Jacob Stewart - IndyStar

06/13/2026

Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales says noncitizens “with the right qualifications” absolutely should be hired by the state.

Morales hired noncitizen Elina Kupce to a chief of staff role despite her apparently never working in government and lacking similar educational credentials to other chiefs of staff in state government.

06/13/2026

Secretary of State Diego Morales angrily answers a question about his “economic development” trip to India at an event for Republican delegates.

06/13/2026

Olorin Consulting, which is connected to Stephen Graves, is sending out a text to Republican delegates trying to smear Indiana Secretary of State candidate Max Engling.

It appears to include an AI image of Engling without the disclosure required under Indiana law.

“If a campaign communication includes fabricated media depicting a candidate, the person that paid for the campaign communication must include a disclaimer, separate from the disclaimer required under IC 3-9-3-2.5 (d), that meets the following requirements:
(1) The disclaimer must state: "Elements of this media have been digitally altered or artificially generated."

Graves also works with Gotham which has done polling for the Morales campaign.

He was formerly suspended from the New York City Board of Elections in 2012 after he was allegedly caught on tape soliciting a $25,000 “finder’s fee” from a company competing for a $65 million contract in 2009, according to The New York Post. He also formerly held a role at the Bank of China.

Not exactly the guy you want to be running cover for your Secretary of State campaign.

Graves’ longer substack dismissed a lot of the scandals around Morales and called him a “known quantity.”

06/12/2026

Keep up with the severe weather/tornado warnings around Indianapolis:

Strong storms with gusty winds and potential for flooding are moving across Indiana tonight prompting active tornado warnings.

06/11/2026

State Treasurer Daniel Elliott is speaking at an event that is calling for Gov. Braun to take the Office of Faith Based Initiatives from Lt. Gov. Beckwith and give it to the Indiana Civil Rights Commission.

Indianapolis mayoral candidate Vop Osili and State Sen. Greg Walker are two other notables in attendance.

06/11/2026

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is often ridiculed by conservatives for looking to fix a food desert with a city-run grocery store.

What if I told you a small Indiana city figured out how to solve that same issue by making the market *more free* using *better* economic development?

All while building local wealth rather than siphoning it away through higher taxes or corporate welfare.

Read my latest for IndyStar below.

06/09/2026

The death penalty should be as public as possible.

Excluding journalists is exactly contrary to the point and just goes to show how much we’ve tried to sanitize and hide what goes on during lethal injection - as if it were a medical procedure.

News flash: the death penalty isn’t “humane,” it doesn’t rehabilitate anyone and it doesn’t prevent crime - at least as currently practiced.

The whole point is to enact justice on behalf of the victim, their family and society.

That’s incredibly important.

The state of Indiana resumed executing convicted people on death row for the first time in 15 years in December 2024.

06/09/2026

I’m celebrating one year at IndyStar today. It’s been a blast! Truly a privilege to work with such great people & to promote discussion on the issues that matter most to our city and state.

Big thanks to James Briggs, it’s been a pleasure working with you for the past year. I’ve learned a lot!

06/08/2026

A majority of Purdue's freshman class is from out of state. That's making college more expensive for the Hoosiers it's supposed to serve.

06/08/2026

Purdue should limit enrollment of out-of-state and international students.

You might ask: don’t they subsidize the tuition freeze by paying more?

Maybe. But they also raise costs for locals in a myriad of other ways, and helped prompt a housing crisis.

Indiana universities exist to serve Indiana residents. There are better ways to do that.