OPINION | Howey: Suzanne Crouch's advice for women in politics
Suzanne Crouch’s bid to become Indiana’s next governor — and likely her political career — ended with a second-place finish in the 2024 Republican primary, where she lost to U.S. Sen. Mike Braun.
But a lingering “what if” hangs over that race: What if former Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers had stayed out? Braun captured the nomination with 39.6% of the vote. Crouch and Chambers, who finished second and third with 21.8% and 17.5%, respectively, together earned 39.3% — just shy of Braun’s winning margin.
“When I look at the governor’s race, I can point to any number of things, but the bottom line was there were just too many people in the race for me,” Crouch told Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs on June 25. “Sen. Braun was viewed as the incumbent and I was one of the pack. Those things happen. You run to win. Everybody who was in that race was in it to win. But there’s only one winner.”
Crouch spent $5.3 million in the campaign, but Chambers chucked in $12.7 million of his own money to wage the race while Braun raised more than $12 million and spent $11.6 million, according to AdImpact.
“We may have appealed to the same people,” Crouch said of Chambers. “Maybe he thought I hurt him. Those are things you don’t control. We knew he was going to get in. That had been out there for a good year. It wasn’t a surprise, but by then I was all in and I was going to win. You do the best you can.”
In 2023, former Gov. Mitch Daniels appeared at a Lugar Excellence in Public Service Series event and suggested it was time for a graduate of the program designed to position and enhance female Republicans for higher office. Of the emerging GOP field, Crouch, then lieutenant governor, was the only candidate who fit that profile.
Asked if Daniels’ remarks gave her hope, she said, “Well, sure. Yeah. You hear that and you think, ‘You know, it’s time for a woman and the right woman.’ It wasn’t meant to be.”
None of the three former living Republican governors — Daniels, Mike Pence or her former boss, Eric Holcomb — endorsed any of the six candidates. Holcomb took a pass at extending his legacy by supporting Crouch, as had occurred when Gov. Doc Bowen passed the torch to Lt. Gov. Robert Orr in 1980 and Democratic Gov. Evan Bayh backed Lt. Gov. Frank O’Bannon in 1996. When Gov. Pence joined Donald Trump’s presidential ticket in July 2016, he endorsed Lt. Gov. Holcomb to replace him.
In 2010, Daniels did not openly back the abbreviated campaign of Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman, and then-U.S. Rep. Pence jumped to the front of the field. Skillman folded her campaign after a short period.
During the campaign, Crouch actually had to take several shots at her own administration, calling for an audit of the Family Social Services Administration after a $1 billion cost overrun.
By the final pre-primary debate in late April, Crouch had expressed disappointment in the process. “When I travel the state, I’m just disappointed and discouraged by the lack of interest, the lack of enthusiasm and probably the lack of participation in the first competitive Republican race that many of us have seen in our lifetime,” she said.
In the early 1990s, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis pollster Brian Vargas said Indiana wasn’t ready to elect a female governor. At that point, only Democrat Virginia Dill McCarty had waged a run for governor in 1984, losing the primary to state Sen. Wayne Townsend.
Some three decades later, Indiana has yet to elect a woman as governor, U.S. senator, speaker of the Indiana House, president pro tempore of the Indiana Senate or to head a powerful fiscal committee such as the House Ways and Means, Senate Finance or Appropriations.
Crouch remains optimistic that the gender barrier will eventually fall. “It will happen … I like to think me being the first woman to run on the Republican ballot will make it easier for another woman to run in the future,” she said.
Inevitably, Crouch will get the phone call from some aspiring woman. What would her advice be? “I guess it would depend on what their background is,” Crouch said. “Because running and winning ... I had another woman tell me, ‘Suzanne, you have to think like a man, act like a lady and you have to work like a dog.’ So I guess that would be my advice to pass on.”
Asked about possible regrets, she said, “Nah, I don’t have any regrets, because now my life has moved into a new direction.” She is now working with Deaconess Health Systems in Evansville. “I’m able to help people and I get to stay home in Evansville. For 11 years I would drive up here [to the Statehouse] and live in an apartment and then go home for the weekend. Then, during the week, I would be traveling around the state. So now I get to stay home.
“So life is good now.”
Brian A. Howey is a senior writer and columnist for Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs. Follow him on X @hwypol and Blue Sky @hwypol.bsky.social.