Indiana Senate race: Here's what's true and what's not in the nation's nastiest primary

WASHINGTON – Name calling? Check.

Punches thrown? Check.

Attacks by anonymous outside groups? Check.

And those are just some of the reasons Indiana’s GOP Senate race has been called the nation’s nastiest.

There’s little difference on the issues between the three Republicans running for the Senate in Tuesday’s primary. But that hasn’t stopped the mud from flying among former state Rep. Mike Braun and U.S. Reps. Luke Messer and Todd Rokita.

Braun has called his opponents “Todd the fraud” and “Luke the liberal.”

Wearing boxing gloves, Rokita punches blow-up versions of Braun and Messer in one of his ads.

An outside group with ties to Messer has attacked Braun with more than $300,000 in ads.

More has been spent on advertising in Indiana than in any other Senate race in the country from January through April. And most of the ads have been negative.

The winner Tuesday will face Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly, who is considered one of the most vulnerable senators facing re-election.

Here’s a look at the attack ads to determine what's true and what's false.

Attacks against Braun

Charge: Braun is a lifelong Democrat who voted for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in 2008.

Facts: Braun consistently voted in Democratic primaries until 2012. The only time he asked for a Republican primary ballot between 1980 and 2012 was in 1982, according to a review of Dubois County records by The Herald. Braun has not said who he voted for in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary contest between Clinton and Obama. Instead, he’s said: "I never voted for a Democrat at the state or national level.” Braun said he voted in Democratic primaries for years because Democrats dominated local Dubois County politics and he wanted to have a say in local affairs. Braun started voting in Republican primaries in 2012, two years before he was elected to the Indiana House as a Republican.

Charge: Braun hiked taxes 45 times.

Facts: When Braun was in the state legislature last year, he voted with most other Republicans and some Democrats for a road funding bill that raised the state’s gas tax from 18 cents to 28 cents a gallon. Braun defends the vote as necessary to fix Indiana’s crumbling roads.

State lawmakers passed a number of other bills last year that raised or implemented new fees or taxes, including increasing registration fees for most vehicles, requiring background checks for teachers every five years and licenses for massage therapists. The Times of Northwest Indiana calculated that at least 45 different taxes and fees were imposed or increased.

Charge: Braun supported Common Core academic standards when he served on the Greater Jasper School Board.

Facts: Common Core is a voluntary national set of math and English standards created by a bipartisan initiative of the National Governors Association and state education superintendents. The standards came under attack by conservatives in part because the Obama administration encouraged states to adopt them. States were better positioned to receive federal “Race to the Top” grants if they did.

Rokita bases his claim that Braun supported Common Core on the fact that the Greater Jasper School Board applied for “Race to the Top” funds in 2009. But it was the state’s decision, not the school district’s, on whether Indiana would use the standards. (Indiana nominally changed its standards in 2014.)

Attacks against Messer:

Charge: Messer plotted with the “Never Trumpers” to steal the nomination from President Trump.

Facts: Rokita bases this charge on a 2016 news article on whether party rules should be changed to allow someone else to claim the GOP presidential nomination if none of the remaining contenders could get a simple majority of delegates before the convention. Messer mentioned 2012 nominee Mitt Romney and former Gov. Mitch Daniels as possibilities, while also saying: “Ultimately, the convention has to be perceived as fair.”

Messer made the comments in mid-April 2016 – before Trump won Indiana and months before the July convention, where Messer was not a delegate.

Robert Dion, a political science professor at the University of Evansville, told PolitiFact there’s nothing in the article to suggest Messer was involved in any hypothetical attempt to deny Trump the nomination.

Charge: Messer raised taxes by $1 billion.

Facts: When Messer served in the Indiana House in 2005, he voted for a stadium funding package that allowed Indianapolis area governments to raise local food and beverage taxes. Building a new stadium and expanding the Downtown convention center was expected to cost more than $900 million.  Local governments, however, were not required by the legislature to raise taxes to help pay for the project.

Messer also voted for former Gov. Mitch Daniels’ first budget deal, which reduced the help state lawmakers were giving homeowners on property tax bills.

Larry DeBoer, a Purdue University economics professor who has spent much of his career studying Indiana's property tax system, calculated in 2007 that the change accounted for about 4 percent of an average 24 percent increase in homeowner property tax bills.

PolitiFact concluded that Messer's votes led to higher taxes, but indirectly.

Charge: Messer supported amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Facts: The Senate in 2013 voted for a sweeping immigration bill to provide a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants, strengthen border security and change the way visas are granted. While the bill was still being worked on, Messer talked about the issue on MSNBC. Asked what he considered a fair approach to providing a pathway to citizenship, Messer said a 10-year waiting period “could be fair.”

“I think most are starting to recognize that we need to get people out of the shadows and have a working guest worker process. But I think there’s a big disagreement right now on whether that path to citizenship is going to be 5 years or 10 years,” Messer said. “If they could work right now and apply for citizenship in 10 years, I think that could be fair.”

The House never voted on the bill. After President Obama acted on his own in 2014 to allow nearly half of undocumented immigrants to legally stay and work in the United States, Messer voted to stop the president.

NumbersUSA, an immigration reduction advocacy group, scores Messer as having “voted against amnesty legislation,” but likes Rokita’s record more overall. For example, Rokita voted for an unsuccessful amendment in 2014 that the group said would have prevented undocumented immigrants from getting housing help.

Attacks against Rokita

Charge: Messer says Rokita pretends he always supports Trump but voted against Trump’s military funding, the border wall and was the only Republican against Trump’s transportation plan.

