Mike Braun

Braun was born in Jasper, Indiana, on March 24, 1954. He graduated from Jasper High School. He attended the all-male Wabash College, where he was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics, and Harvard Business School, where he earned a Master of Business Administration. After graduating from Harvard, Braun moved back to Indiana and joined his wife's family business manufacturing truck bodies for farmers. The business subsequently grew from 15 employees to more than 300. In 1986, Braun and Daryl Rauscher acquired Meyer Body Inc., a manufacturer of truck bodies and distributor of truck parts and equipment. Braun fully acquired the company in 1995 and renamed it Meyer Distributing in 1999. Braun is its president and CEO. In 2018, Braun's personal finance disclosure listed assets worth between $35 million and $96 million. == Early political career ==

Braun was formerly registered as a member of the Democratic Party, but switched to the Republican Party in 2012. He said that he has always considered himself a conservative Republican, but voted in Democratic primaries for years because his home county, Dubois County, historically voted heavily Democratic downballot. According to Braun, until a massive Republican wave in 2016, even Republican-leaning voters voted in the Democratic primary to have a say in local elections. He was a member of the Jasper School Board from 2004 to 2014. == Indiana State Representative ==

In 2014, Braun was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives, in the 63rd district. In July 2018, Braun called for the Indiana attorney general, Republican Curtis Hill, to resign amid allegations that Hill had drunkenly groped a lawmaker and three legislative staffers. ==U.S. Senate==

2018 election Braun won the Republican primary for the United States Senate in the 2018 election, defeating U.S. representatives Todd Rokita and Luke Messer by over 56,000 votes. He received 208,520 votes, or roughly 41% of the total. He defeated Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly in the November general election with 51% of the vote to Donnelly's 45%; the Libertarian candidate, Lucy Brenton, tallied less than 4%. In late 2019, the Indianapolis Star reported that Braun's 2018 campaign was the beneficiary of $2.8 million in spending by a political action committee with strong connections to indicted money launderer Lev Parnas and one of his shell companies. Parnas supplied photographs of him and Braun embracing at a 2018 campaign event to the House of Representatives as part of his cooperation with the impeachment of President Trump. They were made public in January 2020. In May 2019, Braun was one of eight senators who voted against a $19.1 billion emergency aid package for states and territories that endured hurricanes, floods and fires. Braun said the disaster assistance process was "just another path for runaway spending on unrelated projects." Despite his opposition, the package was enacted with bipartisan support and President Trump's approval. Braun supported Trump's decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria in October 2019. As a result, in that month, Turkey launched a military offensive against the American-allied Kurds in that area. After that, Braun called Trump "smart"; questioned why the U.S. should "be in the crossfire" between Turkey and the Kurds; and called the idea that ISIS would recover strength as a result of the conflict "an assumption". In December 2019, Braun said that the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump had been a "disaster for Democrats." In May 2020, Senator Chuck Schumer put forth a resolution to officially release the guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on how to safely lift restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. A leaked version of the guidance showed that it was more detailed and restrictive than the White House recommendations released in April 2020. Braun blocked Schumer's resolution, saying that the CDC's recommendations would hinder the economy. On October 26, 2020, Braun voted to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and praised Barrett. After Joe Biden defeated Trump in the November 2020 election, Braun refused to acknowledge Trump's defeat and promoted Trump's false claims of election fraud. Along with 10 other sitting and incoming Republican senators, Braun announced on January 2, 2021, that he would vote against counting the electoral votes from a number of states won by Biden four days later, seeking to subvert the election outcome. The South Bend Tribune called Braun's flip-flop "a case of too little, too late." The Democratic Party of Indiana called for Braun's resignation, saying he "incited violence to overturn the presidential election and end American democracy." In 2022, it was reported that rather than seeking reelection to the Senate, Braun would run for governor of Indiana in 2024. Incumbent Republican governor Eric Holcomb was term-limited. Committee assignments For the 118th United States Congress, Braun was named to four Senate committees: • Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry • Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics, and Research (Ranking) • Subcommittee on Rural Development and Energy • Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions • Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety (Ranking) • Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security • Committee on the Budget • • Special Committee on Aging (Ranking) Caucus membership • Senate Republican Conference • Congressional Coalition on Adoption • Rare Disease Caucus == Governor of Indiana (2025–present) ==

Elections 2024 On November 30, 2022, Braun filed papers with the Secretary of State of Indiana to run in the 2024 Indiana gubernatorial election, following speculation since September that he would run for the office. On May 8, he announced his choice for lieutenant governor, state representative Julie McGuire. In June, delegates nominated Micah Beckwith for lieutenant governor at the Republican state convention. On September 30, 2024, the Braun for Governor campaign released an ad that contained an image altered to show Democratic opponent Jennifer McCormick leading a rally with people holding signs stating "No Gas Stoves." The image actually showed people holding "McCormick for Governor" signs. Running an ad with an altered image may be illegal under Indiana State Law HEA 1133. Later that day, the Braun campaign released an updated version of the ad with a disclaimer noting the use of an altered image which complies with the law. On November 5, Braun won Indiana's gubernatorial election by the largest margin for an open governor's seat since 1980. Tenure Kristi Noem and Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons on Operation Midway Blitz in Gary, Indiana, Oct. 30, 2025. Braun became governor on January 13, 2025, sworn in by Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush. Higher education appointments In June 2025, Braun became involved in a controversy over the governance of Indiana University. His administration moved to remove members of the Board of Trustees elected by alumni and replace them with gubernatorial appointees, a move critics described as an effort to increase political control over the university. Braun defended the decision, despite having said a month earlier that he would not intervene in the trustee process. 2025 Indiana redistricting In October 2025, Indiana lawmakers began considering redrawing the state's congressional districts to reduce Democratic representation in the United States House of Representatives. The push, called for by President Donald Trump and favored by Braun, succeeded in the Indiana House of Representatives but failed in the Indiana State Senate. After the resolution failed, Trump and Braun vowed to endorse primary challengers to the Republican state senators who voted against redistricting. ==Political positions==

