The Race
Senate District 26 is not one of the redistricting revenge races. There is no dissident senator being punished, no dark-money air war, no Oval Office meeting for the challenger. What SD-26 offers instead is a quiet case study in what a Trump endorsement means when there is nothing at stake -- when an incumbent who did exactly what the president wanted gets the presidential stamp anyway, and his underdog opponent comes back for a second try with a different last name and the same $689 budget.
The district covers all of Delaware and Randolph counties in east central Indiana. Muncie, the county seat of Delaware County and home to Ball State University, is the population center. The district was created by the 2021 redistricting cycle as an open seat -- one of four new districts with no sitting senator in the boundaries. [1] Scott Alexander won it in 2022. Katherine Kritsch lost it. Now they are doing it again.
The 2022 Rematch
In 2022, SD-26 was a brand-new district. No incumbent, no history, no advantage of office. Two Republicans filed for the open seat: Delaware County Council President Scott Alexander and cosmetologist Katherine "Kat" Kritsch. [2]
The result was not close. Alexander won the primary with 64% of the vote to Kritsch's 36%. The fundraising gap told the story before the ballots were counted: Alexander raised $34,605; Kritsch raised $689. [3] Alexander had the endorsement of the outgoing senator, Mike Gaskill, who had advised him to run. He had the name recognition that comes from serving as president of the Delaware County Council. He had the institutional support of the Senate Majority Campaign Committee, which provided tens of thousands in in-kind contributions for the general election. [4]
Kritsch had a personal story and a platform that did not fit the Republican primary template. She is secretary of the Indiana chapter of NORML, the marijuana reform organization, and ran on legalizing medical cannabis -- a position with broad popular support but limited traction in an Indiana Republican primary. She also ran on government spending cuts, government transparency, and helping veterans. But her defining issue was personal: she lost a son to a fentanyl overdose in 2017, and was motivated to run by what she described as the failure of elected officials to address drug deaths in Indiana. [5]
Alexander went on to beat Democrat Melanie Wright -- a former state representative from House District 35 -- with 61% of the vote in the general election. Approximately $300,000 was raised in total to elect him to the seat. [4]
Republican Primary
Scott Alexander (Incumbent)
Scott Alexander is a certified real estate appraiser from Muncie who owns Alexander & Company Real Estate Appraisers Inc. He graduated from Delta High School in 1984 and attended Vincennes University and Ball State University. Before his Senate career, he served as president of the Delaware County Council. He and his wife Valerie live in Delaware County and have two children. [2]
In the Senate, Alexander sits on the Agriculture, Judiciary, Natural Resources, and Pensions & Labor committees. His professional background as an appraiser gives him a natural policy lane on property tax issues, and he has leaned into it: he supported legislation making the property-tax appeals process more taxpayer-friendly -- a law ensuring that if a homeowner appeals their assessment, the assessed value cannot increase as a result -- and backed the broader SB-1 property tax reform package that passed in 2025. [6]
His voting record is 99.7% for the 2026 legislative session. [6]
On redistricting, Alexander was a loyalist. On October 24, 2025, he issued a public statement supporting efforts to redistrict Indiana's congressional districts: "President Trump and our conservative majorities are delivering real results to improve the lives of Hoosiers and strengthen our country. We cannot sit on the sidelines while the Democrats continue to gerrymander and deny Americans fair representation in Washington D.C. The time to take action is now." [7] He was among the 19 senators who voted in favor of HB 1032 when the bill failed 31-19 on December 11, 2025. [8]
That loyalty was rewarded on March 25, 2026, when Trump posted one of 17 endorsements for Indiana Senate Republicans. Trump called Alexander "a Successful Entrepreneur and Civic Leader" and gave him his "Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election." [9] Alexander was one of nine senators endorsed who supported redistricting but face no serious primary opposition -- as distinct from the six challengers Trump endorsed against incumbent senators who voted against the bill. [10]
Katherine Nunley-Kritsch (Challenger)
Katherine Nunley-Kritsch is the same Katherine "Kat" Kritsch who lost to Alexander in 2022, now running under an expanded name. She is a cosmetologist who operates Beautiful Disaster studio inside The Bash on Mulberry Street in Muncie and also works at Hairlooms in Winchester. Before becoming a cosmetologist in 2019, she worked as a respiratory therapist, giving her an inside perspective on healthcare pricing. She volunteers as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) in Randolph County, advocating for children in the court system. [5]
Her platform is built on the same foundations as 2022: medical marijuana legalization, government spending reduction, government transparency, veterans' support, and the opioid crisis. She remains secretary of the Indiana chapter of NORML. Her position on cannabis reform is grounded in personal tragedy -- she lost a son to fentanyl in 2017 and has argued that marijuana legalization is part of a broader harm-reduction strategy. [5]
The fundamental challenge for Nunley-Kritsch is the same one she faced in 2022: a platform built around cannabis reform in a Republican primary in a conservative district. Medical marijuana has broad public support in polling -- even in red states -- but Republican primary voters in east-central Indiana have not historically rewarded candidates who lead with that issue. The $689 she raised in 2022 suggests minimal institutional support, and nothing in public reporting indicates that dynamic has changed for 2026.
