AG Rokita wins reelection, says victory is rejection of ‘push to the left’

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita claimed victory in his bid for reelection shortly before 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the GOP watch party at the JW Marriott.

The Associated Press called the race for Rokita shortly before 9 p.m. With just under 50% of the votes in, Rokita had 60% of the votes compared with Democrat Destiny Wells’ 40%.

“My opponent spent hundreds of thousands of dollars running false negative TV ads and radio ads. She’s part of the far left of the state, which does exist in Indiana,” Rokita said Tuesday night. “I am proud to tell you my fellow Republicans that I did not run a negative campaign.”

“The people of Indiana have rejected this push to the left, and because of this overwhelming vote tonight, I will continue to put us first, to put Indiana first,” Rokita said.

Wells spent much of the campaign reminding voters about Rokita’s frequent diversion into social issues, especially abortion, that she believes stretches the bounds of the office.

Among Rokita’s recent efforts have been a call for the federal government to help investigate the citizenship of 585,000 registered Hoosier voters and an advisory opinion that says the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission is duty-bound to prevent the closure of coal-powered power plants until a utility finds a “dispatchable” replacement power source. He has also sued some local communities over their “sanctuary city” policies, joined a lawsuit with 14 other states to challenge federal protections for transgender care and issued an advisory opinion that says neither state nor federal law requires the usage of preferred pronouns in the workplace.

Rokita’s biggest hot-button controversy came in 2022 when he strongly criticized Dr. Caitlin Bernard for publicly discussing a medication abortion she performed on a 10-year-old rape victim, who came to Indiana for the treatment because her home state of Ohio prohibited it at that time.

In an interview with Fox News, Rokita called Bernard an “activist acting as a doctor” and said his office would be investigating her.

Rokita was publicly reprimanded by the Indiana Supreme Court for the comments, which the court said had “no substantial purpose other than to embarrass or burden” Bernard.

The court later unsealed the conditional agreement with Rokita which contained the reprimand.

That decision came after the state disciplinary commission complained that Rokita’s statements following the reprimand were inconsistent with what he committed to in the conditional agreement.

Rokita ran on a record that includes a 94% success rate in keeping criminals behind bars and collected a record $1 billion from corporate wrongdoers over three years.

In 2020, Rokita led all Republicans on the statewide ticket, drawing more than 17 million votes. He has never lost a general election.

Rokita was first elected to public office as Indiana secretary of state in 2002 and served two terms. He then was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives where he served for eight years until he lost the primary for U.S. Senate to Gov.-elect Mike Braun in 2018.