Indiana gubernatorial election, 1988
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The 1988 Indiana gubernatorial Election was held on November 8, 1988 in all 92 counties in the state of Indiana. Incumbent Governor Robert D. Orr, a Republican, was ineligible to run for a third consecutive term due to term limits set forth in the Indiana Constitution. In the general election, the Republican nominee, Lieutenant Governor John Mutz, was defeated by Democrat Indiana Secretary of State Evan Bayh by a margin of six percentage points. Bayh was the first Democrat to be elected Governor of Indiana since Roger D. Branigin's victory during the 1964 Democratic landslides twenty-four years previously.
While the Republicans controlled the governor's mansion going into the 1988 elections, they were unable to nominate the incumbent governor, Robert D. Orr, due to term limits set in place by the Indiana Constitution. With Orr out of the running, the obvious choice to succeed him was his lieutenant governor, John Mutz. Mutz did not face a challenger for the nomination, and consequently rolled up 393,595 votes in the 1988 Republican primary election, a total that was nevertheless a little less than 100,000 votes fewer than his Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Evan Bayh, received in a three-way race for the Democratic nomination.
While the Republican primary was a pacific coronation of Mutz, the contest for the Democratic nomination was anything but. Three candidates initially contested the nomination: Evan Bayh, the incumbent Secretary of State of Indiana and son of former U.S. Senator Birch Bayh; Steve Daily, then-mayor of Kokomo; and Frank O'Bannon, a member of the Indiana State Senate. From the outset, Bayh was seen as the front runner in the race, and O'Bannon would eventually bow out to accept Bayh's offer to run for Lieutenant Governor, leaving Daily as the only challenger to the young politician who was being called "Indiana's Democratic boy wonder".
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