Fact check: What the candidates for governor got right or wrong during this week's debates

The debate stage is an arena of quips, slogans and attacks ― with varying degrees of truth.

Indiana's Republican candidates for governor sparred two nights in a row this week, and IndyStar is fact checking some of the claims they made.

Only four of the six candidates qualified for FOX59/CBS4’s debate stage Tuesday night: U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, former Secretary of Commerce Brad Chambers and Fort Wayne entrepreneur Eric Doden.

Tuesday recap: 2024 candidates for Indiana governor rate Holcomb's performance in latest debate

Former Attorney General Curtis Hill joined them for the Wednesday debate at the Madame Walker Legacy Center, hosted by WISH-TV. Jamie Reitenour debated WIBC radio personality Rob Kendall on his show Wednesday morning in lieu of being invited to either of this week's debate.

Here are some of the claims candidates made on stage this week, and the truth behind them:

CLAIM: Braun supported the 2017 gas tax hike, which Chambers called the 'largest tax increase in state history'

FACT CHECK: The 10-cent gas tax hike in 2017, which was estimated to generate $1.2 billion a year for road funding, can more accurately be described as “one of” the largest. In 2002, the state legislature passed a sweeping tax restructuring that included $1.5 billion in tax increases, according to an analysis by Purdue University – and that didn’t include a riverboat gaming tax increase. Former Gov. Otis Bowen passed a property tax reform package in 1973 that included a doubling of the sales tax to make up for property tax cuts.

CLAIM: Chambers claimed Braun voted against the recent bipartisan immigration bill because he didn't want to help President Joe Biden.

FACT CHECK:  Braun referenced President Joe Biden in explaining his no-vote on X and in an official statement at the time. On X, he called the bill “another Ukraine aid package that weakly addresses Biden's border crisis." In his statement, he said: "Today, Senate Republicans joined with Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden to tell the American people that foreign borders are more important than American borders. I’m voting NO."

CLAIM: During both debates, Braun claimed Doden received an ethics violation when he was the president of the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

FACT CHECK: When Doden led the IEDC, he preemptively asked the Indiana State Ethics Commission for guidance on whether it would be a conflict of interest for his company to receive a state tax credit for an economic development project. The commission found that the situation would be a conflict of interest, despite Doden’s leave of absence from day-to-day operations of Domo Ventures. His company, though, never actually received the tax credit.

Braun’s campaign pointed to that single ethics opinion when asked what Braun was referring to on the debate stage. His campaign also often points to a $6 million contract between the IEDC and Ash Brokerage Corp. as evidence of a conflict of interest. Domo Ventures and Ash Brokerage Corp. did work on a project together, however, it wasn’t the one that Ash Brokerage received a state tax credit for.

CLAIM: Braun mentioned that Chambers is supported by those in the health care industry.

FACT CHECK: Chambers does have the support of at least a couple of prominent Hoosiers in the health care industry. David Ricks, the CEO of Eli Lilly contributed $100,000 to Chambers’ campaign in September 2023.

Plus, Dennis Murphy, the CEO and president of Indiana University Health, emailed others in the industry earlier this month, asking them to donate to Chambers. Meanwhile he warned against supporting Braun or Doden.

“Two of the candidates running in the republican primary (Braun and Doden) have gone on record to put forward ideas that would be very harmful to our industry and to our individual institutions,” he wrote in an email, as first reported by Indiana Capital Chronicle.

CLAIM: During both of this week’s debates, Crouch emphasized that she 'cast a tie breaking vote to strengthen Indiana’s abortion law.'

FACT CHECK: The state’s near-total abortion ban passed the Indiana Senate by a 28-19 vote without the need for Crouch’s support in 2022. However, she did vote in favor of an amendment to the legislation requiring a signed affidavit, needed to claim an exception to the ban for rape or incest, to be notarized. That amendment passed by a 24-23 vote with Crouch’s support.

CLAIM: Both Doden and Chambers have claimed Braun said he supports the organization Black Lives Matter and would march with protestors.

FACT CHECK: They are referencing Braun’s appearance in 2020 on an episode of the National Journal Radio podcast, during which he was asked whether he supports the Black Lives Matter movement. Braun said: “I support that movement because it’s addressing an inequity that has not been solved from a grassroots level, and that’s why it’s a big issue here now. And to me, that is totally intertwined with police reform.”

Earlier in that podcast, Braun explained that he felt BLM was addressing legitimate grievances, but that he did not believe racism is systemic. Then he was asked whether he would join a protest march in Indiana, like Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, did earlier that month.

“If I were asked to, I probably would,” Braun said. “I’m the only Republican that stepped out and wanted to talk about qualified immunity, because I think the cause and the point they’re making is 100% justified. That is not the same thing as being systemic.”

In an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News that June, Carlson asked Braun about those comments. "I support anybody that does have a grievance to be able to air it, and that's it," Braun said. "That doesn't mean all lives don't matter, it just means that if you think a certain sector of society has a grievance, it ought to be through transparency and the willingness [to] debate it and get it out there."

CLAIM: Doden said Braun wanted to make it easier to sue police officers.

FACT CHECK: While serving as a U.S. senator that same year, Braun carried a bill that would have limited qualified immunity, a policy that protects police officers from being sued for alleged misconduct. Braun has repeatedly said that his bill was an attempt to compromise: Democrats were prepared to eliminate qualified immunity altogether.

"We gotta have some type of sensible framework out there for the sake of organizations like FOP, so for all the good work that they do they don’t get stigmatized by the bad occurrences that are happening too frequently," Braun said at the time. 

Braun later changed his mind after backlash from the police community, and has since been endorsed by the Indiana State Police Alliance.

CLAIM: Cutting the state income tax, like Crouch wants to do, would be an $8 billion, 40% blow to the budget.

FACT CHECK: This one is true. The individual income tax brings in roughly $8 billion per year. The state forecasted the income tax would make up nearly 37% of the total general fund revenues in fiscal year 2024 and 2025.

Doden called Crouch's plan “a gimmick.” But Crouch has repeatedly emphasized eliminating the tax is possible if it’s phased out.

“I am the only candidate on the stage who has the political courage to eliminate the state income tax,” Crouch said Wednesday. “When we eliminate the tax not only do we give you your money back, but we also help our small businesses grow and flourish and then we're able to make Indiana a no income tax state attracting people to Indiana.”

Only seven states have no income tax, according to the Tax Foundation.

Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Kayla Dwyer at kdwyer@indystar.com or follow her on Twitter@kayla_dwyer17.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Fact checking the Indiana Republican gubernatorial debates