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Rasmussen Reports’ first look at the U.S. Senate race in Indiana shows Democratic Congressman Joe Donnelly and Tea Party-backed Treasurer Richard Mourdock in a tie. Both men draw 42% support from Likely Voters in Indiana, according to a new statewide survey. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate while 14% are undecided.

When Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., lost the GOP primary to challenger Richard Mourdock this month, Beltway types saw the voters' verdict as a victory for the Tea Party and a defeat for the kind of Republican who could work across the aisle. I think Lugar, 80, lost because he was out of touch with Indiana. He started the primary registered to vote at an Indiana home he had sold in 1977. The Lugars have resided in Virginia ever since. Lugar had been working in Washington for so long that he didn't realize he needed to keep up at least the...

Statement as issued Monday by Our Sunday Visitor: HUNTINGTON, Ind., May 21, 2012 - Our Sunday Visitor has joined with the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, the University of Notre Dame and other Catholic organizations in filing federal lawsuits to block an unprecedented infringement on religious liberty. The lawsuits are in response to regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that would force all Catholic organizations and employers to provide abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception to their employees free of charge, despite the fact that they are against Catholic teaching. The regulations also narrowly define what...

Republican Mike Pence has picked first-term state Rep. Sue Ellspermann as his running mate in his campaign to become Indiana's next governor. Pence announced Ellspermann's selection Monday morning and they started a tour across the state together in her hometown of Ferdinand in southwestern Indiana's Dubois County. Ellspermann has been director of the University of Southern Indiana's Center for Applied Research. That center aims to find ways for the Evansville school to help businesses in the region. She says she previously had her own business consulting firm. Ellspermann scored a political coup for Republicans in 2010 by defeating then-Democratic House...

PORTAGE, Ind. (WLS) - Carlos Rodriquez thought he was home, he later told police, but the apartment door wouldn’t open. So he kicked it in. He was greeted by a woman with a gun, and he obeyed her order to lie on the ground until police arrived. The 28-year-old woman and her 31-year-old husband, who live in an apartment with the same number as Rodriguez’s but in a different building in the same block, the 5900 block of Old Porter Road, told police they woke at about 3:30 a.m. Monday to banging on the door. When the door crashed open,...

A Marine veteran was unjustly turned away from a voting booth because he was openly carrying a handgun. If you ever wonder why the phrase "I support our troops" gets thrown around so much, it's because of people like Clay Edinger. This man showed a level of principle and calm composure that few people would have been able to maintain in such a frustrating situation. A former Marine, Edinger carries a firearm with him just about wherever he goes. Indiana law lets him do that, of course, as long as he stays out of places like schools and courthouses where...

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels on Tuesday dismissed suggestions that Richard Mourdock's upset victory over incumbent Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) last week was a "tea party phenomenon."

A former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Carmel, Ind. resident was arrested on child pornography charges. Donald J. Sachtleben, 54, was charged with possessing and distributing child pornography. U.S. Attorney Joseph Hogsett announced the criminal charges Monday, stating law enforcement began investigating an individual allegedly trading child pornography online in September 2010. That individual, who resided in Illinois, was arrested in January 2012. After searching the Illinois suspect’s computer, authorities discovered he was trading material with several other people. Hogsett said law enforcement were able to trace the alleged online activity to Sachtleben’s home in Carmel. Police obtained a...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Richard Mourdock's Senate campaign is now the subject of a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission. It has to do with the accusation that the Mourdock campaign improperly downloaded information from a GOP database. The state Republican Party last week cut off the campaign's access to the database known as Salesforce. The complaint was filed by John McCane, a former mayor of Rushville, who alleges that Mourdock used a state campaign committee to pay the $125 fee to access Salesforce and then illegally transferred information including email addresses to his federal campaign.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The Indiana primary got lot of attention this week for a great, great, great outcome. In fact, Dingy Harry is so sad that Lugar is gone. Yes, I've got a sound bite here. Grab sound bite 15. Audio sound bite 15. Dingy Harry, a montage lamenting defeat of Richard Lugar. REID: (whispering) I'm worried when I see dedicated patriots like Senator Lugar drummed out by Tea Party zealots for being too willing to cooperate. But that's what happened on Tuesday. I worry when I hear a candidate for the US Senate campaigning against bipartisanship and compromise between...

A few weeks after the recent synod of the bishops of journalism — known to us taxpaying chumbolones as the White House Correspondents' Association dinner — the secular clergy pronounced sentence on Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock. Mourdock had the audacity to whomp the heck out of six-term U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar in Tuesday's Indiana Republican primary. Mourdock's sin, according to the high priests of establishment journalism? He's a conservative, and a constitutionalist, backed by the tea party. Watching all this from the bordering state once called Illinois — now known as the wind-swept economic wasteland of Madiganistan — makes me...

