Former deputy mayor to challenge city councilor for open Muncie state House seat
Former Muncie official Richard Ivy will be the Republican nominee for the Muncie area’s state representative. IPR’s Daniel Huber reports.
Audio Transcript
At a Tuesday night GOP election party, someone calls out the results for the races. “Richard Ivy at 53.22% over Randall Mcallister.”
In his victory speech, Ivy gave his thanks to Jesus Christ and those who have helped him. He says he feels good about how voters turned out.
“We’ve had trouble in the past, the Republican party taking this seat,” he said, “and I think it’s our time and our place to win this seat back and bring value back to Muncie through the state representation.”
Democrat Sue Errington has held the district 34 seat since 2012. Before her, other Democrats have held it nearly continuously for decades. Ivy says he looks forward to the challenge of trying to win the seat.
He says his experience as a deputy mayor and city council member will help him do that.
“Being a deputy mayor for four years allowed me to experience and exposing me to things, and how the money works and how to lobby for that money,” he said, “and how and who to talk to, and how to get some of that money funneled down to Muncie. And to use it wisely, and use it to the best of our ability, as far as our constituents are concerned, and what they’re looking forward to, which is expansion, jobs, and lack of increasing taxes.”
Errington is retiring and the Democrat candidate, Sara Gullion, ran unopposed in the primary.
“Me and her have no difficulty getting along in the past. So, I think it’ll be a clean race.”
Ivy says Republicans have some work to do before the fall, and if they help each other out, he thinks District 34 will soon be a GOP seat.
Daniel Huber is a news fellow with Ball State Public Media’s Public Media Accelerator student fellowships.
