The Race
Indiana Senate District 1 covers the southern and western suburbs of Lake County in northwest Indiana -- Highland, Griffith, Schererville, St. John, Dyer, Munster, and parts of Gary, Cedar Lake, and Crown Point. [1] This is The Region: the steel-mill and auto-plant corridor south of Chicago where union households and Catholic parishes once made Lake County one of Indiana's few reliably Democratic strongholds.
That era is ending. The district was held by Democrats for more than two decades, from 1999 through 2022, including Frank Mrvan Jr., who represented it from 2010 until leaving to run for Congress. In 2022, Dan Dernulc became the first Republican elected to the seat since the Clinton administration, defeating Democratic incumbent Michael Griffin 52.3% to 47.7%. [2]
The 2024 presidential results illustrate the trend. In the SD-01 communities, Trump carried St. John by nearly 2-to-1, won Dyer and Schererville comfortably, and essentially split Highland -- a town that went for Biden by 576 votes in 2020 and then for Trump by 25 in 2024. Only Griffith and Munster still lean Democratic, and those margins shrank. [3] The district that was D+20 a decade ago is now a genuine swing seat trending Republican.
This matters for understanding the 2026 race. Dernulc holds a seat that has shifted beneath both parties' feet. He faces a three-way Republican primary on May 5, and the winner will face a Democratic general election candidate in a district where both parties can still compete.
Republican Primary
Dan Dernulc (Incumbent)
Lake County councilman turned state senator, engineer, swatting survivor
Dan Dernulc is a lifelong Highland resident, a Purdue University Northwest graduate with a bachelor's in electrical engineering technology, and a project manager in AT&T's Corporate Security Office. He served on the Highland Town Council from 2004 to 2007, then won a Lake County Council seat in 2010 by upsetting a Democratic incumbent -- a preview of the pattern he would repeat at the state level twelve years later. He won a second council term in 2014 and a third in 2018 before running for State Senate in 2022. [4]
His 2022 victory -- the first Republican win in SD-01 since 1999 -- was a genuine upset. He raised $335,756 for that campaign and ran on fiscal conservatism and law enforcement support. [2] In the Senate, he chairs no committees but serves on Environmental Affairs, Local Government, Public Policy, and Pensions and Labor. [4]
What makes Dernulc's 2026 primary analytically significant is the redistricting question. He was one of 21 Republican senators who voted against HB 1032, Trump's mid-decade congressional redistricting bill, when it failed 31-19 on December 11, 2025. [5] Trump publicly named Dernulc among nine senators who needed "encouragement" to make "the right decision." In the weeks that followed, Dernulc was swatted twice, received pipe bomb threats that alarmed his wife, and had pizzas repeatedly sent to his home as an intimidation tactic. Police stationed a squad car outside his Highland home. [6]
Dernulc issued a public statement on November 19, 2025: "I have always done my best to serve my community, be their voice, and work alongside them and my colleagues at the Statehouse to help make Indiana a great state. It is sad because of these efforts and work that I am villainized in some minds to the point of harmful retaliation." He added: "It doesn't affect the way I'm going to vote." [7]
Here is the twist: Trump did not endorse a challenger against Dernulc. On March 25, 2026, Trump issued 17 endorsement posts on Truth Social covering Indiana Senate primaries. He endorsed challengers in six races where incumbents voted against redistricting -- Holdman (SD-19), Buck (SD-21), Deery (SD-23), Goode (SD-36), Walker (SD-31), and Bassler's open seat (SD-39). But he left SD-01 alone. [8]
Why the pass? That is the open question of this race. Dernulc voted the same way as the six senators Trump targeted. He endured the same threats. Several plausible explanations exist: SD-01's competitive general-election dynamics make a bruising primary risky for Republicans; Dernulc's status as the first Republican to hold the seat in a generation may make him a less attractive target; or Trump's endorsement machine may simply have run out of bandwidth before reaching every anti-redistricting senator up for reelection. Whatever the reason, Dernulc enters the primary as the incumbent without a presidential opponent -- an advantage none of the other anti-redistricting senators facing primaries can claim.
Fundraising: In the 2022 cycle, Dernulc raised $335,756 and spent $330,822. [2] No 2026 cycle totals have been publicly reported as of this writing.
Endorsements: No major endorsements publicly documented for 2026.
Trevor De Vries
Insurance professional, Illiana Christian grad, faith-and-family conservative
Trevor De Vries is a lifelong St. John resident who works in transactional risk insurance, specializing in complex financial negotiations. He graduated from Illiana Christian High School and Purdue University, and completed the Indiana Family Institute's Hoosier Leadership Series Class of 2025 -- a leadership development program run by one of Indiana's most prominent social-conservative organizations. He and his wife Leah, whom he describes as his "junior-high sweetheart," have four daughters. [9]
He has no prior record of elected office. His campaign website (trevordv.com) positions him as an "America First conservative" running on faith, family, and freedom. His platform includes protecting parental rights, reducing government overreach, defending the Second Amendment, pro-life advocacy (he supports Right to Life and The Women's Center of Illiana), backing small businesses, and a signed U.S. Term Limits pledge. [9] [10]
De Vries is not running as a Trump-endorsed challenger. Despite the redistricting dynamics that produced challengers in six other Senate districts, neither Trump nor Turning Point Action has endorsed De Vries. [8] His candidacy appears to be organic rather than orchestrated -- a first-time candidate entering an open primary against a first-term incumbent in a district that has only recently become competitive for Republicans.
