Spartz Caught in Lie While Pulling Age-Old Tactic of Failing Campaign

Victoria Spartz
Official Indiana Senate Photo

In politics, it's usually conventional wisdom that the candidate who is behind challenges the incumbent/leading candidate to a debate. If you're the incumbent or the candidate in front, a debate, conventional wisdom says, only gives the challenger a venue to hack into your lead and record.

That's where we are in the 5th District Congressional race today as Indiana state Senator Victoria Spartz challenged former Indiana state Rep. Christina Hale to three debates in a tweet.

The action took many by surprise, including me. The 5th District is an open seat in November because Susan Brooks is retiring from Congress. The Republican legislator was first elected to the seat in 2012. Her decision to not pursue election was a bit of a surprise. The district rates a +9 Republican district according to Cook Partisan Voting Index.

Makes you wonder if Spartz has some sort of damaging internal polling in her hands showing her behind Hale. While Indiana's 5th District Congressional race has recently been rated as a toss-up by many of the prognosticators who look at polling data, it's clear Spartz, the Republican nominee, believes she's behind Hale, the
Democratic nominee.

Christina Hale
Campaign Photo

That's not all. Spartz flat out lied about Hale's record while laying down the challenge. In her tweet thread, she accused Hale of being a liberal and accused her of opposing the reforms of Governors Daniels, Pence and Holcomb, but Spartz's timeline doesn't match up. Hale didn't serve with anyone other than Pence.

Hale defeated a five-term Republican incumbent named Cindy Noe by 51 votes in a then-Republican 87th District to become a member of the Indiana General Assembly. She was sworn in in January of 2013. She then was reelected to the seat in 2014 with another narrow victory over a well-funded GOP opponent. She was on her way to a third reelection in 2016 when she was asked to join John Gregg as his Lieutenant Governor candidate. She left the legislature to pursue that office.

Given the razor-thin margin of the 87th District when Hale represented it, it's laughable that Spartz, who in May just ran her first real race versus voters for elected office, would say today on Twitter that Hale has "reliably liberal" policies.

So, to review, Spartz, who was spotted just a few days ago campaigning without wearing a facemask, lied about Hale's record in the process of pulling a classic move of a failing campaign in challenging an opponent to a debate.

It's not been a good couple of weeks for Senator Spartz.