Colwell: 'It ain't over 'til it's ...' actually, this race may be over

“It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” observed that great baseball philosopher Yogi Berra.

But the race for the Republican nomination for governor appears to be over before the May primary voting is over.

Maybe it was over on Feb. 9, when filing for the nomination ended.

The likelihood of that is shown in the recent professional poll conducted for State Affairs/Howey Politics Indiana.

Sen. Mike Braun was shown with a huge lead among likely Republican voters over any other candidate in the rest of the field. When filing ended with a large rest-of-the-field — including Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch and two well-financed contenders with well-organized campaigns, Brad Chambers and Eric Doden — that made a Braun victory very likely, almost certain.

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Braun is endorsed by Donald Trump. The others aren’t.

So, Braun has Trump’s solid MAGA base in Indiana, where Trump triumphed in his presidential races. The others? Left to split up the vote of Hoosier Republicans not necessarily following Trump’s endorsement.

The poll showed Braun with 44 percent support.

In second place was Crouch, with just 10 percent.

Then came Chambers and Doden, each with only 8 percent, despite the millions they have spent on TV ads throughout the state.

Two other candidates, Curtis Hill and Jamie Reitenour, barely showed up in the results, each with 2 percent.

“It’s sort of a blowout,” said the pollster, Ken Alper of SurveyUSA.

Well, officially, it ain’t over ’til it’s over, until all the votes are counted in the May 7 Republican primary.

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But some elections really are over long before votes are counted. Like the 2023 win of South Bend Mayor James Mueller. Like the 2022 victory of Rudy Yakym for Congress.

A win may not be quite that certain yet for Braun. A quarter of respondents were undecided. The undecided, however, often break along the same lines as

found with those already committed. And with the field split as it is, there’s no chance of a majority of the undecided going for any one of the challengers to Braun.

Those top challengers have appealed to voters on various issues of state government and national concerns. But voters aren’t tuned in. The poll found that despite their millions for TV advertising, about 60 percent of respondents said they weren’t familiar with Doden or Chambers. About half weren’t familiar with Crouch, in her second term as lieutenant governor.

Only 16 percent were not familiar with Braun, and 59 percent had a favorable impression of him.

Failure of voters even to know top candidates is no doubt due in part to “news deserts,” where economic factors curtail state news coverage by newspapers and local TV stations. Some areas are left with no daily newspapers, print or digital.

But if a one-on-one race were occurring, Braun vs. Somebody, there would be more attention, a better chance for that challenger to overtake Braun.

With so many Republican voters tuned out on what the challengers say, a key factor in Braun’s big lead is more widespread knowledge that Trump is for him. That’s more important for many voters than searching for what some candidate for governor says about state government.

Since Braun is poised to win the Republican nomination, that means he is also poised to be elected governor in November. Jennifer McCormick, unopposed for the Democratic nomination, will have a tough time in a state where no Democratic candidate has won statewide since 2012 and where Trump is expected to win big again at the head of the Republican ticket.

“It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” Yogi Berra said that or a version thereof about the pennant race at the end of August in 1973. He was manager of the New York Mets, then struggling way back in fifth place in the National League East. When it really was over, the Mets had won the pennant. It happens. But rarely.

Jack Colwell is a columnist for The Tribune. Write to him in care of The Tribune or by email at jcolwell@comcast.net.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Mike Braun appears poised to win GOP nod for Indiana governor