The Democratic Party hasn’t held Indiana’s 6th Congressional District since the 1970s.
A pair of candidates hope to wrest control of the seat this fall, but first, they have to emerge out of the Democratic primary election.
George T. Holland and Cynthia “Cinde” Wirth face one another in the May primary. The two candidates, each of whom have run for state and national offices in the past, tout their goals of supporting middle- and working-class residents.
Holland is running on an anti-war platform, and would work to refocus money and resources to internal issues as opposed to policing the world.
“Look at the element of human suffering. Look at the cost,” he said. “Look at our national debt. This debt is going to kill us.”
For Wirth, her background and experience make her best suited for the office.
“Working in science and owning small businesses gives me an edge, where maybe I have a little bit better understanding of different areas and why they’re all important,” she said. “And I have policy experience, having written policy on more than one occasion. I have sat and listened to people talk, and come up with policy solutions to those problems people are having.”
The winner between the two will face the Republican candidate — either incumbent Greg Pence or James Dean Alspach — in the race to represent the newly redrawn district.
Indiana’s 6th Congressional District was recently redrawn following the 2020 Census, and will include the entirety of Johnson County this election. Previously, Johnson County was part of the 9th District, currently represented by Trey Hollingsworth.
In addition to Johnson County, the 6th District includes much of eastern Central Indiana, including Columbus, Rushville, New Castle and parts of Indianapolis.
‘Working people have to take control’
Holland, a U.S. Air Force veteran, is running on a campaign of peace and removing the United States from foreign entanglements.
He served four years in active duty in the Air Force, including serving in NATO from 1952 to 1954, and four years as an inactive reserve. Now, Holland is a member of Veterans for Peace.
“I’m a working-class kid, and I believed in Vietnam until I talked to Vietnam veterans who came back, and learned a lot of what I thought was a lie,” he said. “My feeling is when you send kids, particularly working-class kids, to go over and die for a lie, that’s not just corrupt, that’s criminal.”
Through the organization, Holland has traveled to Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua as part of the organization. He participated in several peaceful anti-war events in Indianapolis prior to the Iraq War, and traveled to Washington D.C. to protest the war and invasion of Iraq.
“There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” he said. “Twenty years later, and look where we are.”
He has run for the 6th District seat twice previously — in 1988 as the Democratic nominee, and in 2008 as a Libertarian candidate.
His time with NATO has convinced him that the United States needs to lead the organization, particularly now that the invasion of Ukraine threatens to pull NATO into a larger war.
“NATO is a ‘scam’ upon the American people. Get out of NATO and Ukraine. These monies should be spent on problems here at home, not contrived wars,” he said.
Holland also would like to see the country end its entanglements with Israel and the Middle East. He proposed using the billions of dollars in aid provided to Israel for the diagnosis, care and treatment of people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. Holland’s wife of 59 years, Janice, died from Alzheimer’s disease in 2017.
“We have real problems here at home, and when it all collapses, you’re going to have a lot of people hurting,” he said.
Another priority is to cut defense spending and address the country’s staggering national debt. Politicians, especially Democrats, have lost touch with the needs and challenges facing the United States, he said.
Now is the time to refocus.
“Working people have to take control of the Democratic party,” Holland said.
‘Everything I’ve learned back into action’
Wirth, a Columbus resident, points to her time in education as the impetus to serving in politics. As a high school science teacher for 10 years, she struggled to talk to students about the decisions leaders were making — decisions that would impact their future.
“In the course of teaching environmental science and biology, I was watching what was going on at the national level and trying to explain that to seniors in high school, and I couldn’t,” she said. “What came out of one of my senior environmental science classes was, ‘Can’t you do something about this, Mrs. Wirth?’”
That challenge led Wirth to investigate politics and policy issues unfolding in Indiana. Her research opened the door to apply for Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship in Washington D.C. for math and science teachers. She started working on Capitol Hill.
Through the fellowship, she helped write legislation that created a monument to the 19th Amendment in Washington D.C.
“I learned how policy works, what the steps are, all of the ins and outs and what it goes through, the difficulties of getting things done in a bipartisan manner,” she said. “I just sort of realized I was there for a reason. Indiana needs change, and I want to put everything I’ve learned back into action for Hoosiers.”
Wirth previously ran to represent District 59 in the Indiana House of Representatives in the 2020 primary. She later ran for Indiana State Senate in District 44 in the general election that fall.
She set her sights on the 6th District in early February.
Her campaign is focused primarily on health care and ensuring Indiana residents have access to the care they need. She points to the difficulty many people have in getting to a doctor in the first place.
“We have people in rural areas, and in areas that actually are not so rural, just a little farther from a large area, that have lost health care options,” she said. “What we’re seeing happen is impacting people in a way that speaks to transportation issues, it speaks to quality-of-life issues, it speaks to overall decline of general health.”
Wirth also is concerned about people’s access to health insurance, particularly in light of the quality of that insurance if they lose their jobs. She takes issue with the proliferation of people using crowdsourcing to pay for bills that should be covered by insurance.
“GoFundMe is not a solution for health care,” she said. “It’s unfathomable that in the United States we have people begging for money to pay health care bills.”
Other issues Wirth is focused on is ensuring that jobs created in Indiana pay workers a liveable wage, and to improve the state’s air quality.
“That impacts breathing on a scale from infants to our very most mature citizens, and detracts from our quality of life here, completely,” she said.
