Santa Claus left Indiana Gov. Mike Braun a true lump of coal in his stocking for Christmas.
A Public Policy Polling survey of 636 registered voters in Dubois County — where Braun is from — found that the Republican governor is about as popular there as potholes and busted water pipes.
Overall, 16% of the folks in Dubois County approve of the job Braun is doing as the state’s chief executive while 62% disapprove and 23% don’t have an opinion one way or the other. (Rounding up accounts for the extra 1% in the total.)
There was a typical gender split in the poll results. Dubois County men like their homegrown governor about as much as they do the common cold, with 23% approve/56% disapprove numbers. Women view with the same affection they do a terminal disease and come in at 10% in approval with 66% disapproval.
Again, this is in the governor’s home county — the place where the people know him the best.
That’s one bit of bad news for Braun.
Another even worse bit is that Dubois County is a GOP stronghold, one of the counties in Indiana where Hoosier Republicans count on recording solid — sometimes even spectacular — majorities on election days. If Braun is in trouble there — and this poll indicates he’s in real trouble — then he must be one step away from disaster in other parts of the state.
If these results are a shock to the governor, then he’s the only one in the state — and maybe in the whole world — who’s surprised.
Weeks ago, a veteran Republican political professional told me that GOP internal polling showed Braun with a 24% approval rating.
At the time of that conversation, I expressed skepticism. This was Indiana, I said, a solidly red state. How could any Republican poll that poorly?
The GOP pro attributed it to a politically deadly combination of arrogance and inexperience.
Braun never has lost an election, but that undefeated record can be deceiving.
In every race he’s been in, he’s drawn upon his significant personal fortune to outspend — even bludgeon — his opponents. When he ran in the Republican primary for one of Indiana’s U.S. Senate seats in 2018, the entire party was stunned by how much of his own money Braun was willing to spend to gain the GOP nomination and ultimately the seat.
But because he didn’t have to ask others to invest — or at least invest greatly — in his candidacy, he missed the opportunity to build a coalition that would sustain him in times of trouble. He built his political house on sand rather than solid ground.
He also has little experience dealing with political adversity. He left his Senate seat after a single term and therefore never had to defend a legislative record of — we’ll be charitable — insignificant achievements.
He repeated the pattern while running for governor. He made a costly mistake at the convention by letting some of his delegates leave early, thus allowing upstart lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Micah Beckwith to slip past Braun’s own candidate for the second spot and claim the nomination.
It was a careless error of which veteran politicians took note. They realized that the governor either doesn’t know how to count or doesn’t pay attention.
That did not seem to affect Braun’s estimation of his own status. Every incoming gubernatorial team comes in thinking they are world-beaters, but I’ve never heard more complaints — from both Republicans and Democrats — than I did about the Braun squad’s overweening self-regard.
Folks in both parties were eager to see the governor take a fall. He obliged them — first by allowing himself to be dragged into stupid no-win fights like the squabble over how Indiana University should be run and then by transforming himself from a governor into an errand boy for one of President Donald Trump’s worst ideas.
The battle over gerrymandering Indiana mid-decade cost Braun in two ways.
First, it proved, once again, that he either doesn’t pay attention or can’t count. The votes never were there and everything Braun and Trump did to try to manufacture them backfired.
Second, it showed that Braun doesn’t have an agenda or convictions of his own. Few people will follow a leader who doesn’t have a clear idea of where to go or why the journey even matters.
That’s why Mike Braun is in so much trouble.