What has changed is the political environment. Alexander now carries a Trump endorsement, which in 2022 he did not. The redistricting fight has nationalized even local Indiana Senate races. And Nunley-Kritsch is running against a known quantity -- an incumbent with a legislative record -- rather than against a fellow first-time candidate. Whether any of that helps or hurts her is unclear, but the structural disadvantages she faced in 2022 appear to have deepened.
General Election
Andrew Dale (Democrat)
Andrew Dale is the chairman of the Delaware County Democratic Party, a position he assumed in March 2025. He is a fourth-generation Munsonian -- his great-grandfather, George R. Dale, served as mayor of Muncie and is remembered for fighting municipal corruption and the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and 1930s. [11]
Dale's professional background is in municipal government. He served as Community Development Director under Muncie mayors David Dominick and Dan Canan, and later as Director of Community Affairs and Director of Economic Development for the City of York, Pennsylvania. He has served on the Muncie Redevelopment Commission and the Muncie Fire Merit Commission. [11]
Dale is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. In a district where Alexander won the 2022 general with 61% of the vote, and where Trump carried Indiana by nearly 19 points in 2024, the general election is not expected to be competitive. [4] But Dale brings a more serious profile than a placeholder candidate -- his municipal government experience and family legacy in Muncie give him a foundation for a credible, if uphill, campaign.
Why It Matters
SD-26 is instructive precisely because nothing dramatic is happening here. Alexander is a reliable conservative incumbent who supported Trump's redistricting push, got a presidential endorsement, and is running for re-election with the full institutional weight of the Indiana Senate Republican caucus behind him. His challenger is a grassroots candidate with a personal-tragedy-driven platform and minimal fundraising, trying for the second time.
The race matters for three reasons.
First, it shows what a Trump endorsement looks like when it is not a weapon. In the five revenge races -- where Trump endorsed challengers against senators who voted against redistricting -- the endorsement carries the charge of punishment. In SD-26, it is a loyalty badge. Alexander did what Trump asked. Trump said thank you. The endorsement's value here is not in moving votes (Alexander would likely win regardless) but in signaling to other legislators what compliance gets you.
Second, Nunley-Kritsch's persistence is notable. Running for the same seat twice, against the same opponent, with minimal institutional support, on a platform that includes marijuana reform in a Republican primary -- this is not the behavior of a vanity candidate. CASA volunteers, former respiratory therapists who lost children to fentanyl, and NORML chapter secretaries do not typically run for state senate in Indiana. Twice. Whatever her electoral prospects, the candidacy itself says something about what issues the Republican Party's official platform does not make room for.
Third, Andrew Dale's candidacy represents something the Democrats rarely bother with in districts like this: a candidate with actual municipal governance experience and a family name with local resonance. He is unlikely to win, but his presence on the ballot -- and his profile -- suggests the Delaware County Democrats are at least trying to build a bench in hostile territory rather than conceding the seat entirely.
The May 5 Republican primary will almost certainly end the way it ended in 2022: Alexander with a comfortable win, Kritsch with a protest vote. But the race is a useful control case -- a measure of what Indiana state senate primaries look like when the redistricting drama, the dark money, and the presidential threats are absent, and all that remains is two people with different ideas about what the Republican Party should care about.