Republican Chuck Braden and Democrat Tracey Callahan Burnett secured their party’s nominations for Brown County Commissioner Dist. 1 last week.

One of them, or a third-party candidate, will replace incumbent commissioner Dave Anderson on the three-member board next year, as Anderson is not seeking reelection.

The win was a welcome victory for Braden, who was watching the election results as they came in Tuesday night on Facebook. He was the only county commissioner candidate to have an opponent in the primary.

“I was very excited to win the vote,” he said, “definitely very happy and pleased with the total results.”

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Braden, Brown County’s current zoning inspector, is a former U.S. Marine, serving as an aviation electrician from 1980 to 1988.

He has lived in Brown County for 20 years and said he is running for commissioner so that he can properly serve his community.

“I want to try and take care of the county in areas of infrastructure,” he said. “Taking care of things like that is what I’m running for.”

Braden unofficially received 996 votes, over 300 more than Republican candidate Blake Wolpert.

Wolpert has no hard feelings about the results and believes that Braden will be a great candidate for the party.

“It was a good voting turnout under the circumstances,” Wolpert said. “I think Chuck Braden will be a fine candidate in the fall. He is a young guy and a former Marine. Hopefully, he’s got the same conservative approach to government that I do.”

In addition to the District 1 commissioner race, Wolpert was optimistic about all of his party’s candidates.

“I think the Republicans will have a very strong slate in the fall,” he said. “I anticipate that we will do very well.”

Wolpert served as a county commissioner in the mid-2000s. He said that despite trying to remain active, he doesn’t see any more runs for public office in his future.

“I think I will concentrate on golf,” he said. “Other than that, I think I will just kick back a little bit and take it slow.”

Whereas Braden will be campaigning on his commitment to county infrastructure, Democrat candidate Burnett will put an emphasis on transparency and public duty.

“Public meetings and any documents that are presented during those meetings should be posted online in a timely manner,” she said.

Burnett, a foster parent and IT department manager for the Indiana BMV, was watching live coverage of the Indianapolis protests on Tuesday night instead of election results. She said she was pleasantly surprised by the results when she saw them on Facebook later in the evening.

“I’m honored that those thousand-plus people chose to recommend me for the job that I’m applying for,” she said. “That’s the way that I look at it.”

Burnett, who received 1,015 unofficial votes Tuesday, said that she was concerned about wavering support in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s been very difficult for me to connect with people in the traditional manner,” she said. “The results gave me a lot of faith.”

With regards to future plans for her campaign, Burnett said it seems like the pandemic may affect those as well. Right now, she is waiting for more information about the virus to become available before making any official plans.

“I think that it is important to recognize that a lot of people may not be comfortable with having group events at this point and I really want to respect that,” she said. “But we have been having quite a few conversations behind the scenes about what this is going to look like.”

Burnett said that this pandemic may give her and her fellow candidates an opportunity to get creative with their campaigns.

“These are unprecedented times,” she said. “People are going to have to start thinking outside of the box and adapt their strategies to the changing times.”

The District 3 county commissioner seat was also on the ballot, but neither candidate faced any opposition in the primary.

Democrat Ron Fleetwood and Republican incumbent Jerry Pittman will be back on the ballot for the general election on Nov. 3.

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Brown County Commissioner Dist. 1

Republican 

Chuck Braden 996

Blake Wolpert 688

Democrat

Tracey Callahan Burnett 1,015

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Brown County Commissioner Dist. 3

Republican 

Jerry Pittman 1,572

Democrat

Ron Fleetwood 1,056

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