Facts: Rokita and Messer have similar voting records since Trump took office, according to Congressional Quarterly. Of the 45 House votes through March for which Trump’s position was clear, Messer opposed Trump three times and Rokita did so five times.

One difference is Rokita’s votes this year against a bipartisan budget deal that ended a government shutdown, and against a $1.3 trillion spending bill with big boosts in both military and domestic spending. Messer says he voted for both the February and March bills because Trump, his commander in chief, wanted him to. Rokita said Trump backed the bill because he had no choice after congressional leaders "foisted" on him a bill that increased domestic spending while boosting the military.

Messer’s claim that Rokita was the only Republican against Trump’s transportation plan refers to a committee vote last year on an aviation policy bill that included a plan to spin off the nation's air traffic control system into a not-for-profit corporation. Trump has called the privatization effort one of his top priorities as a way to spur modernization of the air-traffic control system faster than FAA has accomplished. But lawmakers from rural states and members of the general-aviation community opposed it, fearing the change would lead to higher costs and airlines dominating the corporation. Rokita, a general aviation pilot, was the only Republican on the House Transportation Committee who voted against the Federal Aviation Administration bill that included the proposed change.

Charge: Independent fact checkers say Todd Rokita’s campaign is mostly false.

Facts: PolitiFact, which is owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute for Media Studies, has done two reviews of Rokita’s comments. The site rated as “mostly false” Rokita’s claim that Messer "plotted with the Never-Trumpers to steal the nomination from President Trump." The site rated as “half true” Rokita’s claim to be the only candidate who has never voted to raise taxes. PolitiFact said that Rokita supported an increase in the state's gas tax "from the sidelines" and has voted for bills that raised user fees and import tariffs, which affected some taxpayers.

Charge: Messer said President Trump’s office demanded Rokita take down his false ads while Braun said President Trump’s campaign reprimanded Rokita for lying.

Facts: Trump’s re-election campaign demanded that Rokita take down yard signs it says give the false impression the president endorsed him, The Associated Press reported. The signs say Rokita is “Endorsed by Trump/Pence.” Smaller type adds the endorsement comes from “2016 Indiana Team Leaders.”

Rex Early, the chairman of Trump’s 2016 Indiana campaign, and Tony Samuel, the vice chairman, have endorsed Rokita. They noted they were doing so as individuals, not on behalf of Trump or his campaign.

Charge: Rokita says he supports the president but he attacked Trump and called him vulgar.

Facts: Rokita initially endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for president, and contrasted him favorably to Trump in a February 2016 interview.

"When you see Marco contrasted with Donald Trump — I mean someone who is vulgar, if not profane," Rokita told Indianapolis-based WXIN TV. "At some point you have to be presidential. People expect that and you see that in Marco Rubio."

After those comments recently resurfaced, Rokita said he made them before getting to know Trump, and he now appreciates his lack of “political correctness.”

Braun’s attacks against both Rokita and Messer

Charge: Rokita and Messer voted to fast track President Obama’s trade deals

Facts: Rokita and Messer voted in 2015 to give the president expedited authority to negotiate trade deals. That meant Congress could approve or reject any trade agreement negotiated by the president, but could not amend one or stop it through a Senate filibuster.

Obama used the authority to negotiate a Pacific Rim trade pact. Trump withdrew from the pact before Congress voted on it.

Messer acknowledged in the first debate that “Trump has changed my opinion on these trade agreements.” In addition to backing Trump’s withdrawal from the Pacific Rim agreement, Messer and Rokita applaud Trump for trying to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement – which he is doing using the “fast-track” authority they voted for.

 “That’s how you get a better trade deal,” Rokita said

Charge: Rokita and Messer voted to fund Planned Parenthood and to fund Obama’s “executive amnesty.”

Facts: Braun’s ad cites his opponents’ votes in 2015 for a catchall spending bill that funded much of the government through September 2016.  Some conservatives wanted the bill to block Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds and wanted it to put the brakes on Obama’s efforts to allow nearly half of undocumented immigrants to legally stay and work in the United States. But those restrictions were not included in the final package to get it through Congress.

When the House voted separately on the immigration issue in 2014, both Messer and Rokita backed an unsuccessful effort to stop Obama. Both have also voted for unsuccessful legislation to defund Planned Parenthood.

Charge: Rokita and Messer voted for billions in debt.

Facts: Braun’s campaign declined to say what votes his ad refers to. The tax cut package that Rokita and Messer voted for, and that Braun also supports, will add $1.8 trillion to the deficit over the coming decade, even after its positive effects on the economy are factored in, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Contact Maureen Groppe at mgroppe@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @mgroppe.

What you need to know

Here’s what you need to know before you head to the polls for the primary election on Tuesday.

Learn about the candidates:

With so many races on the ballot, it’s hard to keep track of all he candidates.

To make it easier, IndyStar offers a voter guide at indystar.com/voterguide. Simply enter your address and pull up the list of candidates on your ballot.

Confirm you are registered to vote:

The state regularly cleans its voter rolls, to remove those who have died or moved out of state. After the 2016 election, nearly half a million names were erased from the rolls in a massive voter cleanup attempt.

To check if you’re registered, go to www.indianavoters.in.gov and click on “check voting status” or call your county elections office.

Check your voting location:

Go to www.indianavoters.in.gov and click on "Find my polling place" or call your county election office.

Indiana is among the states with the shortest election hours, so plan accordingly. Polls are open from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m.

Bring your government-issued photo ID:

You’ll need to show a government-issued photo ID at the polls, which could include an Indiana driver license, an Indiana photo ID card, a passport of military ID.

Students who attend state schools could use their school IDs if they include a photo, name and an expiration date. IDs issued by private schools don’t meet the requirements.