By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
January 9, 2026
Although she said “no” the first time she was asked to run for public office, Coumba Kebe changed her mind when, she said, the Indiana General Assembly ignored the pleas of advocates and instead gutted Medicaid.
Kebe, the owner of a home-health-care business, votes and follows politics but never considered herself the right person to run in an election. After seeing how cuts programs like Medicaid hurt seniors and the aging population, she reconsidered.
“I feel like we’re at a point in our country, in our state, where it’s important to be transparent, to be honest and to tell people the truth, call out hypocrisy, and to be a voice of the people and work for people,” Kebe said. “So that’s why I’m doing this.”
A newcomer to politics, the Democrat from Noblesville is having to build her campaign from scratch. She is also entering a competitive field for House District 29 where she will have to defeat one primary opponent, so far, to then face incumbent Republican state Rep. Alaina Shonkwiler.
However, Kebe is not alone in her first-time bid for office. She is part of the Indiana Rural Summit coalition, a nonprofit trains and supports candidates from rural and small-town Indiana to run in state and local elections. Kebe was among about two dozen summit members who were expected to arrive at the Statehouse on Jan. 7 – the first day individuals could submit the paperwork to run for office in 2026 – and file their declarations of candidacy with the Indiana Election Division.
Michelle Higgs, founder of the rural summit, said members were making Wednesday “an unprecedented and historic moment” by creating the largest mass filing of elected-office hopefuls in recent Indiana history.
“Our clear vision is that rural and small-town Hoosiers have big ideas and can make a big impact on the issues that matter most to all Hoosiers: affordable and accessible health care, living wages, strong public education, clean air, water, soil and so much more,” Higgs said during a news conference at the Statehouse with many of the summit candidates standing behind her.
All the rural summit candidates who filed yesterday were Democrats. Some like Kebe are running against incumbents, while others, like Muncie City Councilor Sara Gullion, are vying for an open seat. Gullion is running to replace retiring state Rep. Sue Errington, D-Muncie.
The rise of the Indiana Rural Summit comes as Republican state lawmakers are facing threats of being primaried because of their votes on mid-decade redistricting during the December start to the 2026 legislative session. Conservative groups like Turning Point USA and even Gov. Mike Braun have said they would work to unseat GOP legislators who did not support redrawing the state’s congressional maps in order to help Republicans retain control of Congress in this year’s midterm election.
Higgs called the fallout from the redistricting fight a distraction. She said most people know more about national politics than they do about the power that the state legislature has over their lives.
Of the summit’s goal to give rural and small-town Hoosiers “a voice, a choice and a vote,” Higgs said, the key element is providing a choice of candidates at the ballot box. People do not understand what is happening in the General Assembly when so many races for the legislature are not contested, she said, because no one is talking about how the laws that have been passed are impacting state residents.
Higgs said many of the legislative committee chairs who are from rural districts often say they have not heard from their constituents about any particular bills or issues. However, she said, rural voters are not contacting their state representatives and senators because those voters do not know anything about the measures being considered.
“So, when we don’t have anybody running against (incumbent legislators) to say, ‘Hey, check this. This is not the kind of legislation we want,’ it just goes unnoticed until the damage is already done,” Higgs said after the news conference.
Gullion said she was motivated to run for the General Assembly after realizing from her time on the Muncie City Council that many of the issues her community is facing, including unemployment, underemployment, the lack of a living wage, and access to housing, have to be addressed at the state level.
“Once you get onto the city council, you realize what you can’t do,” Gullion said. As a member of the legislature, she said she would remind her colleagues that the laws they pass have consequences in rural, suburban and urban communities.
“I think I can take those stories and say, this is what we see every day in Muncie and the surrounding area,” Gullion said. “These are human beings with stories” and I can bring “that voice … saying, ‘Don’t forget that these are people, not just policies.’”
Higgs acknowledged rural summit members will not face an straight path to elective office.
Some of the candidates, Higgs said, are in extremely competitive races and will need resources and support from the Indiana Rural Summit coalition to push them to victory on Election Day. Others are in what she called cold or frozen districts that have no infrastructure to boost candidates from the opposing party. Those “messenger candidates,” she said, will have to chip away at the ice and help forge a pathway.
“It might be that (the messenger) candidate is going to run and run multiple times,” Higgs said. “That candidate may hand the baton off to somebody else, but they’ve started to build … a groundswell and (create) enough new infrastructure that we’re going to have more people run for … local government.”
Chris Bowen, mother of five, grandmother of five and owner of five dogs, filed her candidacy on Wednesday for House District 69, representing Seymour, Brownstown and Salem, which no Democrat has won in more than a decade. She said she was motivated to enter the race by her anger over the legislature passing laws restricting abortion and limiting access to the ballot box.
“I’m done with that,” Bowen said. “That’s not who we are as Hoosiers.”
Bowen, a Democrat from Seymour, is trying to topple Republican state Rep. Jim Lucas, also from Seymour, a formidable opponent who has held onto his seat despite controversial actions and drunk driving charges. First elected to the Indiana General Assembly in 2012, Lucas was reelected in 2024 with nearly 69% of the vote.
Explaining her frustration, Bowen said Lucas does not listen to his constituents’ concerns and needs, and instead just doing what he wants.
“I just want to be the voice for the people,” Bowen said. “Even if I don’t agree, if that’s what most of my constituents want, that’s the way I’ll vote. That’s what I will stand for.”
Despite the tough battle she is facing to represent Noblesville and the surrounding area, Kebe said she is excited and ready to knock on doors and host events to get to know the people in her community and neighboring towns. She indicated she wants to find common ground and build relationships, rather than bruise her opponents.
“I want to talk to Republicans in my district,” Kebe said. “I’m not afraid to reach across the line, because at this point, it’s less about political party, it’s more about the power of the people.”
Gullion credits her door-to-door campaigning in Muncie and talking to people with helping her become the first Democrat to win her city council district seat. Now that she has been endorsed by Errington for the Indiana House, Gullion plans to continue reaching out to connect with voters across the political spectrum.
“We don’t hate each other,” Gullion said. “We need to remember that, when we’re talking politics.”
Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
