FORMER LT. GOV. HOPEFUL CRASHES OUT Braun’s Handpicked Running Mate Gets Booted From Indiana House

INDIANAPOLIS — The woman who was once just one convention vote away from becoming Indiana’s lieutenant governor is now out of a job.

Former State Rep. Julie McGuire, the southside Indianapolis Republican Mike Braun personally picked as his 2024 running mate, got crushed in her bid for a third term Tuesday night. Democrat Eva Rosberg flipped House District 93, sending McGuire packing after just four years in the Statehouse.

It was a brutal fall for the one-term lawmaker who rocketed to statewide attention in 2024. Braun, fresh off winning the GOP gubernatorial primary, stunned the party by naming the little-known freshman as his preferred lieutenant governor. Trump even endorsed her. But convention delegates rejected the establishment favorite and chose firebrand pastor Micah Beckwith instead by a razor-thin 891–828 vote.

McGuire returned to her House seat and won re-election that fall. This time, voters in her increasingly competitive Marion County district had other ideas.

Her loss was part of a larger bloodbath for Indiana House Republicans. Democrats flipped roughly 15–16 seats, shattering the long-standing GOP supermajority and leaving Republicans with a much tighter 54–46 edge. Several other incumbents also went down as suburban and urban districts swung hard.

McGuire first won the seat in 2022 by knocking off incumbent John Jacob in a messy primary, then cruised in the general. Before that she worked as a Senate Republican policy analyst. She built a reputation as a reliable conservative on parental rights, school choice, and abortion issues — the same resume that made her attractive to Braun.

None of it was enough this cycle.

Rosberg’s win gives Democrats another foothold on the south side of Indianapolis and further erodes Republican dominance in Marion County. For McGuire, the loss closes the book on a short but high-profile political career that peaked with a near-miss for statewide office and ended with a quiet defeat in a district she once controlled.