Indiana Republican Targeted By Pro-Israel Groups Loses Primary

Former Rep. John Hostettler fell short on Tuesday in his bid for the Republican nomination in Indiana’s 8th Congressional District, after facing a massive spending disadvantage fueled in part by pro-Israel super PACs that had accused him of antisemitism.

State Sen. Mark Messmer, a conservative businessman who heavily outraised Hostettler, won the primary and is the prohibitive favorite to win the heavily Republican seat in southwestern Indiana come November.

In addition to out-fundraising Hostettler by a nearly 19-to-1 margin , Messmer received super PAC support totaling $5.1 million , compared to less than $800,000 in super PAC money for Hostettler.

Hostettler’s defeat marked a victory not only for proponents of U.S. aid to Israel, who made Hostettler their first Republican target in many years, but also for traditional Republican foreign-policy hawks eager to dispatch a committed anti-interventionist.

Messmer and Hostettler both profess their loyalty to former President Donald Trump, as well as opposition to illegal immigration and the policies of President Joe Biden. But Hostettler’s allies also touted his opposition to U.S. foreign aid, including to help the Ukrainian war effort.

“It’s a little emblematic of the Republican Party as a whole, in that we’re sort of beyond whether Trump and MAGA control the party — they do,” Joshua Claybourn, a Republican attorney and political commentator in Indiana, told HuffPost on Monday. “It’s just what aspects of Trumpism come out the most in the candidate.”

Claybourn nonetheless believed that Hostettler, whose brother-in-law Jeffrey Knight is a major GOP fundraiser, could have managed to raise more than the $41,000 he brought in as of mid-April. Hostettler’s fundraising during