Indiana governor candidate Q&A: U.S. Sen. Mike Braun on the issues

After nearly six years in Washington, D.C., Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Braun is looking to come back to Indiana as the state's next governor.

Braun, who has established himself as an outspoken conservative in the Senate since his election in 2018, announced his candidacy for governor in late 2022. He joined Fort Wayne businessman Eric Doden and was later followed by Republican candidates Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, former Attorney General Curtis Hill, former Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers and Indianapolis mom Jamie Reitenour. Donald Rainwater is running as a Libertarian and former schools Superintendent Jennifer McCormick as a Democrat.

So far in the campaign, Braun has leaned on his business history and Senate experience to establish himself at the front of the Republican pack. He also has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

IndyStar asked Braun, as well as the seven other candidates for governor, a set of questions about issues relevant to the 2024 race, some of which were submitted by readers. This interview is edited for length and clarity.

Q: What sets you apart from your competition in the Republican primary? 

A: I'm one that's got practical experience in the real world. I moved back to my hometown many years ago, started a little business and took it into a regional, then a national company. Three of my four kids work in it now.

I think you need a well-rounded background. I was on a school board 10 years. I think that's important in this day and age. Three years with the state legislature and ended up passing some unique legislation that ended up helping my own community on infrastructure issues. I've been a U.S. senator for five years and cited by a couple organizations as the most effective Republican senator as a freshman. So when you can set the agenda, and you're going to get along with the legislature, I think that then enables you to take on issues.

Q: What would be your first priority as governor?

A: Since I was a state legislator for three years, I know the interaction between the federal and the state government. I want to make sure every agency that we have — several of them, over 30, lots of state employees — that they're doing the jobs that Hoosiers expect. I want to make sure each agency is responsible to the folks they regulate.

Then I'm going to try to get a legislative agenda put together working with people that I've already worked with before and find out what we need to do to take our state to the next level.

Q: Today’s Republican Party has factions defined by one’s position on Donald Trump. What is your position or view on the former president? 

A: When I was watching him come to the political scene, it was clearly the manifestation of half, if not more than half, the country fed up with business as usual in D.C. We're a federal system. You’ve got the national government and state governments and local governments. It's gotten way too tilted to a place that is run with its own inertia and not getting anything done.

I can tell you here in Indiana, just like you can see across the country, people look to him as being something that is different from what's been around for decades. It'd be different if we were knocking anything out of the park prior to that, (but) we just mostly got more in debt over time.

Q: Do you believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump?

A: There were irregularities in that election. And election integrity means that every legal ballot is counted. I think when you look at the six or seven swing states where it looked like stuff was done not in line with their own state legislatures, maybe constitutionally, I think there should have been more seriousness put towards that.

I voted to certify the election and that's because I don't know that there was systemic fraud. But you shouldn't be uninterested in that. And I think if you're gonna get this country back to where they trust their elections, you got to make sure they're fair elections. Every ballot gets counted that's legally cast. And then you're gonna get everybody on board.

Q: Where do you stand on Indiana’s new abortion law, and what changes would you support if elected? 

A: I think Indiana is a classic case where it did not have a trigger law. The legislature took it responsibly, really took the pulse of Hoosiers. This is a pro-life state. In this case, there were reasonable exceptions. It didn't depend on a trigger law that did not make sense. And it doesn't depend on something happening at the national level, which you're not going to get 60 senators to agree either way. So what our legislature did is, I think, put something out there that's reflective of most Hoosiers. You're obviously not going to please everyone, especially each extreme. Here, it was done, and I don't think any one legislator paid for it politically.

Q: Gun violence is an epidemic in society today. How should Indiana respond to that? 

A: Indiana has a red flag law, one of maybe 17 or 18 states. I think that's worked decently; you got to make sure it is being enforced. I think, too, you’ve got to make sure that criminals never get a hold of a gun, and you’ve got to enforce the laws that you have. And now more than anything else, it seems like mental health is entered into it. That's where (the) red flag law might come into play.

I don't think anyone, like me, that would be a defender of our Second Amendment wants a gun in the hands of a criminal or someone that's not mentally fit to own one. The more that occurs, the more it undermines the ability to keep our Second Amendment rights and privileges and on the other hand, you can't default constantly to where it's the gun and not the lack of enforcement, prosecutors not doing their job. That is rampant in the places that have the worst record with guns involved in a crime: big cities, even here in our own state capital.

Q: The 2023 legislative session dealt with culture war topics such as LGBTQ issues and school library books. Where do you stand on those issues?

A: No. 1, I'm gonna listen to parents primarily. I had the benefit as a U.S. senator being on the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee of asking Secretary of Education (Miguel) Cardona about who the most important stakeholders should be in our own kids' education. He could not get parents out of his mouth the first time. He came back and he did that the second time I interviewed him. Take the cue from your communities and your school boards and make sure they represent the values of your community. I'm going to be very interested in giving that kind of latitude, but when it comes to stuff that I think most Hoosiers wouldn't be for ― gender-affirming, and bringing up some of these topics at an age where I don't think kids can understand it anyway ― I think most Hoosiers would agree you’ve got to be careful there. That can't be coached from within a classroom and there do have to be certain guidelines.

Q: Should Hoosiers have a right to collect signatures to put questions on the ballot without legislative approval? 

A: That's something we can't do currently and other states have. I'm really going to keep an eye on that because all I can tell you, as governor, I'm gonna be the most accessible governor that the state has ever had. And that's not a campaign promise. When I campaigned to run for Senate, I pledged I’d visit every county and I've done that five years in a row and no governor or senator has offered open office hours in their hometown, which I do most Fridays. So I'm gonna listen to how that manifests itself in terms of what you do legislatively, how you get that point into legislation if it warrants it.

All I can tell you is I'm gonna listen and learn. That’s what I've done to be a successful senator. That's what I'm going to do to be a successful governor.

Contact IndyStar's state government and politics reporter Brittany Carloni at brittany.carloni@indystar.com or 317-779-4468. Follow her on Twitter/X @CarloniBrittany.