By KODY FISHER
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
Voting trends might be shifting in Hamilton County.
I-Team 8 looked at the numbers from the Nov. 5 election to see if the cities of Carmel and Fishers are becoming more blue.
From the Hamilton County election website, I-Team 8 added up votes precinct by precinct for every presidential election dating back to 2016. The numbers show voters in Carmel voted against Republican Donald Trump in the last two presidential elections, and the margin of victory for Trump shrunk significantly in Fishers over the same time.
Mario Massillamany, chair of the Hamilton County Republican Party, tells I-Team 8 that there is a reason the margin of victory shrunk for Trump in Fishers and why Trump lost in Carmel the last two election cycles.
“Donald Trump is polarizing,” Massillamany said. “You either love him or hate him, but you look at other Republicans in these areas that Democrats are claiming are blue, or turning blue, they’re winning by large percentage points. Twenty percentage points for (Carmel Mayor) Sue Finkam. I would say is a huge feat.”
Editor’s note: Mayor Finkam won the 2023 general election by a 14.36 percent margin over Democrat Miles Nelson.
Kip Tew, former chair of the Indiana Democratic Party, responded, “I don’t think that’s accurate. I think that if you look at Carmel and Fishers, you see that the down-ballot races show the same kind of drop-off for Republicans than what they’re used to. People in the suburban areas are identifying as Democrats more readily than they used to. That is because of Trump. I think that folks that don’t like Trump are also disengaging with the Republican Party.”
Massillamany said low Republican turnout in Hamilton County also played a role in the results. “If we had had those 20,000 Republicans actually show up on Election Day, or vote the month before, we would have won by a lot larger numbers.”
So, is the turnout the turnout concerning?
“I don’t know about ‘concerning,’ but I don’t think we can take it for granted like we used to,” Massillamany said.
Both political analysts say it’s too difficult to predict if the trends will hold because the political landscape is constantly shifting.
This story was originally published by WISH-TV at wishtv.com/news/i-team-8/voting-trends-hamilton-county-2024.