The surprising midterm winner who flipped a district Trump won by 17 points
By Eric Bradner, CNN
Carmel, Indiana (CNN) — J.D. Ford flipped a barn-red district in one of the nation’s most reliably Republican states. Now, like many of his soon-to-be colleagues across the country, the unlikely Democratic midterm winner is thinking about how to keep from becoming a one-term congressman.
Ford ousted Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz in Indiana’s 5th District — terrain that stretches from the wealthy suburbs northeast of Indianapolis into farm country and old automotive industrial towns in the state’s north-central region. President Donald Trump won there by 17 percentage points in 2024, and Spartz outperformed him, winning by nearly 19 points.
This isn’t Ford’s first surprise victory: The two-term state senator made history in 2018 — his second try, after a close miss in 2014 — by ousting one of the body’s most conservative members and becoming Indiana’s first out LGBTQ state lawmaker.
In an interview at his campaign headquarters in Carmel days after his latest win, Ford, 44, told CNN he beat the entire “kitchen sink” of cultural attacks because voters across the district were outraged by the cost of living what they saw as Republicans enabling corruption — and annoyed by Spartz’s poor constituent services.
And while the impact of Trump’s tariffs on the price of diesel and fertilizer are most acute in farm country, Ford said the issues voters raised were similar across the district.
“People would come up to me and say, ‘I have been a lifelong Republican, and I’m voting for you.’ That’s a badge of honor for me. And I don’t take that lightly,” Ford said.
“I talked to anybody who’d be willing to talk to me,” he said. “What I heard them say was, ‘I want someone who’s going to take my phone calls. I want someone who’s going to show up. I want someone who’s going to be pragmatic.’”
Overcoming a GOP gerrymander
Not long ago, Spartz’s seat looked winnable for Democrats. Christina Hale came close in 2020, losing by 4 points in an election in which Spartz became the first Ukrainian-born member of Congress. The next year, however, Republicans redrew the district to shed parts of Indianapolis and incorporate a large, rural swath — aiming to put the district out of Democrats’ reach with the kind of territory they struggled to win before last week.
But as early as March 2025 — two months after the start of Trump’s second term — signs that Spartz might be vulnerable began to emerge. At a town hall, she faced jeers and chants of “Do your job” when she defended the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency.
The next month, she made waves internationally when she suggested that Ukraine should cede territory to Russia to end Moscow’s invasion of her native country.
A virtually unknown candidate named Scott King, who did not raise money, received 40% of the vote against Spartz in this year’s GOP primary, as Ford emerged from a seven-way Democratic contest. In October, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted the race to “lean Republican” — an indication of a broadening Democratic playing field.
Shortly after losing last week, Spartz issued a statement blaming her loss on the changing political landscape of the Indianapolis suburbs — which have been trending in Democrats’ favor, much like suburbs across the United States, through the Trump era.
“An influx of liberal voters has turned Hamilton County, once one of the top 20 most conservative counties in the country, blue — with not enough rural Indiana voters to offset those numbers,” Spartz said. “Democrats significantly outspent us and ran a very dishonest campaign, but I urge my supporters not to get discouraged. We may not win every battle, but WE WILL WIN THE WAR!”
Though Ford made big strides in Hamilton County compared with the 2024 Democratic candidate, he also improved across the rest of the district, including double-digit percentage gains in some rural counties.
Blazing a trail
Ford is now set to become the first out LGBTQ member of Indiana’s congressional delegation. He said he recognizes the significance of the milestone and is “very proud of that.”
But he quickly added: “I don’t really boast about that … because, you know, I don’t want people to judge me on that. I want people to judge me on my heart and my work ethic and how I’m going to represent them.”
Though Ford has been a state lawmaker for eight years, the day he is sworn in to Congress will be the first time he’s in a legislative majority.
He said he “will work with anyone,” though, and he intends to be pragmatic. “If it’s a good deal for the district, I’m going to vote for it. If it’s a bad deal for them, I’m going to stand up and I’m going to fight it,” he said.
The math Ford faces in retaining his district past his first term is daunting. He is sure to be a top Republican target: Ford won by just 3 percentage points — and in 2028, with presidential-level turnout, a political environment even slightly less favorable for Democrats could doom his chances.
Ford said he believes his path to reelection runs through constituent services.
He began his political career as a college intern in Ohio, where he worked for then-state Sen. Marc Dann, and said he learned an important lesson.
Dann, like most state legislators, would shepherd to passage noncontroversial resolutions honoring constituents. Then, Ford said, Dann hand-delivered those resolutions to the constituents they honored.
“I would see how people would literally light up like a Christmas tree, because here you have someone in in your government recognizing your son for being an Eagle Scout or your anniversary or something,” Ford said.
“We live in an environment where people feel like elected officials aren’t paying attention. They don’t care. They don’t listen,” he said. “But then when you have someone show up and they’re hand-delivering something — which is what I would do — people are like, ‘OK, he’s a different kind of elected official, right?’”
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