Meet Our 2026 Candidates

Indiana's Ninth District is fielding one of the strongest and most diverse slates of Democratic candidates in years — from a Navy engineer challenging for Congress to teachers, attorneys, tradespeople, labor organizers, and lifelong community advocates running up and down the ballot from the Statehouse to Congress.

These 19 candidates share a common conviction: that Hoosier families deserve a government that works for them — one that funds public schools instead of defunding them, protects healthcare instead of cutting it, and puts working people ahead of corporate special interests. Many are first-time candidates who stepped up because they were done waiting for change. Others are battle-tested voices who have been fighting for this district for years.

From the Ohio River to the hills of Brown County, from Seymour to Jeffersonville to Columbus, these are your neighbors — and they're running to represent you.

Congressional

Brad Meyer

A Brownsburg native and 25-year manufacturing veteran who left his position as a civilian engineer at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division to run full-time, Meyer is campaigning on a boldly progressive economic platform: universal nonprofit healthcare, raising the minimum wage, expanding overtime protections, holding corporations accountable for rigging the economy against working families, and protecting the Department of Education and public schools from partisan defunding. He frames himself as the unapologetic contrast to caution — arguing Democrats need to stop playing it safe and fight hard for structural change rather than inch toward the center. His campaign website lists universal nonprofit healthcare, expansion of overtime protections, and an end to political gridlock as top priorities. Indiana Capital Chronicle

🌐 bradmeyer.org | 📧 AStrongerFuture@BradMeyer.org

IN-09

State House

Matt Pierce

A twelve-term incumbent assistant Democratic House floor leader and IU Media School lecturer, Pierce has one of the most established legislative records in the caucus: he has been a consistent voice for healthcare access, LGBTQ+ rights, public-school funding, academic freedom, and utility rate accountability, and has been among the loudest opponents of the supermajority's mid-decade redistricting push. His 2026 campaign continues that work, adding a focus on childcare affordability and housing costs as economic pressures intensify for working families in Bloomington and Monroe County.

🌐 electmattpierce.com | 🏛️ House Caucus page

HD-61

A Batesville-based criminal defense attorney, former deputy prosecutor, and current Ripley County Democratic Party chair who grew up on a farm in Milan, Martz is running a workers-first platform centered on living wages, fully funded rural public schools (with opposition to privatization and vouchers), expanded rural healthcare and SNAP access, environmental protections, marijuana legalization, and ballot-access reform. She emphasizes a deep connection to Southeast Indiana's agricultural and working-class communities and pitches herself as a fighter for people who have been left behind by one-party supermajority rule.

🌐 votevictoriamartz.org

HD-55

Victoria Martz

Co-owner of Farmhouse Brew in Monrovia with her husband Michael, Syczylo came to politics directly out of her experience losing local control over a data-center development in her neighborhood. Her platform centers on government transparency, holding data-center developers accountable to community standards, protecting rural healthcare access, preserving local environmental and zoning decision-making from state preemption, and ensuring working families have a real voice in the Statehouse. She filed her candidacy as part of the Indiana Rural Summit coalition and is part of a coordinated wave of candidates focused on giving rural Hoosiers a choice at the ballot box.

🌐 carriecareshd60.com

HD-60

Carrie Syczylo

James Pittsford

HD-46

TBD

Wendy Dant Chesser

The incumbent state representative since June 2024 and chief director of corporate strategy at the River Ridge Development Authority, Dant Chesser brings an economic development background to a platform focused on family and community well-being. Her 2026 legislative priorities include making childcare more affordable, keeping vape and tobacco retailers away from schools, improving Medicaid access, and pushing for bipartisan government accountability. She has been one of the caucus's sharpest voices on cost-of-living issues in the Louisville metro suburbs.

🌐 House Caucus page | 📰 Substack

HD-71

A Seymour resident, community organizer, and former preschool educator, Bowen is running a self-funded, no-corporate-donor grassroots campaign on a platform she calls "built from this district up" — raising teacher pay and fully funding classrooms, fighting every Medicaid cut in a district where 1 in 5 neighbors depends on it, expanding rural mental health access, treating broadband as a public utility, raising the minimum wage to a living wage, instituting legislative term limits and a ban on corporate donors, protecting reproductive freedom and LGBTQ+ rights, protecting farmers and small buisnesses, and opposing gerrymandering and the SAVE Act. Her bottom line: "government should work for people, not profits."

🌐 chrisbowen.org | 📱 Facebook

HD-69

Chris Bowen

HD-70

An 18-year fifth-grade teacher, co-founder of Project NEXT, and mother of three from Palmyra, Blessing won a competitive three-way primary in May 2026. Her platform is driven by her classroom experience: fully funding rural public schools, opposing voucher diversion, expanding rural OB-GYN and hospital access (several Harrison County-area hospitals have cut services), protecting family farms and right-to-repair laws, and restoring reproductive freedom. She brings a teacher's pragmatism — focused on what actually shows up in underfunded classrooms and underserved communities.

📱 Facebook campaign page

Sarah Blessing

A roughly 25-year employment and trial attorney representing workers and labor unions, Floyd County Democratic precinct chair, and board member of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Henry's platform is built around four concrete targets: rolling back Indiana's private school voucher program, lowering utility rates for residential customers, repealing the data-center sales-tax exemption that costs the state revenue without creating jobs, and protecting workers' rights and collective bargaining. Her legal background in plaintiff-side labor work informs a campaign focused on structural economic power rather than symbolic messaging.

