Vanderburgh County GOP Chair Mike Duckworth steps to the podium once more, as fellow republicans wait for his election updates, the results screen looming large in the background.
As election results are finalized from Tuesday night, Republicans overall are the clear winners. From the national to the local, the GOP made huge gains.
Republican Amy Canterbury — according to continually tabulating numbers — will be the next District 3 County Commissioner.
As the new commissioner, she said she wants to take a collaborative approach to the seat.
“…to work together with folks, to come to common ground,” she said. “I don't have an agenda. I want to listen to the people, and I want to make sure they have a voice when we are talking about major decisions, and that's who I'm here for, is the people.”
Canterbury bested incumbent Cheryl Musgrave in the primary election this May. Numbers showed her leading Democrat Hope Fussner as of late Tuesday night and that gain never diminished.
She'll join Democrat Mike Goebel and Republican Justin Elpers on the Commission.
Republican Incumbent Jill Hahn will retain her seat on the County Council.
She plans to keep working on projects like the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
“We're just getting ready to really start to roll out some major renovations and looking for opportunities for fundraising,” she said, referring to the Coliseum. She also wants to work to make Burdette Park a showpiece for the county.
“So we have a lot of things that I really, really hope I get to be a part of to be able to see those all come to fruition,” she said.
She’ll be working with new members, republicans Joe Kiefer II and Ed Bassemier.
Kiefer will join the County Council as an at-large member. He said he wants to use his financial background to stabilize the Sheriff’s Office Pension fund, assuming it’s still a concern when he takes office.
“That's going to be a priority, because that controls so much of the budget,” he said. “It could impact a lot of the budget, so I do have some strategic policy ideas around that, on ways to get that healthy over time.”
Ed Bassemier has held several offices and will be the other at-large County Council member.
Other partisan roles include the County Recorder and Counter Coroner. Republican Bryan Underwood will be the next Vanderburgh County Coroner.
He’ll run the coroner’s office and use his background as a police officer for 25 years to help investigate deaths.
He said the biggest thing he wants to do for his staff is to show “complete compassion” for the families of the victims.
“ I want to also involve grief counseling, not only for the families of the victim, the victims, but also my workers — they see a lot.”
The Coroner signs the death certificate for all unnatural deaths.
Republican Russ Lloyd Jr. is the next Vanderburgh County Recorder. He’ll have a staff of six and a budget of $650,000.
“I would look at some of these things and see if there's ways we can improve, ways we can make it more efficient for taxpayers.”
The job of his office is to record all the property deeds, mortgages and liens affiliated with Vanderburg county property records. He said it’s a constitutionally-mandated role.
On the national side, Republican Mark Messmer, an Indiana State Senator of 10 years, will be moving his office from Indy to DC. He was elected as US representative for House District 8.
The Associated Press called the race Tuesday night.
Messmer faced Democrat Erik Hurt and Libertarian Richard Fitzlaff. Messmer took more than 200,000 votes, to his opponents’ combined 93,000.
He’s a southern Indiana native. His hometown of Jasper is about an hour from Evansville.
District 8 covers southwest Indiana, previously occupied by Republican Larry Bucshon.
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