Elrod Upset In The Making Over Mahern?

While state and Marion County Democrats have focused their attention on knocking off two long-time incumbent Republicans and saving one of their own in a tight race, a Republican upstart in another race may be poised to upset a long-time Democratic veteran. Democrats have been focusing on the legislative races between Rep. David Orentlicher (D) and Kathryn Densborn, Rep. Larry Buell (R) and John Barnes (D) and Sen. James Merritt (R) and Russell Brown (D). Flying almost undetected under radar, is local attorney Jon Elrod, who is challenging Rep. Ed Mahern (D).

The Democratic leaning House District 97 encompasses much of the downtown and nearby southside neighborhoods. The district has been represented for more than a decade by the chief architect of the 2000 Democratic-gerrymandered House district plan which gave Democrats control of the Indiana House through 2004. Little attention has been paid to what is perceived to be a safe Democratic district, but a much younger Jon Elrod has been quietly working the district in a door-to-door grassroots effort which had gone unnoticed by Democrats until the last few days.

Unlike past Republican candidates, Elrod has a philosophy that more closely represents the views of the people of the district. While he is economically conservative, Elrod has taken a much more moderate view on hot button social issues. Elrod, for example, opposes a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages and supports civil rights protections for gays and lesbians just like Mahern. By contrast, Elrod agreed with the position taken by Eric Miller's Advance America organization on just one of ten issues--repeal of the property tax--according to the group's 2006 voter guide.

Until the last few weeks, Mahern had a huge fundraising advantage over Elrod. Mahern in his pre-election report reported raising $61,023 with more than $66,000 in cash-on-hand. By comparison, Elrod's pre-election report showed just $5,140 in contributions and only $2,586 in cash-on-hand. In recent days, however, the Indiana Republican Party and the House Republican Campaign Committee have dumped more than $30,000 into Elrod's campaign, allowing Elrod to purchase valuable TV air time to promote his campaign in the costly Indianapolis market.

The Indiana Legislative Insight's Ed Feigbenbaum also see this race as a possible sleeper. He writes this week, "The Mahern seat is the sleeper in this bunch, with the Republican running a door-to-door campaign under the radar, and needing perhaps to pick up fewer absolute votes to win here than anyone would need in any other district outside of HD 100." He adds, "Only 6,000 or so votes will be cast here this year, vs. about 12,000 in most other Indianapolis districts." The results in this race should be interesting to watch on election night. It certainly has Mahern doing some last-minute scrambling this weekend to save the seat he carved out for himself.