The defeat of Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar has political tongues wagging all over the nation. Lugar was a major force in the U.S. Senate. He was well liked by colleagues and, ironically, made an early political name for himself as mayor of Indianapolis, where he became known as a strong proponent of the federal government giving power back to cities. In light of his substantial loss in a GOP primary to State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, Lugar has an opinion as to the loss and what it means, as does his opponent -- as does every Republican and Democratic pundit in...

The ACLU says you shouldn't have to be a preacher or a judge in order to conduct weddings. The group has filed a federal lawsuit against the state on behalf of two agnostics claiming the state's marriage laws are unconsitutional. "There are entities out there like the Center for Inquiry made up of people who are not religious, but have deep beliefs, deep philosophies, and they would like their leaders who are trained to marry people to be able to do so," said Ken Falk, Legal Director for the ACLU of Indiana. Falk says two members of the Center For...

The landslide defeat of U.S. Senator Richard Lugar in Indiana sent an ominous message to Washington: unprecedented partisan gridlock in Congress likely will worsen next year and make difficult efforts to cut the record U.S. debt even tougher. Tuesday's vote also delivered a punch to the gut of the Senate's "old guard," which for years has sought to restore the chamber's reputation as "the world's most deliberative body." Widely hailed as an elder statesman, Lugar lost the Republican primary in his home state to a Tea Party-backed challenger, largely because he was seen as not conservative enough and too willing...

Statement from Chris W. Cox on Richard Mourdock's Significant Win in the Indiana U.S. Senate Primary Election Thanks to your votes, Richard Mourdock has won the Republican primary election for U.S. Senate in Indiana defeating 36-year incumbent, Sen. Richard Lugar. Since the 1990s, Sen. Lugar has become notorious for his zealous support of gun control schemes and his fervent anti-gun positions. Your NRA was fully vested in this race with a comprehensive campaign that encompassed thousands of radio and television ads in the months before the today's primary election. This effort also included 600,000 web ads. The media campaign was...

Dear Friends, The Tea Party Express had an amazing week last week thanks to all your support and involvement and would like to thank you.  Everyday our buses traveled to a different city in this great nation rallying conservatives.  I think you can agree that the Tea Party is answering our critics and is just as passionate and energized as we were in 2010 and are poised to have another banner year at the ballot box in 2012.We wanted to share with you some of the highlights of the last week that were made possible through your support and...

INDIANAPOLIS | Republican Richard Mourdock and Democrat Joe Donnelly wasted no time Wednesday trying out the themes each hopes will help elect him Indiana's next U.S. Senator. At a Republican unity gathering at state party headquarters, Mourdock doubled-down on his opposition to ever compromising core principles, a position he said is shared by most Republican voters. "My idea of bipartisanship frankly going forward is to make sure we have such a Republican majority in the U.S. House, U.S. Senate and the White House that if there's going to be bipartisanship it's going to be Democrats coming our way," Mourdock said....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I'm gonna break this down in even more detail as the program unfolds. Lugar has issued a very lengthy and quite telling statement. Lugar is comparing his defeat to the end of reason, the end of the Republican Party, the end of compromise, the end of people working together. Lugar is saying that his defeat is a bad thing. It's gonna lead to partisanship and rancor. It's gonna lead to the end. The Senate is gonna descend now. It's not gonna be nearly the august body it has been. Not because he's not there. He's not that...

In a tough year for Senate campaigns, Democrats will take everything they can get. This year's map of Senate races heavily favors the GOP, which will defend only 10 seats to Democrats' 23. Six Democratic incumbents have declined to run, and Democrats will have to defend seats in 11 competitive races, while Republicans will only defend in five. All of which makes Sen. Dick Lugar's loss welcome news for Democrats, who seem to have figured all along that their candidate, Blue Dog Rep. Joe Donnelly, would fare better against Tea Party-backed, Saran Palin-endorsed state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in November. Now...

Statement from Chris W. Cox on Richard Mourdock’s Significant Win in the Indiana U.S. Senate Primary Election Thanks to your votes, Richard Mourdock has won the Republican primary election for U.S. Senate in Indiana defeating 36-year incumbent, Sen. Richard Lugar. Since the 1990s, Sen. Lugar has become notorious for his zealous support of gun control schemes and his fervent anti-gun positions.

