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Indiana and Amazon: A Post-Pence Story

Indiana governor's race: Woody Myers enters 2020 race as a Democrat

Eric Holcomb is the Governor of Indiana. This makes him the successor to Vice President Michael Pence.

It would be a great victory if the Democratic Party could pick up this Governorship in the November election. The Governor will play a role in whatever reapportionment follows the 2020 census, so it would be a victory with some consequences for the partisan balance going forward both in that state and in the US House of Representatives.  But perhaps as important, it would be symbolic -- a rejection of Holcomb would look a lot like a repudiation of Pence,  even should Trump and Pence receive a new term on the same day.

The Democratic Party's best hope to pull off this result, its most plausible gubernatorial candidate, is Woody Myers, a former New Yorker. Myers, pictured above, was health commissioner of NYC under Mayor Dinkins.

The fact that Myers ever worked in NYC may work against him in Indiana at present. The fact that he has a public health background may work for him.

And it isn't just a matter of Covid-19. There are other issues in which being a physician and a former public health official may give Myers some cred. In November 2019, journalists said that Holcomb had pressured an investigator in the govt of Indiana to drop an inquiry into the death of a worker at an Amazon facility. Holcomb was trying to keep Indiana Amazon-friendly, because Amazon was considering Indianapolis as the site of its new headquarters.

The Governor has denied interfering in an investigation. That some such an inquiry WAS opened and then quickly closed, though, is a fact.  This certainly may be one of the issues that Myers will stress in his campaign in the coming months,

Watch this space.


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