In our initial 2024 Senate overview last month, we previewed a looming Indiana Senate primary battle for the open seat. House conservative stalwart Jim Banks had already announced his intentions to seek the GOP nomination, but it appeared former Gov. Mitch Daniels was too. Battle lines were already being drawn, with the deep-pocketed Club for Growth promising to spend at least $10 million to boost Banks and sink Daniels, even airing a small ad buy in January saying that after “50 years in Big Government, Big Pharma and Big Academia, Mitch Daniels forgot to fight.” It was shaping up to be another clash in the GOP civil war, between the Trump-aligned Banks and the Reagan-era conservative Daniels.
But the possibility of such a showdown evaporated only weeks later when Daniels announced he wouldn’t run. The flirtation and then declination from former President George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget director has happened before. In 2012, it looked like Daniels was prepping a run for president, but amid family concerns, he pulled the plug. Those same worries surely were at
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