Not only did Tea Party-backed Richard Mourdock just put an end to Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar's 35-year U.S. Senate career, but it wasn't even close. NBC projected Mourdock, the Indiana state treasurer, the winner of the Republican primary shortly after polls closed, as he was trouncing Lugar by over 20 points. In and of itself, the crushing defeat of such a long-time veteran of the Senate would be a big story, but the importance of this development will be felt way beyond Indiana. As I wrote earlier this week, a lot of pundits have been prematurely writing the obituary to...

Jim mentioned this earlier, but it's worth highlighting Dick Lugar's shrill parting statement. Though he says "I hope my opponent wins in November," it doesn't sound like he means it: If Mr. Mourdock is elected, I want him to be a good Senator. But that will require him to revise his stated goal of bringing more partisanship to Washington. He and I share many positions, but his embrace of an unrelenting partisan mindset is irreconcilable with my philosophy of governance and my experience of what brings results for Hoosiers in the Senate. In effect, what he has promised in this campaign...

I got a happy email Dick Armey celebrating the defeat of Richard Lugar in the US Senate race for Indiana. Not that I would EVER say I told you so, be here are two columns I wrote about that race back in September of 2011 and October of 2011 telling you so before I told you so…sooooo…:  Tea Party Favorite Blasts Lugar on $165k Fed Subsidies Sep 14th, 2011US Senate candidate and Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock blasted US Senator from Indiana, Richard Lugar, the incumbent Republican he’s trying to unseat, over farm subsidy payments that Lugar received from 1995...

Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana lost his party’s nomination tonight because he had lost touch with the party’s grassroots. Since his election to the Senate in 1976, Lugar had cut a profile as a moderate Republican: He had supported the ethanol mandate, backed the Brady Bill, and opposed the Iraq surge. In previous cycles, Republicans had forgiven Lugar his ideological transgressions, but in recent years, he had become more brazen. Not only did Lugar support the DREAM Act; he cosponsored it. Not only did he vote for New START, he spoke forcefully in its favor. True, Lugar wasn’t Arlen Specter...

Two Fort Wayne parents have been charged after police said they drove their car with their four children strapped to the hood Monday. Jessica Clark, 29, and Aaron Stefanski, 29, were both charged with neglect of a dependent. Stefanski was also charged with three counts of operating while intoxicated. Fort Wayne police said a U.S. Marshal stopped Stefanski’s vehicle in the 400 block of Poplar Street, after noticing the children—ages 4, 5, 6 and 7—strapped to the hood of the car. Witnesses told police the parents had left a liquor store before driving off. The children were placed into protective...

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., one of the longest-serving members of the Senate, lost the Republican primary to state Treasurer Richard Mourdock on Tuesday. With 14 percent of the vote counted according to the AP tally, NBC News has called the race for Mourdock, who leads Lugar 61 percent to 39 percent. Facing a headwind of tea party anger and hamstrung by a lingering story about his out-of-state residency, Lugar's campaign struggled badly in the final weeks of the campaign to make a forceful case for his re-election. Mourdock's bid was boosted by national conservative support from groups like the anti-tax...

Sen. Richard Lugar, the third longest-serving member of the Senate, went down to a primary defeat tonight to his Tea Party-backed opponent in the Republican primary. State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, backed by tea partiers and conservative campaign groups outside the state, ousted Lugar in Indiana’s GOP primary, the Associated Press projected. Mourdock will face Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly in November. In Lugar, the Senate would lose one of its few remaining members with a habit of bipartisanship. In Mourdock, Lugar has been unseated by a mild-mannered, twice-elected statewide official who wants to eliminate five federal departments and cut more spending...

Tea Party Upstart Mourdock Defeats Longtime Indiana Sen. Lugar By Kim Geiger May 8, 2012 Richard Mourdock has defeated longtime Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana in the Republican primary, according to an Associated Press projection, ending the career of one of the Senate’s most pragmatic politicians and casting a cloud over GOP efforts to win control of the chamber. Mourdock, state treasurer in Indiana, campaigned as a conservative alternative to Lugar. He became a darling of the tea party movement after he began a legal challenge to the terms of the Obama administration’s bailout of Chrysler. Mourdock was endorsed...

http://indiana.onpolitix.com/news/118977/gop-looking-to-pad-statehouse-majority "Former state Democratic Party chairman Kip Tew said the new election districts might be another kind of overreach that tried to lock in too many Republican seats."

