2058 United States Senate election in Indiana (Blackford)

The **2058 United States Senate election in Indiana** took place on November 5, 2058, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the state of Indiana. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Branson Huffman won re-election to a second term in a messy three-way race, facing off against Republican nominee Dustin Alberts, a former U.S. representative for Indiana's 3rd congressional district from 2049 to 2053 and a known far-right conspiracy theorist, and Independent Republican candidate Britney Goff, president of Ball State University and a former state senator. This election was notable for being the first in Indiana in many decades in which the Libertarian Party did not put forward a candidate for Senator, instead endorsing Goff. This election was also the strongest performance for a third-party or independent candidate for the United States Senate in 2058.

Alberts' victory in the Republican primary worried many members of the Republican leadership in the state, who had sought to embrace the more center-right path that the national party had set itself on and distance themselves from the far-right, Trumpist faction of the GOP, and leaders of the Indiana Republican Party who were opposed to Alberts organized their own convention in Tipton, where they nominated Britney Goff, a moderate Republican, former state senator and president of Ball State University as their nominee for U.S. senator, taking the name of the "Independent Republican Party". Goff's ticket was soon assured ballot access by the Indiana Election Commission, and Goff's campaign would launch a massive advertising campaign aimed at undermining Alberts' senatorial ambitions.

The 2058 senate race in Indiana was the most expensive in the history of the state, with all three major candidates raising millions of dollars to use for advertising and other campaign purposes, and the race was considered to be one of the most competitive in the nation, with the national Republican Party, who had rallied behind Goff as opposed to Alberts, considering unseating Huffman, a Democrat in a state that was traditionally a Republican stronghold, to be their best opportunity at flipping a Senate seat in a otherwise rather unfavorable mid-term climate. Meanwhile, most of Alberts' campaign contributions came from fringe factions of the GOP which had refused to drop their far-right rhetoric, as well as from the Constitution Party and other minor far-right political parties. Though opinion polls had Huffman and Goff neck and neck through Election Day, ultimately the race was not close, with Huffman defeating Goff by over 10 points to become the first Democrat to win re-election to a second term as U.S. senator in the state since Evan Bayh's landslide re-election victory in 2004. This election was notable as the strongest performance for a third-party candidate in a state-level race in Indiana state history, well surpassing the 2006 United States Senate election in Indiana in that regard.

## Democratic primary

### Candidates

* Branson Huffman, incumbent U.S. senator

## Republican primary

### Candidates

* Dustin Alberts, former U.S. representative for IN-03 (2049-2053) and far-right conspiracy theorist
* Michael Clarke, former U.S. representative for IN-02 (2034-2053)

## Independent Republican convention

Several days after Alberts' victory in the Republican primaries, leaders of the Indiana GOP opposed to Alberts organized their own convention in Tipton, where they voted to put forward a candidate in opposition to Alberts on the Republican ticket.

### Candidates

* Britney Goff, President of Ball State University and former state senator from Delaware County
* Dexter Stein, member of the Indianapolis City-County Council from the 24th district

### Results

**Independent Republican convention results**

## General election

### Predictions

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