FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WRTV) — Max Engling wins on the second ballot with 867 out of 1,630 ballots.
Heading into Saturday, Republican delegates faced four choices for secretary of state: current Secretary of State Diego Morales; Knox County Clerk David Shelton; Max Engling, a former staffer for Sen. Jim Banks; and conservative activist Jamie Reitenour.
Engling, Shelton and Reitenour all attacked Morales' record, some more directly than others. Engling and Shelton in particular raised the specter of electability against the well-funded Democratic nominee, Beau Bayh.
"If we lose this office, we can lose everything else," Engling said. "The secretary of state is the chief guardian of election integrity. And we must have integrity both in our elections and in our elected officials. They go hand in hand."
For his part, Shelton pointed to his record of running elections in Knox County and said he is the only candidate who is not "riddled with scandals." Meanwhile, Reitenour accused Morales of going back on his 2022 pledge to require paper ballots for all elections.
Despite his incumbent status, Morales cast himself as an outsider being unfairly targeted by establishment Republicans. He accused supporters who have deserted him of "stab(bing) me in the back" and said it all came down to a noncitizen working in his office who he said was in the country legally.
"I served in the Indiana National Guard as a legal noncitizen. If you trust people to give their lives for this great country, we believe we can trust them to work for our fellow Hoosiers," he said. "They have smeared me with false allegations hoping that I would resign and drop my campaign, not because of anything I have done, but because they are afraid of Democrats and the liberal media."
Besides Bayh, Engling will face Libertarian Lauri Shillings in November. In addition, former Republican Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard is collecting signatures to appear on the ballot as an independent under the Lincoln Party label. Ballard has until June 30 to submit the required signatures.
