A nonpartisan initiative looking to make Indiana elections more competitive is trying to boost independent candidates with a billboard campaign advertising a little-known fact: in the past two years, they won more of their races than Democrats.

Independent Indiana's data analysis showed that 52% of the independents who ran for office in Indiana recently won their races, compared to only 35% for Democrats. Both are still less successful than Republicans, who won 61% of their races in the general election, Executive Director Nathan Gotsch said.

"In the last two years 244 independents ran for elected office in Indiana," the billboards, located in Fort Wayne, Evansville, Indianapolis and Northwest Indiana, say. "52% of them won."

Independent Indiana did not immediately share how much it was spending on the campaign.

Most of the wins highlighted in the billboards, however, are for smaller offices, like the race for mayor in Huntington or a city council seat in Rensselaer. 

“Independents are incredibly successful on the bottom half of the ballot,” said Gotsch, who lost his own bid for Congress as an independent candidate running in the 3rd district against now Sen. Jim Banks in 2022.

Gotsch believes that lack of success is tied to the obstacles independent candidates face, such as strict signature requirements to get on the ballot and a general lack of information on how to navigate election law and run campaigns. Unlike Democrats and Republicans, independents don’t enjoy support from a well-funded party apparatus. 

That’s why another goal of Independent Indiana is offering resources for independent candidates who demonstrate a real desire to be a public servant, solve problems and be fiscally responsible — the three features Gotsch and Independent Indiana are looking for. 

Indiana voters may already have an independent streak according to the Independent Voter Project, which used recent primary election data and modeling analytics to estimate that 44% of Hoosiers are unaffiliated with a political party, compared to 38% in Ohio and around 11% in Kentucky. 

Gotsch said most issues, including rising extremism and polarization, can be tied back to the lack of competition in Indiana’s elections. Democrats have not controlled either body in the Indiana General Assembly for almost two decades, haven’t won an election for governor since 2000 and currently suffer a superminority that prevents them from attempting even small methods of resistance like Texas Democrats’ flight from the state mid-redistricting battle. 

The result, Gotsch said, are elections that are mostly decided in the primary, where a small percentage of passionate party voters choose the candidate.  

That can be dangerous according to Gotsch, who said some elected officials have told him they sometimes vote in a certain way to protect themselves from a primary challenge, even if that vote contradicts the interests of their constituents.  

It can also lead general election voters to feel unheard by either party and frustrated with their options, something Gotsch points to as a cause of voter apathy. 

Independent Indiana is a project of the Center for Independent and Effective Government, an Indiana nonprofit created in March 2025 and chaired by Gotsch, according to documents filed with the Indiana Secretary of State’s office. Besides Gotsch, the organization's board includes Amar Patel as vice chair, Roger Deetz as secretary and former Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction director Jay Chaudhary as treasurer.