By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
March 4, 2026
Although she survived a challenge to her candidacy last week before the Indiana Election Commission, Alexandra Wilson’s fight to stay in the May 2026 Republican primary race is not over.
A petition for judicial review of the commission’s decision to allow Wilson to remain on ballot was filed in Clay County Circuit Court on Monday. Wilson is one of two candidates running in the Republican primary for Indiana Senate District 38 against incumbent state Sen. Greg Goode, R-Terre Haute.
Jeffrey Gallant, who has challenged Wilson’s eligibility to run for the state legislature, is asking the trial court to overturn the commission’s ruling, saying the decision was “based on an erroneous interpretation of state statute.”
The case is Jeffrey Gallant v. Indiana Election Commission, 11C01-2603-RA-000185.
Gallant asserted Wilson is disqualified from being a candidate for elective office because in 2010, she entered a guilty plea for resisting arrest. Under state statute, Indiana Code 3-8-1-5, an individual who pleads guilty to a felony is prohibited from running in an election.
The commission split 2-to-2, which resulted in Gallant’s challenge against Wilson being denied. The two Democratic commissioners found in Wilson’s favor, saying that while resisting arrest was a Class D felony in 2010, Wilson’s guilty plea was entered by the Vermillion County Circuit Court as a judgment for a Class A misdemeanor.
Attorney Jim Bopp is representing Gallant in this matter. Gallant, a resident of Vigo County, is an attorney licensed in Virginia who works in Bopp’s Terre Haute law office.
Gallant’s petition, which says he lives in Senate District 38, is filed against the Indiana Election Commission. He is asking the court to order the commission to uphold his challenge, disqualify Wilson from being a candidate and prohibit her name from appearing on the 2026 Republican primary ballot for Senate District 38.
Wilson is not a named party in the case, but she could lose her place in the race if the trial court rules in favor of Gallant. Her attorney is Samantha DeWester.
The commission will be represented by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office. The office has ties to both Bopp and, apparently, to Brenda Wilson, the other Republican candidate trying to unseat Goode.
Previously, Bopp did legal work for the attorney general’s office under a $250,000 contract signed in April 2023.
Among the cases the prominent conservative attorney from Terre Haute attorney handled was representing the Election Commission and Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales in a lawsuit filed by John Rust, who attempted to run in the 2024 Republican U.S. Senate primary against now-U.S. Sen. Jim Banks. Rust challenged the state’s affiliation statute, which requires candidates to prove they are either a Democrat or Republican by having voted in the party’s primaries the last two times they participated in primary elections. The case went to the Indiana Supreme Court, where Rust lost.
Also, Bopp was part of the legal team that defended Rokita in a dispute over an inspector general’s report. When the Republican attorney general first took office in 2020, he retained his job in the private sector and said an opinion from the state inspector general had found no conflict of interest. However, Rokita fought the release of the advisory opinion and won a protracted legal battle.
In July 2024, Bopp withdrew from the contract with the attorney general’s office. At the time, Bopp confirmed he had resigned as outside counsel but did not provide a reason for his decision.
Currently, Brenda Wilson, the other GOP challenger in District 38, serves as an outreach representative for the attorney general’s office, according to her campaign website. Her duties in that position are not clearly stated, but the website says she works directly with communities and law enforcement across the state.
Wilson is also a member of the Vigo County Council and has been endorsed in the race for Senate District 38 by President Donald Trump. The president threw his support behind Wilson, after Goode joined 20 other Republican state senators to help defeat the Trump-led effort to redraw Indiana’s congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm election.
The case has been assigned to Judge David O. Thomas of the Clay County Circuit Court. Clay County is in Senate District 28.
Thomas, who was elected to the bench as a Republican in 2024, was appointed to be the state’s first inspector general when then-Gov. Mitch Daniels created the office in 2005. Thomas served for 10 years, stepping down in January 2015.
Gallant has filed a motion for an expedited hearing and resolution to his case to occur before the primary on May 5. Claiming the county election boards have to mail the primary election absentee ballots to voters by March 21, he is asking the court to hear his petition on March 13 and issue a ruling by the close of business on March 17.
The commission, Gallant said in his court filing, will then be able to call a meeting on March 20 to disqualify Alexandra Wilson’s candidacy and prohibit her name from appearing on the primary ballot. Gallant said this expedited schedule would “meaningfully effect the relief sought.”
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
