(NETWORK IN) A perennial candidate for Indiana’s Libertarian Party is running for the Senate as a Republican.
Andy Horning becomes the sixth Republican pursuing the nomination to take on Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly. Candidates must collect 45-hundred signatures from registered voters by February 9 to qualify for the ballot.
Horning was the Libertarian nominee against Republican Congressman Larry Bucshon in the last two elections. He’s made seven other runs for office as a Libertarian, dating back to 1996. But Horning argues the deck is stacked against third parties, and the only way to reach voters is through the two major parties.
Horning says he’ll mount the same kind of small-government, non-interventionist foreign policy campaign he’s run before. He maintains his approach puts him in sync with the Republican platform. He argues it’s his Republican rivals who don’t follow it.
It’s Horning’s second try for the Senate. He was the Libertarian nominee against Donnelly in 2012, earning six-percent of the vote.
Horning left the Libertarians for the Republicans once before, winning the Republican nomination against Democratic Congresswoman Julia Carson in 2004. He lost that race by 10 points.