Abortion Braun opposes abortion. Donald Trump According to FiveThirtyEight, Braun voted with Donald Trump's position 90.9% of the time between Braun's inauguration and Trump's departure from office two years later. During Trump's first impeachment and impeachment trial, regarding the Trump–Ukraine scandal, Braun became one of Trump's most prominent defenders, defending him in many media appearances. He voted to acquit Trump, and when asked whether it is acceptable for Trump to withhold U.S. foreign aid to coerce a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden, he said that he did not believe that such behavior was proper but that "it didn't happen." Braun also said that Trump did what he did out of a desire to reduce corruption in Ukraine. After Trump was acquitted, Braun said that Trump "hopefully" learned something from the trial. Congressional reform Braun opposes earmarks. He introduced an amendment to the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 to remove all earmarks from the bill, saying: "Earmarks give representatives, give senators the incentive to be big spenders. We should cut every earmark out of this bill and ban them permanently and quit loading up our kids and grandkids with the debt to pay for all this." The amendment failed. Effort to overturn 2020 presidential election result After Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Trump refused to concede and made baseless claims of election fraud. Braun defended, and joined in, Trump's attempt to overturn the election results. He wrote a Washington Examiner editorial criticizing the media for not taking accusations of voter fraud seriously. Along with 10 other Republican senators, Braun initially pledged to object to the counting of the electoral votes in several key states. In Trump's second impeachment trial, on charges of incitement of insurrection, Braun voted to acquit Trump. On May 28, 2021, Braun abstained from voting on the creation of an independent commission to investigate the January 6 storming of the Capitol. Economy Braun supported the Republican Party's tax legislation in 2017. Education In June 2025, Braun worked to increase his control over Indiana University by removing members of the Board of Trustees elected by alumni and replacing them with his own appointees. A month earlier, he had said he would not do so. He has called Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg an "inspiration" and advocated that the Republican Party be more aggressive in combating climate change. He opposed the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, but supports using reforestation, carbon pricing, and carbon capture to reduce or mitigate carbon dioxide emissions. Foreign policy In January 2024, Braun voted against a resolution, proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders, to apply the human rights provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act to U.S. aid to Israel's military. The proposal was defeated, 72 to 11. Trade In 2018, Braun supported Trump's trade and tariff policies, saying that they have "yielded phenomenal results." Previously, he supported free trade policies. Braun has called for "free-market competition" and "market-driven" solutions on health care. During his 2018 Senate campaign, he criticized incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly as a "defender of Obamacare." He opposes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors, known as DREAMers. He fought to keep marriage defined as "between a man and a woman" in the Indiana Republican Party platform. But after an interview with Tucker Carlson and backlash from police unions the next month, Braun dropped his bill. In May 2021, he wrote, "I oppose any reform to the current doctrine of qualified immunity" and opposed federal efforts to reform local police departments. COVID-19 pandemic In September 2021, Braun opposed the planned COVID-19 vaccine mandate for companies with more than 100 employees, calling it the "biggest overreach by federal government I've seen". He was the author of the Senate disapproval resolution challenging President Biden's OSHA vaccine mandate for businesses. The Senate passed the resolution under the Congressional Review Act in a bipartisan vote. In October 2021, Braun invited Chicago police officers who were suspended for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to work in Indiana, saying, "plenty of departments are hiring now". Interracial marriage In a March 2022 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, Braun said the Court's decision Roe v. Wade was a case of "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench". A reporter then asked if Braun applied the same reasoning to the Loving v. Virginia case that installed federal protections on interracial marriage. Braun responded, "many of the Supreme Court's civil rights decisions have improperly established federal rights that would be better handled on a state-by-state basis." He was then asked whether interracial marriage should be left to the states, and replied, "Yes." Later that day, Braun put out a statement saying he had misunderstood the question and that there was "no question that the Constitution prohibits discrimination of any kind based on race. That is not something that is even up for debate, and I condemn racism in any form, at all levels and by any states, entities, or individuals." Early childhood learning In February 2025, Braun declined to support a state 50% match for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. Dollywood Foundation President Jeff Conyers said, "We are hopeful that Governor Braun and the Indiana Legislature will continue this vital investment by restoring the state's funding match for local Imagination Library programs." ==Electoral history==

Braun and his wife, Maureen, have four children. Braun's late brother, Steve Braun, was also a politician in Indiana. ==References==