page_title: Indiana
section_title: Politics
hierarchical_section_title: Indiana / Law and government / Politics
caption_attribution_description: English: The seventh annual Operation Hire a Hoosier Vet Job Fair took place at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Wednesday, April 10, 2013. The event, coordinated by Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, gathers military-friendly employers so Hoosier veterans from all branches can take advantage of job opportunities. (Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Matt Scotten)
context_page_description: Indiana is a U.S. state in the Midwestern and Great Lakes regions of North America. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th state on December 11, 1816. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the south and southeast, and the Wabash River and Illinois to the west.
  Before becoming a territory, various indigenous peoples inhabited Indiana for thousands of years. Since its founding as a territory, settlement patterns in Indiana have reflected regional cultural segmentation present in the Eastern United States; the state's northernmost tier was settled primarily by people from New England and New York, Central Indiana by migrants from the Mid-Atlantic states and adjacent Ohio, and Southern Indiana by settlers from the Southern states, particularly Kentucky and Tennessee.
  Indiana has a diverse economy with a gross state product of $359.12 billion in 2017.
context_section_description: From 1880 to 1924, a resident of Indiana was included in all but one presidential election. Indiana Representative William Hayden English was nominated for Vice President and ran with Winfield Scott Hancock in the 1880 election. Former Indiana Governor Thomas A. Hendricks was elected Vice President in 1884. He served until his death on November 25, 1885, under President Grover Cleveland. In 1888, former Senator from Indiana Benjamin Harrison was elected President and served one term. He remains the only President from Indiana. Indiana Senator Charles W. Fairbanks was elected Vice President in 1904, serving under President Theodore Roosevelt until 1909. Fairbanks made another run for Vice President with Charles Evans Hughes in 1916, but they both lost to Woodrow Wilson and former Indiana Governor Thomas R. Marshall, who served as Vice President from 1913 until 1921. Not until 1988 did another presidential election involve a native of Indiana, when Senator Dan Quayle was elected Vice President and served one term with George H. W. Bush. Governor Mike Pence was elected Vice President in 2016, to serve with Donald Trump.
  Indiana has long been considered a Republican stronghold, particularly in Presidential races. The Cook Partisan Voting Index (CPVI) now rates Indiana as R+9. Indiana was one of only ten states to support Republican Wendell Willkie in 1940. On 14 occasions the Republican candidate has defeated the Democrat by a double-digit margin in the state, including six times where a Republican won the state by more than twenty percentage points. In 2000 and 2004 George W. Bush won the state by a wide margin while the election was much closer overall. The state has supported a Democrat for president only five times since 1900. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson became the first Democrat to win the state in the twentieth century, with 43% of the vote. Twenty years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt won the state with 55% of the vote over incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt won the state again in 1936. In 1964, 56% of voters supported Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson over Republican Barry Goldwater. Forty-four years later, Democrat Barack Obama narrowly won the state against John McCain 50% to 49%. In the following election, Republican Mitt Romney won back the state for the Republican Party with 54% of the vote over the incumbent President Obama who won 43%.
  While only five Democratic presidential nominees have carried Indiana since 1900, 11 Democrats were elected governor during that time. Before Mitch Daniels became governor in 2005, Democrats had held the office for 16 consecutive years. Indiana elects two senators and nine representatives to Congress. The state has 11 electoral votes in presidential elections. Seven of the districts favor the Republican Party according to the CPVI rankings; there are seven Republicans serving as representatives and two Democrats. Historically, Republicans have been strongest in the eastern and central portions of the state, while Democrats have been strongest in the northwestern part of the state. Occasionally, certain counties in the southern part of the state will vote Democratic. Marion County, Indiana's most populous county, supported the Republican candidates from 1968 to 2000, before backing the Democrats in the 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 elections. Indiana's second-most populous county, Lake County, strongly supports the Democratic party and has not voted for a Republican since 1972. In 2005, the Bay Area Center for Voting Research rated the most liberal and conservative cities in the United States on voting statistics in the 2004 presidential election, based on 237 cities with populations of more than 100,000. Five Indiana cities were mentioned in the study. On the liberal side, Gary was ranked second and South Bend came in at 83. Among conservative cities, Fort Wayne was 44th, Evansville was 60th and Indianapolis was 82nd on the list.
caption: Mike Pence at the Indiana State Fair, 2014
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