If Indiana Senator Dick Lugar loses his Republican primary race to Tea Party challenger Richard Mourdock tonight, as polls indicate is likely, his defeat will signal the end of moderate Republican internationalism in the US Senate and the GOP more broadly. Lugar, a two time chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee best known for his work on arms control and nonproliferation treaties, used to be one of the GOP’s leading figures on foreign policy. Now he’s an outlier. The Senate Republican caucus was once filled with the likes of Dick Lugar—sensible realists such as Lincoln Chafee, Chuck Hagel, George...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Let's start with Indiana today and the Republican primary there. There's a lot of teachable moments in this story. A piece here from The Daily Caller. "Why a Mourdock Win Could Ignite a Conservative Spark." Now, it's a headline, and let's leave the headline alone for a second. I have a problem with the headline. I don't think conservatism needs a spark. Other people might disagree with me, but I think conservatism is on fire. I think this spark business, everybody's assuming here that the Tea Party is dormant because they didn't have a candidate in the...

Indiana Senate Candidate, Richard Mourdock, talks with Eyewitness News' Drew Gardner, after casting his ballot at the Vanderburgh County 4-H Fairgrounds on Tuesday. Click on the video player to watch the entire interview.

   http://www.in.gov/apps/sos/primary/sos_primary12         A. Closing the Polling Places: Indiana state law requires counties to begin counting votes cast at the primary election immediately after the polls close at 6 p.m., prevailing local time. In accordance with prevailing local time, the polls in the 12 counties of Gibson, Jasper, Lake, LaPorte, Newton, Perry, Porter, Posey, Spencer, Starke, Vanderburgh, and Warrick close at 7 p.m., Indianapolis time. The polls in the remaining 80 Indiana counties close at 6 p.m., Indianapolis time. In most counties, ballots are counted first at local polling places by precinct election officials. These officials then travel on election night to...

Investigating the IRS: Why it gives billions to illegal immigrants INDIANAPOLIS - Why are many illegal immigrants getting a bigger tax refund than you? Blame it on the IRS and a massive tax loophole that's now being exposed by Eyewitness News. 13 Investigates has found the IRS is giving away your tax dollars to illegal workers and people who don't even live in the United States - and the problem is costing billions! We want you to see exactly where your money is going and why the IRS is allowing it to happen. From the homes of illegal workers in...

FRANKFORT, Ind. — Sen. Dick Lugar is accusing tea party members of trespassing on his family farm and erecting ‘Retire Lugar’ signs on the eve of the Senate primary. The six-term Republican incumbent said Monday he was alerted by his son that members of the Owen County tea party climbed over a fence at his Marion County farm to take down his campaign signs and put up their own. “[They] had their pictures taken in front of a sign that said, ‘Dick Lugar, tree farmer of the year, 2003,’” Lugar said during a stop at an assisted living facility, speaking...

INDIANAPOLIS - Congressman Dan Burton (R – Ind) is frustrated – very frustrated – after learning the details of an Eyewitness News investigation. "Why in the world are we doing this?" he asked. "Are you kidding me? The cost to the American tax payer is huge!" The veteran lawmaker is responding to what 13 Investigates discovered all across Indiana: illegal immigrants getting big tax refunds from the Internal Revenue Service thanks to a loophole in federal law. MORE: Tax loophole costs billions The loophole allows undocumented workers to collect what's called an additional child tax credit. The credit – up...

14-Year-Old Girl Faces Murder Charge In Stabbing Death Of 4-Year-Old Cousin May 06, 2012 INDIANAPOLIS – A 14-year-old Indianapolis girl was facing a preliminary charge of murder Sunday after allegedly stabbing her four-year-old cousin to death. Police said the teenager, who was not identified, stabbed the boy at his grandparents' Indianapolis apartment at around 11:00pm local time Saturday and then fled the scene, WXIN-TV reported. The victim's 11-year-old sister was also at the apartment but was not injured, according to police. The grandparents were home at the time of the stabbing.

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — The tea party upstart who is trying to dislodge one of the U.S. Senate's most respected Republicans is about to cry.Minutes into his stump speech at the annual Lincoln Day Dinner here, as hundreds of Republicans poke at chicken and mini-potatoes, Richard Mourdock chokes up, his voice cracking over the sound system, all the way to the bar at the back of the room."Honestly, as I look at our nation's capital, I feel more frustrated with Republicans than Democrats," says Mourdock, the Indiana state treasurer. But "bipartisanship has taken us to the brink of bankruptcy. It...

