High-profile Democratic leaders brought a national spotlight to Northwest Indiana on Tuesday, joining an electric, standing-room-only crowd of volunteers and organizers rallying ahead of the November midterm elections.
Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg traveled to Lake County to headline a joint canvass launch alongside incumbent U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan and State Senate District 1 nominee Scott Houldieson at Andorra Banquets in Schererville.
Inside the packed hall, the atmosphere was charged as candidates framed Northwest Indiana as a pivotal battleground for working families, union jobs, and legislative accountability.
Addressing the energized audience, Houldieson, a veteran autoworker and UAW member campaigning to flip the southern Lake County Senate seat, pledged to carry the voice of blue-collar households directly to Indianapolis.
The room’s energy peaked mid-speech when Houldieson recognized the voice of an attendee in the audience he identified as “Jerry.” With a booming, bombastic voice that cut across the banquet hall, Jerry shouted out, “Stand up and fight!”—igniting the crowd into cheers and an ovation.
Kitchen-Table Costs, Tariffs, and Statehouse Power
Speaking with reporters at the event, Buttigieg argued that Democrats must meet working-class and union households where they are by tackling everyday expenses and corporate overreach.
“The bottom line is that Democratic candidates are the ones who are going to put more money in your pocket, make things more affordable, and get politics out of your face,” Buttigieg said. “We have been living with years of broken promises from Washington Republicans and Statehouse Republicans who have actively made life more expensive—whether it’s the things we buy at the store, the cost of these tax cuts for the rich... or what has all of us paying more for gas and diesel. It starts by voting for change and making sure that we have a different majority in Congress when Frank Mrvan returns to the House, and making sure that we break those supermajorities in the Statehouse.”
Mrvan, who co-chairs the Congressional Steel Caucus, centered his pitch on manufacturing protections, erratic trade policies, and pocketbook pressures facing Region workers.
"So I think that it’s vitally important to understand that costs or inflation are driving and hurting our working families,” Mrvan said. “The first agenda point that we will have when we get back is to make sure that the erratic tariffs that have no strategy, that are affecting our union workers and our working families—we need to have Article I and make sure that we give relief when it comes to that. And we need to protect the steel industry with Section 232, which is a national security issue making sure our steel industry is protected and so it's a combination of those two things.”
Challenging the Supermajority
For Houldieson, running in a General Assembly dominated by a Republican supermajority means bringing an authentic rank-and-file labor perspective to the Senate floor.
“We push for them by articulating the needs of working families. I am a worker, my family is a working family, and we need to bring that voice to the Senate because, frankly, they’re not listening to us when we email and call,” Houldieson said.
Houldieson noted that finding common ground across the aisle will be necessary, pointing to utility accountability following August’s widespread outages as an immediate opening for bipartisan action.
“Every person in Northern Indiana was affected by NIPSCO’s incompetence, and that is something that across the aisle we can work on,” Houldieson said. He also highlighted plans to introduce legislation guaranteeing unemployment benefits for which he noted lag far behind neighboring Illinois.
With three weeks remaining until Election Day, Buttigieg urged the crowd of canvassers to turn their momentum into door-to-door voter turnout across Lake and Porter counties, framing the election around economic reforms that deliver higher wages and lower costs.
