Senate District 47 covers Harrison and Washington counties and most of Floyd County in southern Indiana, along the Ohio River border with Kentucky. It is a rural-to-suburban district anchored by the western portions of New Albany, Corydon (the Harrison County seat and Indiana's first state capital), and Salem (the Washington County seat).
The district has an unusual political history. Democrat Richard Young held the seat for 26 years, from 1988 to 2014 -- one of the longest Democratic tenures in any Indiana Senate seat during the modern era. Young won his final race in 2010 by just 2.4 points. Republican Erin Houchin won the open seat in 2014 with 58.1%, then ran unopposed in 2018 before resigning in January 2022 to pursue Indiana's 9th Congressional District seat.
Both candidates are unopposed in their May 5 primaries. The general election on November 3 pits Byrne against Democrat Ethan Sweetland-May. In a district where the Republican share has held at 66-67% in the last two general elections, the outcome is not in doubt.
Gary Byrne is a seventh-generation Harrison County farmer and businessman who came to the Indiana Senate through appointment. He and his wife Angie live on the family farm in Byrneville -- a community named for his family -- where the land has been in continuous family ownership since 1806.
Two bills authored by Byrne drew statewide attention. Senate Bill 187 (2024) would have prohibited public transit agencies from offering free rides on election days. Critics called it voter suppression; the Indiana League of Women Voters president said it was "petty, and it's designed to suppress votes." The bill did not advance. Senate Bill 442 (2025) required school boards to approve all materials used to teach "human sexuality." During conference committee, Byrne removed a requirement that schools teach the importance of consent, citing "different thoughts in different communities." After significant public backlash, he reversed the decision within two days.
Byrne voted in favor of redistricting and expressed disappointment when it failed: "Our state had a huge chance to help our country at a time when we needed it most, and we missed it." Trump endorsed him on March 24, 2026.
Ethan Sweetland-May is a sanitation worker who has worked across Senate District 47 for eleven years. He brings no prior political experience and no visible institutional support, but he brings something unusual: a working-class identity that is not filtered through business ownership or civic board membership. His platform centers on affordable housing, rural broadband, declining rural hospitals, and public education support. He frames his campaign as "powered by neighbors, not corporations."
The structural challenge is plain. In 2022, the Republican won SD-47 by 33.6 points. But the margin may be informative. If Sweetland-May runs significantly closer than Katie Forte's 33.2% in 2022, it would suggest that economic populism from the left has more traction in southern Indiana than the party's recent results indicate.