Rick Santorum Backs Richard Mourdock in Indiana Senate Race By Shushannah Walshe | ABC OTUS News Rick Santorum has weighed in on the fierce primary battle in the Indiana senate race. The former presidential candidate tweeted his support of State Treasurer Richard Mourdock over longtime Sen. Dick Lugar. @RickSantorum: I encourage Hoosiers to help GOTV for @RichardMourdock. If I lived in Indiana he'd have my vote in Tuesday's #INSen race. Lugar has held the seat since 1976, but Tea Party favorite Richard Mourdock is waging a serious challenge and is leading in state polls. Mourdock also has the backing of...

PORTAGE | Police said a 32-year-old man had the right apartment number but wrong building when he entered a unit in the Park Place Apartments early Monday, and an armed woman inside made sure he knew it. Portage police were called shortly after 3:30 a.m. to an apartment in the 5900 block of Old Porter Road for a disturbance. Officers found Carlos Rodriguez, 32, of Portage, lying on the ground with his hands above his head and a 28-year-old woman standing nearby with a handgun. Police said Rodriguez smelled of alcohol and had slurred speech. He told officers he came...

Former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum has made an endorsement - but it's not the one Mitt Romney may be waiting for. The former senator from Pennsylvania tweeted his support Friday for State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who is challenging the seat's long-time holder, Sen. Dick Lugar.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Republican Sen. Richard Lugar is asking Democrats and independents to cross party lines and save him next week in the political fight of his life. The six-term senator said Friday he needs votes from outside his own party if he is to survive Tuesday's GOP primary. Recent polling has shown Lugar trailing tea party-backed state Treasurer Richard Mourdock. Lugar told reporters he is best suited to represent Jewish and female Hoosiers along with ethnic minorities.

Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) is 10 points behind his primary opponent, according to a new nonpartisan poll, making it highly unlikely he'll win Tuesday's contest. Lugar trails Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R) 48 percent to 38, according to a poll released Friday from Howey Politics Indiana and DePauw University. That is Mourdock's largest lead in any poll conducted of the race, including those by groups backing him. This is the latest — and biggest — bad sign for the six-term incumbent: The poll is considered the most accurate in the state. Lugar already has seen a major outside group...

A former guard at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute pleaded guilty Wednesday to having sex with an inmate.

Indiana Republican Senate primary candidate Richard Mourdock called a recent Young Guns Action Fund-supported mail drop encouraging Democrats to vote in Indiana's open GOP primary a "strike at conservatism." "This race is about who's in touch with Hoosiers [and] for the heart and soul of the Republican Party," Mourdock told Breitbart News. He added: "These are the same out-of-touch Washingtonians who want to dictate to the people of Indiana when it comes to who gets elected." Politico's Maggie Haberman broke the original news story that the Cantor-affiliated Young Guns Network had spent over $100,000 on the mail drop in support...

Sen. Richard Lugar and Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock are in a dead heat according to a poll released Wednesday that was conducted for the Lunch Pail Republicans, a pro-labor group that announced its support for Lugar on the same day. Lugar leads Mourdock 44 percent to 42 percent, separation that is within the margin of error. Fourteen percent of respondents said they were undecided. The live-caller poll was conducted entirely on Tuesday. One-day polls typically arouse a bit more skepticism than surveys conducted over the course of several days. But most observers expect a close election and the findings of...

An Indianapolis teen pleaded guilty to attempted robbery in connection with a June shooting on the Monon Trail, and attempted murder charges against him were dismissed. Devon Moore, 16, was charged as an adult after police said he shot Gary Bravard, 58, seven times on June 16 as Bravard walked home from work on the Monon Trail in the Nora area, near 86th Street and Westfield Boulevard. The incident had started as an attempted robbery, police said, and Bravard was shot after he refused to comply with Moore’s demands. A charge against Moore of carrying a handgun without a license...

It sure doesn’t look like Richard Lugar is long for the political world. The news that the major super PAC supporting his candidacy is bailing on him a week before the Republican primary reinforces a growing consensus that the six-term Indiana senator will likely be defeated next Tuesday by his conservative challenger, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock. Under one scenario, this could be a fortuitous development for Democrats, since Lugar, with his broad popularity outside the Republican Party, would probably defeat the Democratic candidate, Rep. Joe Donnelly, with ease. By contrast, Democrats are hopeful they could exploit Mourdock’s Tea Party politics...

Complete Headline: Heartbreaking story of the terminally ill boy, 12, who became a marine (and had an honour guard at the hospital on the night he died) Cody Green, had leukaemia three times and died due to related infections His battle inspired the local Marine Corps, who said Cody 'fought as hard as any marine' during his cancer battle Cody's mum seriously injured at the fatal Sugarland concert that killed 7 when the stage collapsed at the Indiana State Fair last August Throughout his short life, young Cody Green had admired the bravery of the U.S. Marines. But after...