🌐 michelefor72.com | 📱 Facebook

HD-72

Michelle Henry

Justin Chadwick

A Jennings County native and University of Indianapolis graduate, Chadwick brings a working-class and educator's perspective to his campaign — he's spent years as a music educator and special education teacher before transitioning to the plumbing trade, and his wife Paige is an active public school educator. His platform centers on supporting working families through childcare and healthcare affordability, fully funding public schools, investing in local infrastructure and safe neighborhoods, and ethical leadership grounded in transparency and fiscal integrity. He frames his campaign around three words: Work. Trust. Community.

🌐 justinchadwickin67.com

HD-67

A 30-year public-interest attorney, former deputy prosecutor in domestic violence courts, former Administrative Law Judge, and current school board member who helped pass a 2024 teacher-pay referendum, Oliver is running to flip the only Republican-held district that Kamala Harris carried in 2024. Her platform focuses on fully funding public schools while reining in the voucher program, holding charter schools accountable, making healthcare and prescription drugs more affordable, curbing utility rate increases for rural families, and protecting reproductive freedom.

🌐 voteamyoliver.com

HD-62

Amy Huffman Oliver

A born-and-raised Hoosier, husband, and father running his first political campaign, Price is centering his campaign on working-class economic concerns — wage stagnation, corporate accountability, and the unique challenges facing families who live in Indiana but work across the river in Louisville. He emphasizes cross-partisan economic frustration, transparency, and a no-nonsense approach to constituent service over political careerism.

🌐 pricein66.com

HD-66

Ryan Price

 27-year-old Aurora warehouse lead at Amazon Air and Teamsters Local 89 organizer who has spent two years on the front lines of the Amazon unionization effort, Collins is running an explicitly labor-oriented campaign: lowering property and income taxes for working families, restoring crumbling rural infrastructure, fully funding public schools, and standing up for workers in one of Southeast Indiana's most conservative districts. His background in labor organizing shapes a platform grounded in everyday economic experience rather than abstract policy.

🌐 huntercollins.org

HD-68

Hunter Collins

A Greensburg-based candidate running on a "Better Jobs, Better Roads, and a Better Future" platform, Miller's priorities span six issue areas: leveling the playing field for working Hoosiers on labor and wages, repairing infrastructure with long-term preventative solutions, improving educational opportunities and teacher support while strengthening vocational training, protecting Indiana's natural resources from over-industrialization, expanding public health access, and legalizing and regulating cannabis for both economic growth and health benefits.

🌐 millerfor73.com | 📱 Facebook

HD-73

Allen Miller

Senate

Ross Thomas

A Columbus attorney, NAACP Legal Redress chair, youth baseball coach, and multi-cycle Democratic candidate, Thomas is running his most substantive campaign to date on a platform spanning: abortion rights and reproductive autonomy; ending public funding for private vouchers and charter schools; paid family leave; cannabis legalization (including expungement of simple possession records, which he connects directly to the opioid epidemic and veterans' access to therapeutic alternatives); and a strict no-lobbyist-gifts ethics pledge. On cannabis, he argues legalization would create new revenue, good-paying jobs, help Indiana compete with neighboring states, benefit veterans and seniors, and reduce opioid overdose deaths. BallotRead 🌐 voterossthomas.com

SD-41

A Southern Indiana candidate running on the premise that there is no Democratic or Republican solution — only a Hoosier solution, Holland is focused on coalition-building around affordable healthcare, strong public schools, and good-paying jobs. He emphasizes practical, results-oriented leadership over partisan politics and frames his campaign around delivering real outcomes for everyday families across a sprawling multi-county district.

🌐 hollandforhoosiers.com

SD-43

Byron Holland

A Jeffersonville resident and University of Louisville graduate who grew up in the foster-care system and now works with Kentuckiana organizations on foster-child advocacy and teen literacy, Marshall is running his second SD-45 campaign on a platform shaped by lived experience: reforming Indiana's foster-care system, strengthening underfunded public schools, expanding rural healthcare access (including mental health and substance use services), reducing childcare costs so parents can stay in the workforce, and bipartisan economic development that creates real jobs in Clark and Floyd counties.

🌐 hoosiersfornickmarshall.com | Facebook

SD-45

Nick Marshall

An 11-year sanitation worker who has served routes from Mauckport to Salem, husband, and father, Sweetland-May is running one of the district's most working-class-grounded campaigns: personal liberty and reproductive rights, universal Pre-K and fully funded public schools, capping childcare costs at 7% of household income, expanding tenant protections (including an Implied Warranty of Habitability and limits on corporate purchases of single-family homes), and raising Indiana's minimum wage — which remains stuck at the federal floor of $7.25/hr. His platform emerges directly from the economic realities he encounters on his work routes across one of the district's most rural corridors.

🌐 ethanforstatesenate.com | 📱 Facebook

SD-47

Ethan Sweetland-May

A senior lecturer of biology and sustainability director at IU East who grew up on a 300-acre corn-and-beef farm and earned a doctorate in plant pathology, Itnyre is running on what he calls a "Smart Taxes, Strong Schools, and Protect Farms" platform — opposing tax policies he believes have hurt homeowners and rural communities, strengthening public education (including keeping school board elections nonpartisan), extending the 21st Century Scholars program for rural students, supporting reproductive rights, equal pay, marijuana legalization, and a teacher residency program to address the state's teacher shortage. He says he wants to "bring personal freedom back to Hoosiers and our towns without the heavy hand of the state government interfering in local ordinances, economies and schools."

SD-27

Ron Itnyre