Momentum is on the side of Richard Mourdock in the race for the GOP Senate nomination.  A new poll shows suggests

The Howey/DePauw poll shows Richard Mourdock with a 10-point lead, 48% to 38%, a lead that appears insurmountable.

“I would say I respect the poll,” said Lugar when asked to react to the numbers.  He made it clear, however, he’s not giving up.  “Mr. Mourdock simply is unqualified to handle the complex situations in our world today, foreign policy or complex economic problems,” said Lugar.

“That’s sad to hear,” said Mourdock when told of Lugar’s comments. “I have great respect for Mr. Lugar but he’s acting like a person who’s been in office 36 years and has a sense of entitlement to office and that’s not the way our system works.”

And the voters seem to agree.  Lugar held a small lead, 42% to 37%, in the same poll four weeks ago but in the time since negative attacks that suggest he is out of touch have turned the tide against him.

It has Mourdock looking to November.  “I hope, should we win on Tuesday,” he said, “that Mr. Lugar would support us.”  Lugar won’t say if he will support Mourdock if it goes the other way.

What the poll tells you is that Tuesday’s vote will be a referendum on Lugar.  Almost a quarter of the voters surveyed who said they support Mourdock said the biggest reason is that Lugar has been in office too long.  10 of the top 11 reasons given were anti-Lugar.

Tea Party challenger Richard Mourdock has a big lead over incumbent Dick Lugar in the Indiana GOP Senate primary according to a new poll.  The Howey/DePauw Indiana Battleground Poll gives Mourdock a 10 point margin, 48%-38%.  4 weeks ago the same poll showed Lugar with a small lead, 42%-37%.

The poll is a joint project by Democratic pollster Fred Yang and Republican pollster Christine Matthews, both respected national figures who have done extensive work for Indiana politicians.

The finding suggests that Dick Lugar’s 36 year run in the Senate is about to end.  The 80-year-old Lugar is running for a 7th term and is under fire, accused of being out of touch with Indiana, and too willing to engage in bi-partisan cooperation with Democrats.

The Mourdock campaign previously released internal polling results that showed its candidate ahead but by a much smaller margin.

Senator Lugar is meeting with reporters at 11 a.m.  Mourdock is campaigning in northern Indiana.

We’ll do primary predictions on Indiana Week in Review today.  Here are the other topics:

• Lugar vs. Mourdock
• Super PACs in the 5th District Congressional race
• Daniels endorsement in Fishers House race
• Joe Biden in Lake County
• More misplaced money

Governor Mitch Daniels endorsed Luke Messer today in Messer’s bid to succeed Mike Pence in Congress.  The 6th District Republican is the only Congressional candidate to receive a Daniels endorsement in the May primary.  The governor called Messer a “strong and thoughtful leader.”
Messer is a former state lawmaker who also served as executive director of the state GOP.

Super PACs have been spending millions of dollars in the Indiana Senate primary but Super PAC spending has just begun in the 5th district Congressional race.  2 outside groups are trying to influence the voters there.

Susan Brooks was unaware of a Super PAC ad in support of opponent David McIntosh until we brought it to her attention.  The ad from the Campaign for Primary Accountability PAC based in Texas says, in part, “David McIntosh.  Principled and proven.”

The McIntosh campaign declined comment on the ad but Brooks says she’s against Super PACs.  “They have an opportunity to influence voters about a race without the candidate’s input,” she said. “I don’t like that because it’s unclear as to who the people are, what their motives are.”

Yet Brooks is also benefitting from a Super PAC.  Mailers attacking McIntosh encourage voters to support Brooks instead they say “”Washington is broken,”  while a Brooks campaign mailer says “Congress is broken…”  The source is the Citizens for a Working America PAC based in Ohio.  It even quotes New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in comments made at a Brooks fundraiser.

“But I don’t have a problem with the message,” Brooks says, “because I believe the message is true and I think that the voters in the 5th deserve the truth.”  Brooks says she first learned about it when it arrived her home mailbox.

The Super PAC supporting McIntosh is based in Texas but it has some high profile donors from Indiana including former state GOP chairmen Al Hubbard and Jim Kittle.  They have also made maximum contributions to the McIntosh campaign.

There a shakeup coming in the Mayor’s office.
Chief of Staff Chris Cotterill is leaving to return to the private sector.
Ryan Vaughn is stepping down from his seat on the City County Council to replace Cotterill.
Look for the Mayor Greg Ballard to make a formal announcement this afternoon.

Mitch Daniels has an approval rating over 60%.  Among Republican primary voters, it’s even higher, yet the governor’s approach is a key issue in a Hamilton county Republican primary battle where he has endorsed Todd Huston.

Huston is running for a seat in the state House of Representatives.  He is former top aide to State School Superintendent Tony Bennett and plays up his connections.  “Former treasurer of the state Republican Party, working closely with the governor and with Tony,” he says.

