The recount of a contested Indiana House Republican primary has wrapped up with a former member of the state utility commission confirmed as the winner.
The Indiana Recount Commission voted 3-0 on Tuesday to certify Wes Bennett as the Republican primary winner in House District 57, where he was among four candidates for an open seat given up by GOP Rep. Craig Haggard.
The district just southwest of Indianapolis includes parts of Hendricks, Johnson and Morgan counties.
Candidate Greg Knott, who finished second, had sought a recount only of precincts Hendricks County. That is where Bennett, a former Plainfield clerk-treasurer, received 599 votes to Knott’s 300 votes for the winning margin as Knott led Bennett in the other counties.
A ballot review by State Board of Accounts auditors found no changes from the totals certified by county officials after the May 5 primary, Recount Director Evan Norris told commission members.
The commission’s action confirmed Bennett as the primary winner by 79 votes — 1,451, or 31.2%, over Knott’s 1,372, or 29.5%.
Knott did not attend Tuesday’s commission meeting to challenge the recount findings.
Bennett was commissioner of the state’s Department of Local Government Finance under Gov. Eric Holcomb before Holcomb appointed him to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission in 2023.
Bennett resigned from IURC in October 2025, just before he launched his legislative campaign as Haggard was making what turned out to be an unsuccessful Republican primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Jim Baird.
He will face Democrat Suzanne Fortenberry in the November election in what has been a heavily Republican district.
The commission also formally dismissed a recount requested by Darren Vogt of his 14-vote Republican primary loss to state Sen. Liz Brown of Fort Wayne.
Vogt, a staffer to U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, filed a petition Monday to drop the recount after the ballot review found no change in the outcome.