Episode 95: Rebuilding a Culture of Democracy

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Episode 95: Rebuilding a Culture of Democracy

Guest: Blythe Potter, Democratic Candidate for Indiana Secretary of State

Scott Aaron Rogers

Sep 19, 2025

Transcript

Episode 95: Rebuilding a Culture of Democracy

Guest: Blythe Potter, Democratic Candidate for Indiana Secretary of State

https://hoosleft.us

https://www.blythepotter.com/

Welcome to the HoosLeft Podcast, a show about Indiana politics, history, and culture from an unapologetically leftist perspective. My name is Scott Aaron Rogers; I’m recording from Bloomington, and the voice you just heard was that of Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, speaking to a group of conservative evangelicals in Dallas in 1980.

Weyrich was one of the most important political organizers and thought leaders of the last 50 years - though most Americans wouldn’t recognize the man. Here, he gives away the game, laying out a strategy of voter suppression that has been abused and amplified in the decades since.

Hoosier Republicans certainly got the memo. In 2005, Indiana became the first state to enact strict ID requirements for voting. Citing voter fraud as the reason for passing the law - despite literally zero incidents of the crime having ever been recorded in the state - the Indiana GOP under then-Governor Mitch Daniels (who many Hoosiers now remember as a principled moderate for some reason) implemented the policy for one reason and one reason only. Like Weyrich said, “they don’t WANT everybody to vote.”

The ACLU led a group of plaintiffs who sued the state over the law, eventually taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court. In an amicus brief, the Brennan Center cited a study by the Washington Institute that broke down the effects of voter ID. Among the key findings

21.8% of black Indiana voters do not have access to a valid photo ID (compared to 15.8% of white Indiana voters – a 6 point gap).
When non-registered eligible voter responses are included – the gap widens. 28.3% of eligible black voters in the State of Indiana to not have valid photo ID (compared to 16.8% of eligible voting age white Indiana residents – a gap of 11.5 percent).
The study found what it termed “a curvilinear pattern (similar to an upside down U-curve)” in the relationship between age and access to valid ID – younger voters and older voters were both less likely to have valid ID compared to voters in the middle categories. 22% of voters 18–34 did not have ID, nor did 19.4% over the age of 70. (compared to 16.2% of Indiana voters age 35–54 without valid ID and 14.1% for 55–69 year olds).
21% of Indiana registered voters with only a high school diploma did not have valid ID (compared to 11.5% of Indiana voters who have completed college – a gap of 9.5%).
Those with valid ID are much more likely to be Republicans than those who do not have valid ID. Among registered voters with proper ID, 41.6% are Republicans, 32.5% are Democrats.

The high court ruled for the state, allowing the policy to take effect in 2008. Since then, Republicans have controlled the State Senate the for the entire duration, held the State House majority for all but one election cycle, and occupied the Governor’s mansion for the entirety. Hoosier Democrats have won only a single statewide race - Joe Donnelly for US Senate in 2012 over Richard Mourdock, who likely cost himself the race by voicing his anti-abortion extremism out loud.

Republican dominance in Indiana politics over the last 15-20 years has corresponded with nosediving voter turnout. Prior to the voter ID law taking effect, Indiana ranked somewhere in the middle of the pack. But recently, the Hoosier State has fallen to the bottom, coming in 50th out of 51 in last year’s Indiana Bar Foundation Civic Index.

The Secretary of State serves as Indiana’s chief election officer, overseeing the candidate declaration process, handling campaign finance reports, certifying results, and - perhaps most importantly for the purposes of this program - leads voter outreach initiatives to promote participation.

Republican Diego Morales was first elected to the role in 2022 and has spent the bulk of his time in office mired in controversy. Though likely to face challengers from inside his own party, Morales is running for reelection next year. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, it appears Beau Bayh - son and grandson of United States Senators - is being groomed to run for the job, but he has not officially announced his intention to seek the nomination.

One Democrat who has announced is friend of the pod Blythe Potter. A veteran of the US Army Military Police Corp, small business owner, wife, and mother, Blythe has been a longtime advocate for Hoosier voices and is running for Indiana Secretary of State to restore trust, protect every vote, and make state government work for the people again. She returns to the show as my guest today.

In the following conversation, we’ll talk about the sad state of democratic participation in Indiana, look at what a committed Secretary of State could do about it, and imagine what an ideal system would look like.

Real quick before we get to the interview, please consider supporting HoosLeft with a paid subscription. This is an independent media project; I don’t paywall content; and I don’t rely on advertising. Only individuals like you keep this thing going. I refuse to gatekeep valuable information in the middle of a political crisis, even to my financial detriment. So please, if you find value in this work, go to HoosLeft.us and subscribe at the paid level - it’s only $5 a month, or $50 a year, to help me write more, research more, and organize more. Not ready for long-term commitment? You can make a one-time contribution on Cash App or Venmo. Links are in the show notes. Me, and my old body, would like to spend less time on construction, and more time constructing a better future for Indiana, but I need your financial support to do so.

If that doesn’t work for your budget at this time, you can still help out by liking and sharing on social media, commenting, leaving reviews, providing feedback, and forwarding articles to your people. We are building a community of Hoosiers dedicated to making this state, and its government, work for all of us, not just the elite few. Please join us.

Follow on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads at HoosLeft.US and on Facebook, X, TikTok, Mastodon, and YouTube at HoosLeft. Tell the others. Let’s build a radically-democratic Indiana together. Thanks again.

Now, here is my conversation with Blythe Potter.

Things We Talked About:

Show notes coming later

Once again, that was Blythe Potter, Democrat seeking her party’s nomination for Indiana Secretary of State in the 2026 midterm election. We’ll be speaking with her again in the coming months to look at some of the other duties of the office, and how she would handle them.

But for now, thanks for listening. I’ll be live at 10:30am Sunday on Project Next Media network’s YouTube, FaceBook Live, and Twitch streams, where I host HoosLeft This Week, Indiana’s most thorough weekend morning news and politics talk show. Check it out live if you get a chance - it’s a lot of fun, if you can call following the news in this timeline fun. I bring together a diverse group of panelists from the democratic socialist left to never-Trump conservatives and we look at the week’s headlines from around Indiana and beyond. We’ll also take time to examine one big thing, a different deep dive every week. I hope to see you there in the comments, but if you can’t make it live, the program will be available as a podcast Sunday afternoon.

Thanks again to Blythe for taking some time out of her campaign to speak with us. If you can, help her out with a contribution - a link to her ActBlue page is in the show notes. And if you’re feeling extra generous, also consider sharing some funds with with me via a paid subscription at HoosLeft.US, where you’ll find my entire archive. I rely solely on the generosity of kind patrons like you to make this information available for free to everybody. In addition to the website, you can find me on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads at HoosLeft.US and on Facebook, X, TikTok, Mastodon, and YouTube at HoosLeft. Direct message me at any of those sites with feedback, tips, ideas, and concern or email me at scott@hoosleft.us. While you’ve got the old email machine out, please forward the show to a friend and have them pass it on, too. Let’s keep building this project - and a truly democratic state - one conversation at a time. Until the next one, this has been the HoosLeft podcast. I’m Scott Aaron Rogers. Love each other, Indiana.