Indiana

Early voting numbers suggest strong turnout, but which candidate benefits?

Published

1 year ago

October 30, 2024

Early voting numbers suggest strong turnout, but which candidate benefits?

Chris and Shelby Ashby waited about an hour and a half Tuesday morning to vote at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, where the line coiled around temporary fences before stretching into the parking lot.

The Indianapolis couple’s toddler was in preschool, and they were hoping to avoid the long lines on Election Day.

Chris Ashby said he was motivated to vote for Democrat Jennifer McCormick in the governor’s race and Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election.

“We rank too low in education,” Ashby said. “[McCormick] is an educator, and it was the most important issue for me.”

Shelby Ashby said it was “very important we have the right people in charge,” a reference toHarris.

At the same location, Claire Baker, also of Indianapolis, waited three hours to vote. This was her first time voting early.

“It’s always a privilege to exercise my right to vote,” Baker said. She was most excited to cast a ballot for former President Donald Trump in the presidential election.

The wait was at least an hour in neighboring Hamilton County, where Fishers resident Blake Broeker said as left the county fairgrounds that he was also motivated to vote for Trump.

Early voting is well underway in Indiana, where nearly 955,000 people had submitted ballots as of Tuesday. That number marks a strong turnout that trailed only the record-setting early turnout of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed more Hoosiers to vote early — either in person or by mail.

Election experts were encouraged by the turnout thus far but stopped short of forecasting an advantage for either party or candidate based on the numbers.

“If you’d have told me that a quarter of the turnout in 2020 would have already voted in Indiana with a week to go, I would have been surprised,” said Michael Wolf, political science chair and professor at Purdue University Fort Wayne. “It is quite a surprise. If you want people to participate, then early voting is clearly working.”

What the early voting numbers show

So far, 2024’s turnout lags behind 2020 figures but is well ahead of 2016 numbers.

In 2020, more than 1,358,000 Hoosiers had voted by the week before Election Day. The total in 2016 was about 571,000.

According to Democratic data firm TargetSmart, about 54% of the ballots returned thus far belonged to women — a similar proportion to voter splits in 2020.

The split by age demographics is starker.

In 2020, about 31% of ballots returned at this point belonged to voters under 50 years old, while about 42% came from people over 65.

This year, about 25% of ballots collected thus far came from voters under 50. About 49% of votes belonged to Hoosiers over 65.

What the numbers don’t show

“We know how many people voted early, but we have no idea who they voted for,” Indiana University Professor Emeritus Marjorie Hershey said.

Trump vilified the early voting practice in 2020, Hershey said, and Democrats tended to take the pandemic more seriously. That meant early voting numbers skewed Democratic.

But more Republicans have embraced the practice in 2024, making it impossible to speculate about which candidates benefit from strong early turnout, according to Hershey.

It’s also too early to make such assumptions.

“Typically, what happens is a wave for one candidate or the other in the last few days,” Hershey said. “But it’s impossible to know who that will be.”

Competitive governor’s race could be driving turnout

Wolf, the Purdue professor, said the gubernatorial race between Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Braun and McCormick, the state’s former superintendent of public instruction, may be a factor in the high turnout.

“People are paying attention to the governor’s race,” he said. “It’s hard to punch through the national-level stuff, but the candidates have had good, crisp debates.”

McCormick is airing commercials paid for with out-of-state money, Wolf said, and Republican groups have moved to match — meaning they must see the race tightening.

“To have two candidates who have held statewide office matters,” Wolf said. “Both candidates have run solid campaigns, and McCormick has produced a narrative that will have some people more engaged.”

Voting lines outside of Indianapolis

One statewide advocacy group is noting long early voting lines in places where they have not been seen before.

“It’s not unusual to see long lines and waits in Marion County, but we’re hearing about lines in other parts of the state,” said Julia Vaughn, executive director of the voter rights advocacy group Common Cause Indiana. “Two hours in Carmel. An hour and a half in Allen County.”

Vaughn was cautiously optimistic about the turnout thus far.

“It would be great if, [with] this election, Indiana could get out of the cellar in terms of voter turnout,” she said.

Several key issues, such as health care and education, were motivating voters more than specific candidates in this cycle, Vaughn said.

She is rooting for the heavy turnout to continue through Tuesday.

“I hope vote centers aren’t ghost towns on Election Day,” she said.

Contact Rory Appleton on X at @roryehappleton or email him at [email protected].

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Indiana

Central Indiana schools announce closures, delays planned for Tuesday

Published

9 hours ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

Central Indiana schools announce closures, delays planned for Tuesday

INDIANAPOLIS — Some schools in central Indiana are planning to close or delay the start of their classes on Tuesday.

The closures and delays come in the wake of a difficult weekend of severe winter weather in the Hoosier State. On Saturday, a wintry system dumped more than six inches of snow in some portions of the state.

Points north of Indianapolis like Lafayette received between three and four inches of snow. Towns south of the Circle City like Seymour saw similar snowfall totals. As for Indianapolis itself, more than five inches of snow were recorded in some portions of the city.

After Saturday’s snow, frigid temperatures took hold in the area. A Cold Weather Advisory was issued for much of the state as wind chill values dipped well below zero.

