- Rep. Frank Mrvan defeated Republican Jennifer-Ruth Green in Indiana's 1st Congressional District.
- Once reliably blue, the 1st District could have joined the majority of congressional districts in the state controlled by Republicans.
- If Green were elected, she would have put a stop to Democrats' 92-year winning streak in Indiana's 1st Congressional District.
Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan defeated Republican Jennifer-Ruth Green in Indiana's 1st Congressional District.
The first polls closed at 6 p.m. EST and the last polls closed at 7 p.m. EST.
Indiana's 1st Congressional District candidates
Mrvan, first elected to the US House in 2020, is no stranger to politics. He served as township trustee in North Township from 2005 to 2021. Prior to his role as trustee, Mrvan worked as a licensed mortgage broker and pharmaceutical sales representative.
Mrvan is a member of the House Committee on Education and Labor and chairs the Subcommittee on Technology Modernization. The Democrat from Hammond, who supported President Joe Bidens' infrastructure bill, also co-chairs the Congressional Steel Caucus.
Green, Mrvan's challenger, is a certified flight instructor and a commercial pilot — she's one of a relatively small number of female Black professional pilots in the nation. A graduate of the US Air Force Academy, she currently serves in the Indiana Air National Guard. During her 12-year-long career in the military, Green was deployed to Baghdad in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Green founded MissionAero Pipeline, a college and career preparation non-profit with a focus on aerospace, science, technology, engineering and math.
She listed a free-market economy and limited government regulations as issues important to her on her campaign website. Green defeated her GOP opponents in a four-way primary, narrowly overcoming second-place finisher Jesse Reising by fewer than than 1,000 votes.
Abortion access is an issue where Mrvan and Green held starkly opposing views.
"I have seen their rights taken away. I want to make sure that no one, not a policy or politician, gets in the way of healthcare choices and my daughter's choices as they are going forward," Mrvan said in an interview with local media.
Green, conversely, has said that "empirical evidence shows that life begins at conception and that a child in the womb is a distinct, developing, whole human being."
Voting history for Indiana's 1st Congressional District
Indiana's 1st Congressional District covers Gary, Hammond, and other steel-belt cities immediately east of Chicago's metropolitan area.
Joe Biden had a 9 percentage point margin of victory over President Donald Trump under the district's previous boundaries in 2020 before it was redrawn to add more of LaPorte County's western area in redistricting following the 2020 Census, making it slightly less Democratic-leaning.
The money race
According to OpenSecrets, Mrvan had raised more than $2.2 million, spent $1.9 million, and has $466,000 on hand, as of October 19. His opponent, Green, had raised $2.9 million, spent $2.2 million, and has $702,000 cash on hand, as of October 19.
As of November 1, more than a dozen super PACs, national party committees, politically active nonprofits, and other non-candidate groups have together spent more than $12 million to advocate for or against candidates in this race, including during the race's primary phase. Congressional Leadership Fund, a pro-Green hybrid PAC led by national Republicans, alone accounts for about half of that spending.
What experts say
The race between Mrvan and Green was rated as "lean Democratic" by Inside Elections, a "toss-up" by The Cook Political Report, and a "toss-up" by Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.