2051 Indianapolis mayoral election (Blackford)

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Results by neighborhood

**Mayoral elections** were held in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 7, 2051. Incumbent mayor Jack Griffiths ran for re-election to a second four-year term as the city's mayor. Starting with the 2047 Indianapolis mayoral election, mayoral elections in the city were officially nonpartisan in nature, with parties not being allowed to hold primaries to choose their own nominees to appear on the ballots. Two major candidates emerged, both registered Democrats: Incumbent mayor Jack Griffiths, who belonged to the left-wing of the Democratic Party, and schoolteacher and city councilor Holly Patel, who campaigned as a "moderate-to-conservative" Democrat and had run against Griffiths in 2047, coming in a distant third place. Griffiths sought to appeal to lower-class and minority voters, with whom he was very popular, while Patel sought to appeal to white, middle to upper-class voters. Though several registered Republicans did file to run in the race, none of their candidacies were taken seriously and Patel was endorsed by most prominent Indiana Republicans.

The campaign primarily focused on reforms that Griffiths intended to push on the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, infrastructural and housing projects that Griffiths supported to make "livable housing and jobs available to all Indianapolitans," and Patel's alleged racism and homophobia. Despite numerous controversies surrounding Patel's candidacy, including a clip of her calling a gay student a homophobic slur that went viral on social media late in the campaign season, most pundits anticipated a close election, with Patel trailing just behind Griffiths in opinion polling. Griffiths would end up defeating Patel by just under 6 percent in the general election, and saw a significantly stronger performance in central and northwestern Marion County compared to his 2047 performance, while Patel managed to make significant gains in both northern and southern Marion County. This was the closest mayoral election of Griffiths' career.

## Campaign

### November 2049 - July 2051

Patel, a schoolteacher who had ran as a Democrat for mayor in 2043 and 2047, was the first major candidate to declare her candidacy, declaring that she would run for mayor of Indianapolis in 2051 on November 16, 2049, shortly after winning a special election to the Indianapolis City-County Council. Griffiths was widely expected to announce his intention to pursue a second four-year term in office sometime the following month, though he didn't do so until early January of 2050. Joshua Stewart, an independent city councilor announced his intention to run for mayor in February, and this was followed by Morgan Edwards, the chief meteorologist at WRTV announcing his candidacy for mayor in April. An early opinion poll in June of 2050 showed a competitive four-way race emerging, with Griffiths and Edwards emerging as the two early front-runners. Notably, even by this point in the race, none of the major candidates were registered Republicans, with Patel, Griffiths and Edwards being registered Democrats while Stewart was not registered with any party.

With the potential of a major Republican candidate emerging in the race fading, many prominent Indiana Republicans chose to endorse Patel, a self-described "moderate-to-conservative Democrat". Griffiths formally launched his campaign in July 2040, launching a series of scathing ads targeting Patel, who Griffiths dubbed as a "Republican masquerading as a Democrat," citing Patel's conservative viewpoints and support from the Indiana Republican Party. Patel, Edwards and Stewart all launched their own campaigns formally in August, with Stewart attempting to stylize himself as a radical centrist while Patel attempted to brand Griffiths as a "radical Bolshevik" and putting forward Patel as a "defender of family values". Edwards primarily centered his campaign on environmental issues, criticizing Griffiths for not doing enough to combat climate change.

Griffiths considered Edwards to be the biggest threat in the general election early on, and sought to get Edwards to drop out of the race. In December of 2040, Edwards announced that he had dropped out of the race in return for being appointed as chair of the Department of Metropolitan Development, and as a chief advisor to the mayor on environmental issues. With Stewart, who was now left in a distant third-place, no longer being considered a serious threat by either Patel or Griffiths, it left the two to face off directly, and over the following months the two would engage in extensive political campaigns in an attempt to build support. Patel's campaign platform sought to primarily appeal to middle-to-upper class white voters, while Griffiths' campaign platform sought to appeal to the lower-class, racial and religious minorities as well as the LGBT community.

**THIS IS A WORK-IN PROGRESS!**