The cold and snow triggered a bevy of school closings and delays for Monday. Schools began to announce delays and closures for Tuesday late Monday night as snow removal crews across the state continued to try to keep roadways clear.

Though some schools plan to close or delay the start of classes on Tuesday, temperature improvements are forecasted. High temperatures are anticipated to exceed the 32-degree freezing threshold and hit 36 degrees. The warming trend is expected to continue on both Wednesday and Thursday, with high temperatures forecasted to reach 40 and 50 degrees, respectively.

Precipitation is forecasted for Thursday, though temperatures are expected to remain warm enough for Indiana to get rain instead of snow.

FOX59/CBS4 is tracking the closures and delays schools plan to implement on Tuesday. Check out the latest available list of closings below:

Jump To: A–Z

A

Area 30 Career Center

Putnam

Charles A Beard Mem School Corp

Henry

School

Delayed 2 hours

Cloverdale Community Schools

Putnam

School

2-Hour Delay, No AM Preschool

D

Decatur County Community Schools

Decatur

School

Delayed 2 hours

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Indiana

AwardsWatch – Indiana Film Journalists Association (IFJA) Awards: ‘Sinners’ Named Best Picture

Published

21 hours ago

December 15, 2025

Press Room

AwardsWatch – Indiana Film Journalists Association (IFJA) Awards: ‘Sinners’ Named Best Picture

The Indiana Film Journalists Association (IFJA) has named Sinners the best film of 2025, also awarding the film original screenplay, score, cinematography, editing and ensemble.

Paul Thomas Anderson was named best director for One Battle After Another, which also picked up acting wins for Benicio Del Toro (supporting performance) and Chase Infiniti (breakout of the year).

Here is the complete list of winners and runners-up.

Best Picture
Winner: Sinners
Runner-up: One Battle After Another

Best Director
Winner: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Runner-up: Ryan Coogler, Sinners

Best Lead Performance
Winner: Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Runner-up: Jessie Buckley, Hamnet

Best Supporting Performance
Winner: Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
Runner-up: Amy Madigan, Weapons

Best Vocal / Motion-Capture Performance
Winner: Will Patton, Train Dreams
Runner-up: Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Best Ensemble Acting
Winner: Sinners
Runner-up: One Battle After Another

Best Animated Film
Winner: K-Pop Demon Hunters
Runner-up: The Legend of Hei 2

Best Foreign Language Film
Winner: No Other Choice
Runner-up: Sentimental Value

Best Documentary Film
Winner: The Tenderness Tour
Runner-up: Orwell: 2+2=5

Best Original Screenplay
Winner: Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Runner-up: Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme

Best Adapted Screenplay
Winner: Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another
Runner-up: Mike Flanagan, The Life of Chuck

Best Musical Score
Winner: Ludwig Göransson, Sinners
Runner-up: Jonny Greenwood, One Battle After Another

Breakout of the Year
Winner: Chase Infiniti (performer), One Battle After Another
Runner-up: Miles Caton (performer), Sinners

Best Cinematography
Winner: Autumn Donald Arkapaw, Sinners
Runner-up: Michael Bauman, One Battle After Another

Best Editing
Winner: Michael P. Shawver, Sinners
Runner-up: Andy Jurgensen, One Battle After Another

Best Stunt / Movement Choreography
Winner: Wade Eastwood (second-unit director / stunt coordinator), Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning
Runner-up: Brian Machleit (stunt coordinator), One Battle After Another

Best Special Effects
Winner: Dennis Berardi, Ayo Burgess and Ivan Busquets (visual effects supervisors) and José Granell (miniatures / models supervisor), Frankenstein
Runner-up: Michael Ralla, Espen Nordahl and Guido Wolter (visual effects supervisors) and Donnie Dean (special effects coordinator), Sinners

Original Vision Award
Winner: Good Boy
Runner-up: The Testament of Ann Lee

The Edward Johnson-Ott Hoosier Award
Chase Infiniti, One Battle After Another

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

Indiana

Police shoots man armed with knife in Gary, Indiana, officials say

Published

1 day ago

December 15, 2025

Press Room

Police shoots man armed with knife in Gary, Indiana, officials say

Updated on: December 15, 2025 / 12:07 AM CST
/ CBS Chicago

A man wielding a knife was shot by a police officer on Sunday in Gary, Indiana.

A spokesperson for the city said officers responded to the 2100 block of Tennessee Street for a call of a suicidal man who was armed with a knife in his hand. The man had already stabbed himself a couple of times before they arrived.

Officers found the man in the east alley of 22nd and Ohio. At this time, he was standing in the alley still with the knife in his hand and refused to drop it as ordered by officers. The man then started to advance toward the officer, who shot the man three times in the arm, the spokesperson said.

The officer notified the department that shots were fired, and the man was down. The condition of the man is unknown as of Sunday night.

Other officers responded to the scene to set up a perimeter around the area. The Gary Fire Department and Lake County Crime Scene Investigation personnel were also contacted.

No further information was immediately available.

If you or someone you know is in emotional distress, get help from the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. Trained crisis counselors are available 24 hours a day to talk about anything.