Rudy Yakym wins special G.O.P. caucus, how it went down and what comes next
ST JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. --- On Saturday, the Indiana G.O.P. chose Rudy Yakym to be on the ballot for Indiana’s 2nd congressional district for this November. The decision comes after a special caucus was held with 12 candidates vying for a spot on the special election and general election ballots. After three hours of speeches and voting by committee members, the decision was made.
“I’m grateful to my family, to our God, to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and we’re excited to get into November,” said Rudy Yakym, the Republican candidate for Indiana’s 2nd congressional district.
Rudy Yakym is the name Hoosiers will see on the ballot in November. With 205 votes from committee members, Yakym took 54% of votes on the first ballot. His name will be on the ballots for both the special election and general election as the Republican candidate for the 2nd congressional district.
“November 8th, everybody will go and vote on two different questions. One being, ‘Who will take the seat in the interim until the next Congress convenes?’, and so that would be essentially right after the election, November 9th through January. And then, the next question will be ‘Who will have the seat for the full next term?’” said Jake Teshka, House Representative for Indiana’s 7th District.
Yakym earned the spot on both ballots because of a decision made by the 11 other candidates.
“We had two caucuses noticed for today. The second one would have been to put somebody on the special ballot, but all of the other candidates withdrew so we didn’t even have to vote on that,” said Chairman for the Indiana Republican Party, Kyle Hupfer. “Other than by acclimation they all recognized that we wanted unity and have the same person on both ballots.”
Yakym was endorsed by Dean Swihart, former Congresswoman Jackie Walorski’s husband, and her mother Martha Walorski. Dean introduced Yakym during the caucus.
“To have someone like Dean Swihart stand up, endorse us, and then make the introduction today is really meaningful to me personally,” added Yakym. “It’s, again, a responsibility we take seriously.”
“I think having the support of Dean was really powerful for Rudy,” Hupfer says.
Prior to Saturday’s special caucus, many questions regarding the replacement of Jackie Walorski’s seat in Congress were brought up by constituents and elected leaders.
“We were still in special session when the tragic accident happened, but a lot of us started asking questions like ‘What does this look like?’, because we’ve got these two kind of vacancies,” said Representative Jake Teshka. “That, and we’ve got the old district versus the new district. It was a really complicated process but the state party did a good job pulling everything together.”
Now with a clear decision on who will be running for the seat in November, the Indiana G.O.P. said it’s backing up Yakym and his efforts for the 2nd congressional district.
“This is obviously a very strong Republican district,” Hupfer said. “The party’s already on the ground with field staff knocking on doors so they’ll immediately turn to a Rudy message.”
“As we get into November, we’ll be traveling the entire district,” added Yakym. “We met with 500 Hoosiers this week, and we’ll be getting to know the rest of the 720,000 people in the district. We look forward to getting out, meeting with them, hearing their concerns, and taking their concerns to Washington D.C.”
Yakym now has 80 days to meet the Hoosiers of his district and win their votes before he faces Democratic candidate Paul Steury on November 8th. Indiana Democrats will be holding a similar caucus on Tuesday to decide on a candidate for the special election.