Debbie Driskell is running against Huston and she readily acknowledges that she’s been at odds with the governor.  Union workers and teachers appear in her ad.  She tells voters that she supports the right to work bill passed by Republicans and signed by the governor, but points to Statehouse rallies and says it wasn’t handled properly.

Her biggest contributions come from unions.  “The side against right to work doesn’t feel that they were heard and understood,” says Driskell, “and I’m compassionate to that.”

“My opponent’s campaign, you look around and go, these are the people who have been the most ardent opposition to Governor Daniels and the Republican agenda over the last 8 years,” says Huston.  He’d love to have the race become a referendum on the governor.

Debbie Driskell, meantime, has fought the governor before and won.  She’s a township trustee who has led successful battles against local government reform.

No matter which candidate wins the primary, Republicans are likely to win the seat in November.

Just 8 days remain in the roughest Indiana Senate primary in modern history and the candidates were busy today.  Richard Mourdock got more outside help while Dick Lugar hit the road.  Mourdock is happy to make it a referendum on Dick Lugar while Lugar is trying to change the subject.

Mourdock received his latest endorsement form a national group, this one from a political action committee in support of term limits.  Lugar’s pursuit of a 7th term makes him an easy target for them.  “It’s a class issue,” says Philip Blumel of the Term Limits America PAC.  “It’s an issue of people versus power.”

It adds to a long list of outside endorsements for Mourdock including one from Sarah Palin.  “I think it’s fascinating that we have John McCain on one side and Sarah Palin on the other,” he says.  “It really does define this as being that fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party.”

Lugar, meantime was in South Bend sticking to the issues.  In this case, his call for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.  “Because there’s a shortage of oil in this country,” said Lugar.  “We don’t produce enough in this country.  Canada is a friendly country offering us 20,000 new jobs, a $7 billion investment, 500 million barrels a day.  Of course it’s something we need to have.”

Lugar argues that Hoosiers will decide this race and his biggest endorsement is from Mitch Daniels, who appears in a second Lugar TV ad.  “We’re lucky to have Dick Lugar,” he says in the ad, “and we need to keep him.”

Mitch Daniels is not about to condemn Mourdock, however.  “They’re two good people,” he said today, “friends and allies both.”  Daniels says he will support the winner of the primary whether it’s Lugar or Mourdock.

There’s another case of misplaced money in state government and the state Auditor issued an apology today.

The office of State Auditor Tim Berry recently disclosed mistakes of more than $500,000 in the distribution of auto excise tax money to counties.  Berry sent out an e-mail to county auditors around the state with a subject line that reads “Apologies.”

Berry is taking the rap for mistakes that led some counties to receive too much money in the April distribution and others too little.  It follows two software mistakes in the Department of Revenue that resulted in more than half a billion dollars being discovered in the wrong accounts.

In the e-mail Berry tells auditors that “controls failed in this circumstance.  “As a result,” he says, “we have modified these controls.”

Governor Mitch Daniels addressed the matter by saying, “No government that ever was was 100% perfect and that’s why we build systems to catch problems and fix them as fast as we can.”

“The good news,” Daniels said, “is there’s lots of money these days to keep track of and we’re gonna make sure it all gets in the right bag, all the beans get in the right bag, very quickly.”

Democrats, meantime, say the executive branch needs more oversight.  State Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson is calling for more checks and balances and an audit that would include what she calls “process analysis” so that future problems can be avoided.  She says taxpayers deserve better.

David McIntosh is under attack in his bid to return to Congress.  However, his opponents are using mail pieces rather than TV ads to launch those attacks.

One of the mailers going out in the 5th District show David McIntosh in the shadows as they suggest he’s not fit to represent Indiana in Congress because he lives in Virginia.  It comes from the John McGoff campaign.  Why not use TV instead?  “On TV you can come across very negative,” says McGoff campaign manager Lou Quinto.  McGoff’s TV ads are entirely positive, telling voters to support him with no suggestion that they should oppose someone else.

Susan Brooks has a backhanded compliment in her TV ads.  “I’m running against some good guys,” she says, “but they’re career politicians.”  But that’s nothing like the message in her campaign mailers.  They suggest that David McIntosh sold his values working as a lobbyist.

Both campaigns defend the messages in their mail pieces.  “We don’t think we distorted any truth,” says Quinto.  “He (McIntosh) lives in Washington.  He works in Washington.  His children go to school  in Washington. He’s been living in Washington.   He’s not an Indiana resident and so that’s the basis behind that mailer.”

And the mailer is targeted.  It only goes to voters in the 5th District.

The Susan Brooks campaign declined an interview request for this story.  But one thing you can draw from the strategies here is that McIntosh is in the lead and, if he loses, it will be because the mailers worked.