This is How It Looks In The Indiana Race Between Mourdock And Donnelly

 

ELECTION 2012: Expect Mourdock-Donnelly to be a nail-biter by Jon Murray, Indianapolis Star

Now that the national conventions are over, Hoosier voters are tuning in for the contest that's likely to become this fall's hardest fought.,

Unlike four years ago, that doesn't mean the top of the ticket. Hoosiers' votes might as well be an afterthought as President Barack Obama -- unlikely to repeat his 2008 win -- and Republican challenger Mitt Romney take their state-by-state battle elsewhere.

No, the nail-biter is Richard Mourdock vs. Joe Donnelly for U.S. Senate.

The contest figured little in the Democratic and Republican national conventions. The candidates didn't even attend, much less speak, preferring to stump for votes at home.

But the race long ago reached the national radar -- thanks to the political shockwave of Sen. Richard Lugar losing his Senate seat to Mourdock after spending nearly four decades in the office.

Lugar, in fact, received a primetime reference last week at the Democratic convention during former President Bill Clinton's address. Clinton alluded -- though not by name -- to Lugar's loss to Mourdock in the Republican primary as one of two defeats in which Republicans were toppled, in part, for cooperating at times with Democrats.

The conventions fired up the party faithful, and that could trickle down to each side's candidates in other races as they sprint to election day on Nov. 6.

But experts say it will take more than strong base enthusiasm to put Mourdock, the Indiana treasurer, or Donnelly, a Northern Indiana Democratic congressman, over the top.

For one, both candidates still are trying to win over Lugar's backers. And they're aiming at independent voters who are up for grabs in any election.

It's a contest pitting a tea party darling against a moderate Democrat who's distanced himself from Obama -- and from his party's positions -- on social issues.

Polls have portrayed a tight race, with plenty undecided voters. Money is pouring in from outside groups on both sides. Campaign ads are lighting up TVs.

Just as political experts say the presidential election is all about turnout, that's also the case in the final eight-week race for Indiana's open Senate seat.

And Craig P. Anderson knows he's a marked man.

Anderson, 45, calls himself a lifelong Republican. But the Indianapolis man says he can't bring himself to vote for Mourdock -- making him, along with other Republicans who supported Lugar in the primary, into prime targets for Donnelly's moderate appeals.

For Anderson, it was a Mourdock comment just after his primary victory -- a remark about bipartisanship in which Mourdock dismissed any compromise with Democrats -- that left him cold.

But he's not quite ready to vote for Donnelly.

"I'll probably start digging more and more into Donnelly's positions," said Anderson, who works in the finance industry. "I know he's after people like me. I also, quite honestly, need to do more work looking at his record."

It's tough to pin down how many Lugar Republicans similarly are torn.

But Donnelly's campaign thinks there are enough of them that they, along with independent voters, could put him over the top in a state that typically favors Republicans.

Mourdock's campaign, for its part, is betting that Donnelly's frequent support of Obama's policies -- including his health-care overhaul -- will bring most wayward Republicans back into the fold.

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