrillville—the hometown of the legendary basketball coach Gregg Popovich—has been popular with Chicago, Gary, Hammond and East Chicago ex-pats seeking a better life; its black population grew from 5% in 1990 to 44% in 2018.

Merrillville and neighboring Hobart are nearly identical in median household income ($59,465 and $57,181) and bachelor’s degree attainment (25% and 21%), but Hobart is just 7% black. Merrillville’s blackest census tract (61% in 2018) held a higher bachelor’s degree attainment rate (25%) than Hobart as a whole, pointing to relative parity between the class status of its black and white residents.

Gary’s Miller Beach neighborhood is the district’s other sizable middle-class black pocket, although its black percentage dropped from 66% in 2000 to 54% in 2010 as bohemians and white empty-nesters have discovered its charm as an affordable beachside community. Several small, architecturally significant Hammond neighborhoods along its border with Munster have long been more affluent than the city as a whole. Munster, by far the district’s best public school system, long allowed select non-Munster residents to pay tuition to attend its schools, but ended that policy in 2015—cutting the appeal of living in a far cheaper house a stone’s throw into Hammond.

On account of racial political polarization, Region 3 is fairly inelastic compared to the state and district; the GOP took between 17.69% and 23.25% in the eleven races I studied. In contrast to poor black-majority areas around the Midwest, the region’s presidential turnout stayed stable between 2012 and 2016. Trump improved a modest 2.2% here and won 306 more votes than did Romney. Elkhart County DA Curtis Hill, an African-American Republican, ran 1.69% behind Trump here in his successful bid for Attorney General. While Hill ran ahead of Trump statewide, he faced former Lake County Circuit Judge Lorenzo Arredondo (D), and Trump outpaced Hill by 4.59% districtwide—potentially pointing to some black crossover vote for Hill.

Region 4: Powerboat Country (Griffith, Highland, Hobart, Portage)

Region 4 is quintessential blue-collar postwar suburbia, akin to the Levittowns of New York and Pennsylvania. The region boomed in population as returning GIs—including some Hillbilly Highway migrants from Kentucky and Southern Indiana—took plentiful manufacturing jobs and settled into their suburban American Dream.

Griffith, Highland, and Hobart began their early suburbanization before WWII, but Portage—still farms by the war’s end—grew from 2,116 residents in 1950 to 27,409 in 1980; its cheap new subdivisions appealed to white residents fleeing Gary and East Chicago for, well, whiter pastures.

Region 4 is largely white, middle class, and patriotic, but its labor tradition has minted loyal Democrats of its residents—though that affiliation is slipping. Four years after Romney took 40.64%, Trump narrowly lost the region with 48.62% of the vote.

The region’s Obama/Trump voters have yet to vote Republican down-ballot. In his 2016 Senate bid, Young ran 3.94% behind Trump districtwide and 7.01% in Region 4. Young ran just .97% ahead of Romney’s 2012 performance, despite Romney’s poor fit for blue-collar whites.

While Republicans have yet to make down-ballot gains in Region 4, realignment here is likely just beginning. As union membership slips, Democrats continue to culturally alienate blue-collar whites, and Boomers who retired on a full USW pension die, Region 4 will likely trend rightward.

Region 5: Business Owners, Contractors, Engineers, Managers, and Union Leadership (Chesterton, Crown Point, Dyer, Schererville, St. John, Winfield, Valparaiso)

Region 5 is upper-middle-class exurbia. In the 1970s, as Northwest Indiana’s economy diversified and Chicagoland pushed outward, previously rural portions of Lake and Porter Counties began to develop. With home values stagnant across much of Chicagoland since the Great Recession, new construction has considerably slowed here.

Region 5’s residents span business owners, contractors, engineers, corporate managers, and senior union officials—but its residents are neither as affluent or as likely to hold professional degrees as are those of Region 6. On the whole, it is also markedly less college-educated than many comparably affluent Chicago exurbs in Illinois, suggesting that its residents are a mix of blue- and white-collar.

Region 5’s politics lean slightly Republican, but unlike several traditionally Republican Illinois exurbs, the region is moving rightward, having voted 3.28% more for Trump than for Romney. But when controlling for statewide margin of victory, Republicans run slightly better for federal office than for state office here, suggesting further realignment to come and unions’ influence on state elections.

Region 6: Professionals and Executives (Beverly Shores, Dune Acres, Long Beach, Munster, Ogden Dunes, Valparaiso)

Region 6 is home to Northwest Indiana’s professional class. Munster is the region’s closest answer to an elite suburb, with a sizable number of Chicago Loop commuters, Lake County’s highest concentration of masters and professional degrees, and a strong public high school. Munster is also Northwest Indiana’s most Jewish municipality—albeit at a fraction of Chicago North Shore levels. Several small beach towns along Lake Michigan and Valparaiso—the Porter County seat, a regional white-collar job center and the home of Valparaiso University—also stand out within the district for their masters and professional degree attainment rates and affluence.

Region 6 was the only one to support Mike Pence (R) for governor in 2012, and it gave Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett (R) his best showing in the district against Teachers’ Union-backed Glenda Ritz (D). As in other upscale, educated areas, however, the Republican Party has lost ground in Region 6 during the Trump presidency. Region 6 was the only one to trend leftward in its presidential vote in 2016, and its Republican vote-share for US Senate fell 4.93% from 2016 to 2018. But right-trending portions of the district swamp Region 6 in population, giving Republicans little reason to fret about Munster and Valparaiso’s leftward realignment.

Region 7: Drive Until You Qualify (Cedar Lake, Lowell, Wanatah)

Region 7 is standard outer exurbia—”Drive until you qualify” country. It shares many cultural markings and growth patterns with Region 5 but is whiter, slightly less affluent, and has fewer college graduates. Region 7 has historically voted a few points to the right of Region 5, but Region 7 moved the furthest rightward between 2012 and 2016 in every statewide election studied. If the GOP can get its Region 7 numbers into the mid-60s, the party should have more breathing room in cracking the 1st district.

Conclusions

Upon Visclosky’s retirement, McDermott formally announced his congressional bid; North Township Trustee Frank J. Mrvan (D-Highland)—the son of longtime State Sen. Frank Mrvan Jr. (D-Hammond)—and State Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon (D-Munster) soon joined him. While McDermott held a modest fundraising lead after Q4 2019, Visclosky and the powerful United Steelworkers of America District 7 both endorsed Mrvan in March, gifting him vastly expanded fundraising capacities and likely frontrunner status. Candelaria Reardon’s candidacy also risks winning enough Hammond Hispanics to sink McDermott’s bid.

Any Democratic nominee will be strongly favored in the 1st district this cycle, but Republicans are certain to consider cracking its Democratic strongholds and adding rural turf to put its seat in play—especially if President Trump and the statewide Republican ticket continue to gain ground there this fall.