Bean Blossom resident James Dean Alspach didn’t win the Republican nomination for U.S. Representative from Dist. 9, but he’s pleased with his effort, and a little surprised.
Trey Hollingsworth earned his party’s nomination again by more than 33,000 votes districtwide. Alspach received 13,445 votes, and Hollingsworth won with 46,884 votes, giving Alspach about 22 percent of the Republican vote districtwide.
In Brown County alone, Alspach did better, getting about 25 percent of his party’s votes.
“I spent so little time and so little money, but I still got almost the same percentage of votes as Erin Houchin in the last primary (against Trey Hollingsworth),” he said.
Houchin, a Republican Indiana state senator, finished second behind Hollingsworth in the 2016 primary with 25 percent of the Republican vote, according to Ballotpedia.org. She received 30,396 to Hollingsworth’s 40,767. Hollingsworth had three other opponents in that primary.
This year Alspach was the only challenger to Hollingsworth, which is one of the reasons he ran.
“I went in the day before the deadline, filed my paperwork and there was nobody else to choose from,” Alspach said.
“I was able to do this little political science survey and test the waters and get branded as James Dean, a name that everyone now will recognize forever in politics. It was a successful experiment.”
Alspach has studied political science, military science, biochemistry and agriculture. He also attended medical school and is a licensed teacher, according to the biography he submitted to the League of Women Voters of Brown County. He served in the Indiana Army National Guard as well, he said.
Alspach said another reason he decided to run was to “encourage the electoral process and to paint a better picture for my party.”
He said he was concerned about wealthy people being involved in politics.
When Alspach set out on his campaign he wanted to conduct a test to “find out what would happen if somebody stepped up and did absolutely nothing.”
“I ran a campaign comparable to what somebody running for county sheriff would do,” he said.
He said spent around $5,000, including purchasing yard signs which he placed across nine counties.
“Instead of spending $500,000, I spent a tiny fraction of that. The results were quite uplifting. I got over 12,000 votes. Almost 1 in 4 votes cast were for me,” he said.
“It was a successful experiment.”
Alspach said he would consider running again. “If I am asked, I won’t say no,” he said.
He would even consider running as a pro-life Democrat, since his views on health care and education align more with that party. But he said he wasn’t sure if Democrats would want a pro-life candidate, so he may run as a Republican or independent.
He said he would want an organization of volunteers behind him next time.
“It’s more than one person can do. I like to do things well, and this was not done well. If this had been done well, if I had access to the resources available for the calling, texting, emails, TV, the radio and the signage, I would have done much better.” he said.
Alspach plans to pursue another path in life now by working to establish a safe place for young pregnant women to live who are in crisis.
“That’s a little niche I want to fill. I am just about grandfatherly age for a lot of these young women,” he said.
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U.S. Rep. Dist. 9
Republican
James Dean Alspach 563
Trey Hollingsworth 1,672
Democrat
Dan Canon 224
Rob Chatlos 27
Liz Watson 913
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