With favorite son and Vice President Mike Pence and popular Gov. Eric Holcomb leading the Republican ticket in Indiana, signs are increasingly strong that conservative state Sen. Victoria Spartz will keep the Hoosier State’s 5th District in GOP hands.
When Republican Rep. Susan Brooks announced her retirement from the largely suburban 5th District, which includes large portions of Marion County (Indianapolis), Democrats smelled a win and mobilized behind former state legislator and 2016 lieutenant governor nominee Christina Hale.
The last polls were conducted in August and most gave the advantage to Hale — the exception being a poll conducted by the Club for Growth, which gave Spartz a slight edge.
“But voters are realizing now there are big differences between my opponent and me on issues and in our backgrounds,” Spartz told Newsmax on Wednesday, her voice still showing strong traces of her Ukrainian upbringing. “And that helps me.”
Born when Ukraine was part of Soviet Russia, Spartz, 42, became an early devotee of the free market and capitalism. She earned business degrees from Kyiv National Economic University and, after marrying an American in 2000, she came to the U.S. and earned a master’s degree from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
Named to fill a vacancy in the senate, Spartz compiled a strong conservative record.
“You just look at my record and my opponent’s [in the legislature] and you’ll see the difference,” she told us. “[Hale] is pro-choice, against the Second Amendment, against tax cuts, against public safety, and against school vouchers — in other words, against everything I’m very much for.”
Spartz added that “I don’t need a job in politics, and she does. And that’s why she’ll do what the national Democrats tell her to do.”
Of President Donald Trump, Spartz recalled working in New York as a private businesswoman “and that’s where I became very aware of him. He’s a typical New Yorker — a straight-shooter. He may use social media too much and some people may not like his persona. But his policies are good for us.”
The 5th District has been securely in Republican hands since it was first carved out in 1982.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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