INDIANA - SUPPORT MARLIN STUTZMAN FOR U.S. CONGRESS - THWART McCANNELL

Fellow Conservative: The establishment candidate for U.S. Senate in Indiana has a major problem. According to news reports, Congressman Todd Young (R-IN) may have failed to submit enough valid petitions to qualify for the Republican primary. To win ballot access in Indiana, candidates must get at least 500 registered voters in each congressional district to sign nominating petitions. But multiple hand counts of Young's petitions found only 498 valid signatures in Indiana's 1st Congressional District. If the Indiana elections authority finds that Young has not met the test required by state law when it meets this Friday, conservative Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) will win the Republican nomination for Senate by default. This of course is a big problem for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who has vowed to "crush" conservatives everywhere. If fact, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) issued a statement last week siding with Todd Young on the issue. This violates the committee's pledge to stay neutral in open seat primaries. If Marlin Stutzman had failed to get his signatures, there is ZERO chance that the NRSC would have sided with him. To be clear, if Todd Young has more than 500 valid signatures, he should get ballot access. But if he doesn't have the signatures, the rule of law should be upheld. It's very simple and the NRSC should stay out of it. Fifteen other Indiana candidates met this requirement, but there's good reason to believe Todd Young did not. Should there be one standard for establishment candidates and a different standard for everyone else? This not only shows a lack of competency needed to be the Republican nominee, it also shows a lack of grassroots support in the state. As much as the party bosses in DC claim to support "electable" candidates, do they really want a nominee who can't gather 500 signatures for his campaign in an entire congressional district? But this story gets worse, unfortunately. Rather than letting the election authority execute the law, NRSC chairman, Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS), argued that the failure to provide Young with ballot access would disenfranchise voters. “I would think the Democratic Party of Indiana needs to think long and hard before they go down this path of trying to deprive the voters of Indiana of legitimate choice," Wicker said. Since when did the NRSC care about depriving Republican voters of a legitimate choice? We haven't forgotten the 2014 Senate race in Mississippi. We remember when Mitch McConnell, Roger Wicker, and others supported incumbent Thad Cochran's race-baiting attacks against a conservative, which were designed to get Democrats to hijack the Republican primary. The NRSC certainly didn't care about depriving Republican voters of a legitimate choice in that race. All of this highlights the need to support Marlin Stutzman for U.S. Senate in Indiana. It's clear that the GOP establishment is backing Todd Young in this race in an effort to "crush" a conservative candidate. Please don't let Senator McConnell and the NRSC get away with this. Make a contribution to Marlin Stutzman's campaign today. Your support will help give all Indiana voters a real choice in November, not a weak echo of the Democrat candidate. Sincerely, Ken Cuccinelli II President Senate Conservatives Fund @KenCuccinelli / @SCF Share on Facebook and Twitter.