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Indiana’s attorney general is defending the state Election Commission in court after the panel denied an attempt to remove Alexandra Wilson from the ballot for a Republican state Senate nomination.
Whatever decision the judge makes will impact the campaign prospects of Brenda Wilson, who works for the attorney general’s office and has President Donald Trump’s endorsement against current Sen. Greg Goode in the GOP division over congressional redistricting.
The dispute over Alexandra Wilson’s candidacy for the Terre Haute-area Senate seat landed in court after the commission deadlocked over whether she was ineligible for the primary ballot because of a state law prohibiting someone convicted of a felony crime from holding elected office.
Clay County Circuit Court Judge David Thomas is scheduled to hear arguments in the case on Wednesday even as Alexandra Wilson’s attorney has asked for a change in judge.
Trump-backed candidate works for Rokita
Brenda Wilson is a Vigo County Council member and has worked since September 2025 for Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office, where she is an outreach coordinator with a $62,000 salary, according to state records.
Prominent conservative attorney Jim Bopp, who is a top political ally of Gov. Mike Braun, is pursuing the legal case against Alexandra Wilson and calls her candidacy a ballot “trick” by local Republicans to help Goode survive the primary by taking votes away from Brenda Wilson.
The four-member Election Commission split 2-2 during a hearing last month on the challenge to Alexandra Wilson’s candidacy, with the tie vote leaving her name on the ballot.
The commission’s two Democratic members sided with arguments from her lawyer that she remained eligible since her 2010 guilty plea to a low-level Class D felony charge of resisting law enforcement at the age of 19 was accepted by a judge as a Class A misdemeanor.
Bopp dismisses the suggestion that Rokita’s office might not meet its legal obligations of defending the Election Commission’s action because of Brenda Wilson’s employment and his past legal work representing Rokita that ended in 2014.
Bopp pointed to a Monday court filing in which the attorney general’s office opposed his arguments for removing Alexandra Wilson from the ballot.
“He’s arguing for the very position that the Democrats claimed in the hearing,” Bopp said of Rokita. “Now the Republicans rejected that, but he’s not.”
The attorney general’s office did not answer questions Tuesday about its handling of the case.
A filing from the office argued Alexandra Wilson “did not plead guilty to a felony as needed for disqualification” and “the petition is without merit.”
Judge change requested
Alexandra Wilson’s lawyer, Samantha Dewester, filed a motion Monday asking for a new judge in the case.
Dewester didn’t give a reason for the request, which Bopp criticized Tuesday as a delay tactic since he filed the court case March 2 and asked the judge for expedited action as county election offices must start mailing requested absentee ballots on March 21 ahead of the May 5 primary.
Bopp told the Capital Chronicle that he was troubled about “ballots going out and voters being deceived on which candidate is what, because of the name similarity, and so the right to vote is being undermined.”
“We think this is dilatory,” Bopp said about the new judge request. “She’s had almost two weeks to intervene and make any motion she might want to make, including change of judge, and didn’t try to intervene until the very last minute.”
Dewester did not immediately reply Tuesday to questions from the Capital Chronicle about the request for a new judge.
She did not directly criticize the involvement of Rokita’s office when asked about it last week but said “I would certainly want to avoid any appearance of a conflict or impropriety if the roles were reversed.”
Neither Brenda Wilson nor Alexandra Wilson responded Tuesday to messages seeking comment about the case.
Brenda Wilson is among five Republican primary challengers endorsed by Trump running against Goode and other Republican senators who in December joined with Democrats in the 31-19 vote defeating the redistricting plan aimed at giving GOP candidates all nine of Indiana’s U.S. House seats.
Vigo County Republican Party Chair Randy Gentry, who certified Alexandra Wilson for a GOP candidacy, denied Bopp’s accusation of ballot manipulation.
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