2040 United States Senate election in Indiana (non-canon)

The **2040 United States Senate election in Indiana** was held on Tuesday, November 6, 2040, to elect a United States Senator to represent the state of Indiana. Thomas Adams, the Republican nominee, handily defeated Democratic nominee Ava White. Both Adams and White were political newcomers who had never held public office before, with Adams having been a entrepreneur before entering politics, while Ava had ran for office multiple times in the past, however had failed in each of her endeavors.

Before running for the Senate, White's most notable political campaign was her campaign to represent Indiana's 4th congressional district in 2036, as well as her ill-fated campaign for Indiana Secretary of State in 2038, in which she lost the Democratic nomination. White unexpectedly won the Democratic nomination in an upset against state legislator Kyle Taylor, and was notably the first openly transgender candidate to contest a state-level race in the state. White, who described herself as belonging to what she dubbed the "hard left" of the Democratic Party would gain support amongst self-described democratic socialists and earned the endorsement of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Many more moderate and conservative Democrats who were opposed to White's campaign would endorse Adams, and the race was not expected to be competitive, with Adams leading White by as much as 40 points in opinion polling, despite his lack of political experience. However, White would begin to gain on Adams in the days leading up to the election in opinion polling, primarily thanks to a series of antisemitic remarks made by Adams at a campaign rally in Columbus, Indiana. Ultimately though, this was still not enough to change the outcome of the election, with White being defeated by Adams by exactly 30 points, a landslide margin.

Compared to 2034, the Republicans flipped two counties, those being St. Joseph and Tippecanoe. White carried three counties, those being Lake, Marion and Monroe, all of which are traditional Democratic strongholds. Her strongest performance came from Monroe County, where the university city of Bloomington is located, and where she received 61.3% of the popular vote, the only county that the Democrats won in the state where they saw an improved margin from 2040.

## Republican primary

### Candidates

* Thomas Adams, entrepreneur
* Josh Scott, conservative activist and Majority Whip of the Indiana House of Representatives from the 52nd district

### Results and analysis

Josh Scott, the Majority Whip of the Indiana House, was initially anticipated to be the favored candidate in the Republican primary, leading by as much as 30 points over other possible rivals and having become nationally known as a leader of the so-called "hardline Trumpist" faction of the GOP, having been brought up as a possible contender for the Republican nomination for governor or even president prior to announcing his senatorial run. Scott was frequently described as holding far-right viewpoints, and many more moderate Republicans drafted businessman Thomas Adams to run against Scott in early 2039. In March of 2040, Scott would be caught in a major controversy after he posted an image on Twitter showing him posing with multiple prominent neo-Confederate and white supremacist activists at a rally in Montgomery, Alabama.

This would be followed up within less than a week by a leaked image of him giving a Nazi salute to a relative at a family reunion, and Scott would be disavowed by many prominent Republicans in the days and weeks after this, with over 70 of the 100 members of the Indiana House of Representatives, including all 32 Democrats and all 14 non-White representatives signing a letter requesting Scott's resignation as Majority Whip on April 4, 2040. Several prominent Indiana Republicans even threatened to leave the party in the event that Scott won the Republican nomination for Senator, threatening to split the party. Ultimately, Scott would lose the Republican primary to Adams, and resigned from his seat in the Indiana House of Representatives a week later, proclaiming in his resignation letter that the Republican Party had "betrayed the concepts of conservatism and states' rights," and later announced the formation of the Nationalist Conservative Party.

**Republican primary results**

## Democratic primary

### Candidates

* Kyle Taylor, state legislator
* Ava White, transgender activist and candidate for IN-04 in 2036

### Results and analysis

Taylor was widely expected to be the favorite early in the race, being a political moderate who was willing to distance himself from more progressive factions of the Democratic Party. In early opinion polling, Taylor had a solid lead over White, and hypothetical opinion polling showed a potentially competitive race had Josh Scott won the Republican nomination and faced off with Taylor. However, White's campaign would be bolstered after progressive political groups intervened against Taylor, and soon the two were virtually neck to neck in both opinion polling and fundraising, with most pundits considering the primary to be the most competitive Democratic primary in the nation and calling it a toss-up. White would ultimately narrowly defeat Taylor in the primary 52-48%, making it the closest Senate primary that year for the Democratic Party.

Taylor won with rural voters 63-37%, while White won with urban voters 61-39%. Taylor narrowly carried the White American vote 51-49%, while White carried the African American vote 74-26%. White also won with Hispanics 67-33% and Asian Americans 62-38%. She won with LGBT voters 81-19%, while the two were virtually tied with non-LGBT voters 50-50%. Taylor's strongest county level performance came from Knox, where conservative Democrats still held a considerable influence, and where Taylor would receive 76% of the primary vote to White's 24%, while White's strongest county level performance came from Monroe, where she received 73% of the primary vote to Taylor's 27%. Monroe County would later become the only county to give White over 60% of the popular vote in the general election.

**Democratic primary results**

## Libertarian Party convention

### Candidates

* Bethany Tanner, teacher
* Lucas Armstrong, former state legislator and anarcho-capitalist activist

### Nomination

Bethany Tanner received the nomination with 90 votes at the convention, against Armstrong's 65 votes.

## General election

### Predictions

 TBD
 TBD
 TBD
 TBD
 TBD

### Analysis

The election was not close. Adams defeated White by over 720,000 votes (out of an electorate of over 2.4 million), and received 62.2% of the vote. White's margin of defeat was large, even for Indiana standards, being defeated by over 30 points. The Republicans won in 89 of Indiana's 92 counties, flipping 2 counties from the Senate election of 2034, those being the traditionally Democratic-leaning St. Joseph County in the north of the state and the swing county of Tippecanoe located in the west of the state, though the Republicans only won in both counties with pluralities of the vote, and in St. Joseph County the result was virtually tied. White's strongest performance was in Monroe County in the south central portion of the state, a strongly liberal county where the college town of Bloomington is based. In Monroe County, White defeated Adams 61% to 34%, a margin of victory of over 25 points. Tanner, the Libertarian nominee, also received 5% of the vote in Monroe County. This election was considered to have confirmed Monroe County's status as the most Democratic county in the state, given White's strong performance in otherwise very unfavorable circumstances. White only won in 2 other counties, those being Marion and Lake, both of which she won with over 50% of the popular vote, and both of which are solidly blue counties. Marion County had not voted for a Republican in a state-level race since the 2008 Indiana gubernatorial election, while Lake County had not done so since the 2006 election for this same seat, in which the Republican incumbent Richard Lugar ran unopposed.

White won Marion County 55%-39%, and Lake County 52%-44%. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Adams' strongest performance was in Franklin County, a deeply conservative county and Republican stronghold located in the southeast of the state. In Franklin County, Adams received 82% of the popular vote, while White received a meager 9% of the popular vote, tying with the Libertarian nominee Bethany Tanner for second place in the county. Adams also won with over 80% of the popular vote in four other counties (Daviess, Morgan, Putnam and Wabash), however his overall margin of victory over White was lower in these counties due to weaker Libertarian performances. Out of Indiana's five largest cities, White won in three of them (Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and South Bend), while Adams won in two (Evansville and Carmel).