The question for De Vries is what constituency he mobilizes that Dernulc does not already serve. Both candidates are Lake County Republicans with engineering/business backgrounds, conservative platforms, and no significant ideological daylight between them. De Vries is younger, more explicitly faith-driven, and positions himself through the Indiana Family Institute's network rather than through the county party infrastructure that built Dernulc's career.
Fundraising: No publicly reported campaign finance data as of March 2026.
Endorsements: None publicly documented.
Nader Liddawi
Quantitative analyst, Lake Central High School graduate, finance professional
Nader Liddawi is the least publicly visible candidate in the field. His professional background is in quantitative finance: he works as an Analytics and Modeling Analyst at Moody's, holds an MBA, a Master of Science from DePaul University, a Master of Science from Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor of Arts from Purdue University. He graduated from Lake Central High School in the Schererville area with a Core 40 Diploma with Academic Honors. [11]
Earlier in his career, Liddawi was a Trading Associate at Peak6 operating in the options market, and before that held a customer service role at Interactive Brokers. [11]
No campaign website, platform document, endorsement list, or campaign finance filing has surfaced publicly as of March 2026. He has no documented prior political or elected experience. His candidacy was filed with the Indiana Secretary of State before the February 6, 2026 deadline, but beyond that filing, his campaign has generated essentially no public footprint.
Fundraising: No publicly reported data.
Endorsements: None documented.
General Election
Scott Houldieson (D)
Ford electrician, UAW reformer, union democracy architect
Scott Houldieson is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. If any candidate in this race has a nationally significant biography, it is Houldieson -- though not for anything he has done in Indiana politics.
Houldieson is an electrician at Ford's Chicago Assembly Plant, where he has worked since 1989 -- 36 years on the factory floor. He lives in Highland with his wife Vicky; they have six children (two adopted) and 13 grandchildren. His father worked at the Ford stamping plant in Chicago Heights. [12] [13]
His significance comes from his role in reforming the United Auto Workers. In 2019, after a corruption scandal that sent multiple UAW leaders to prison for accepting bribes from automakers in exchange for concessionary contracts, Houldieson co-founded Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), an anti-corruption reform caucus. He chaired its steering committee. Under his leadership, UAWD successfully campaigned for a referendum on direct election of international UAW officers -- meaning rank-and-file members, not convention delegates, would choose union leadership. The referendum passed by a 2-to-1 margin in December 2021. [13]
Houldieson then helped recruit a slate of candidates to run under the UAWD banner, including Shawn Fain for president. In the first-ever direct election in 2023, the reform slate won a majority of the UAW's international board. Fain went on to lead the "Stand Up Strike" against all three major automakers simultaneously, winning record contracts with 25% wage increases and reversing many Great Recession-era concessions. [12] [13]
Houldieson himself served as Vice President of UAW Local 551 for one-and-a-half terms and as Financial Secretary. He continues to chair UAWD's steering committee nationally. [13]
His campaign for SD-01 focuses on what he calls "kitchen table sensibility": affordability, property tax burdens, infrastructure, environmental protection, healthcare access, and the question "Who is government really working for?" [14] The Indiana Democratic Party has promoted his candidacy, describing him as a "Lake County native raised in Griffith, residing in Highland for 25 years." [15]
Fundraising: No publicly reported campaign finance data as of March 2026.
Endorsements: Indiana Democratic Party support. No other formal endorsements documented.
Why It Matters
Senate District 1 is a race with more analytical layers than the candidate count suggests.
The redistricting orphan. Dernulc voted against Trump's redistricting bill, endured swatting and bomb threats for it, and then watched Trump endorse challengers in six other anti-redistricting districts while skipping his. That omission is the most interesting fact in this race. It suggests the Trump endorsement operation recognized something about SD-01's competitive general-election dynamics that made a punitive primary too risky. If Trump's chosen challenger won the primary but lost the general, it would hand Democrats a seat they desperately need to chip at the Republican supermajority. Dernulc is not immune to primary challenge -- he has two opponents -- but he faces them without the weight of a presidential endorsement against him.
The swing district. SD-01 is one of the few Indiana Senate seats where Democrats are genuinely competitive. The 2022 result was a 4.6-point Republican win in a district Democrats held for 23 years. The 2024 presidential results show the district trending rightward, with Highland itself flipping from Biden to Trump. But margins matter. A bruised Republican nominee emerging from a contentious primary could give Houldieson an opening that a unified party would not.
The reformer in the general. Houldieson's biography is unusual for a state senate candidate. He is not a party operative or a political professional. He is a factory electrician who helped overthrow a corrupt union leadership and install the team that won the most consequential auto industry labor victory in a generation. In a district built by industrial workers, that story has resonance -- if he can tell it to voters who have been moving away from Democrats at every level. The question is whether a labor reformer can outrun the rightward trend in a district where Trump gained ground even in traditionally Democratic towns.
The dark horse question. Neither De Vries nor Liddawi has a documented endorsement, significant fundraising, or prior elected experience. In typical state legislative primaries, such candidates serve as protest votes rather than serious contenders. But in a three-way primary with a first-term incumbent who antagonized the national party, even modest vote-splitting could matter. If De Vries and Liddawi together pull 35-40% of the Republican primary vote, it signals dissatisfaction with Dernulc even without a Trump-endorsed challenger to channel it.
The May 5 primary will answer whether Dernulc's anti-redistricting vote costs him among Republican primary voters who lack a presidential signal telling them to punish him -- and whether SD-01 remains competitive enough to give a union Democrat a serious chance in November.