Indiana isn’t supposed to be where the independent movement breaks through. It’s a deep-red state, 41st in voter turnout, where 95% of the legislature is effectively decided in May primaries by a sliver of the electorate. That’s exactly why Greg Ballard — Marine Corps colonel, two-term Republican mayor of Indianapolis, and now independent candidate for Secretary of State — is running. Paul Rieckhoff sits down with Ballard a few weeks out from Election Day to talk about why he walked away from the GOP, what it cost him to even get his name on the ballot, and why this race matters far beyond Hoosier country.
Ballard lays out the math of a rigged two-party system: 244 independents ran in Indiana’s last two cycles and 52% of them won — because voters know them. He breaks down the punitive 37,000-signature requirement, the $700,000 price tag to collect them, and the two-percent threshold on election night that would clear the path for every independent who comes next. This is a conversation about ballot access as the ground war of the independent movement, about Marine Corps leadership applied to civic repair, and about what it looks like when a candidate refuses to go negative, refuses to endorse, and refuses to play by the duopoly’s rules.
In this episode
- Why Ballard left the Republican Party and is running under the Lincoln Party banner
- The math of a rigged system: 95% of Indiana’s state legislature decided by 10% of voters in May
- 244 independents ran in Indiana over two cycles — and 52% of them won
- The punitive 37,000-signature requirement and the $700,000 it took to clear it
- The two-percent election-night threshold that would open ballot access for every independent who follows
- Ballard’s pledge: no endorsements, no fundraising for other candidates, no going negative
- Why national politicians are close to breaking the seal — and why nobody wants to be first
- The three-way race against Max Engling, Beau Bayh, and a problematic Republican incumbent
- Marine Corps leadership as a governing style — collaborative, mission-focused, decision-driven
- Something good: Indiana football, Fernando Mendoza as a role model, and the Milwaukee Brewers taking down the Dodgers
