Martin County, October 2026: Elections and Gay Activists, it just never stops.

Loogootee / Shoals, Ind. — October 26, 2026

Martin County heads into the final week before the midterms with the usual local work still unfinished and the larger arguments still unresolved. Most of the races on the November 3 ballot are not close. The things that have actually occupied the county — a proposed new highway, who decides what gets built on farmland, and a federal judge ordering an event onto the square — will still be here after the votes are counted.

Mid-States Corridor and the moratorium

The Mid-States Corridor — the planned 54-mile expressway from I-64 near Dale to I-69 at the U.S. 231 interchange — continues to move. Section 2 (roughly I-64 to SR 56 at Haysville) is in Tier 2 study; a preferred alternative and draft environmental document are expected this fall. INDOT has been talking to contractors about construction planning. Cost estimates have climbed; the original Tier 1 figure for the full corridor was around $900 million for the expressway portion, while recent talk on Section 2 alone has reached higher numbers once land is included.

Martin County landowners have been vocal. Jason McCoy, a county resident and chair of the Protect Rural America group, and Mike Arvin have been active in opposing new terrain through the county. County documents from late 2025 stated a preference for no new terrain inside Martin County and instead asked INDOT to put money into the U.S. 50 / U.S. 231 intersection at Loogootee (peanut interchange or roundabout) and other existing-road fixes. The $75 million allocation tied to the corridor is real money; the question is whether it stays on the roads people already drive or goes into a new alignment that takes farmland.

Separately, the county still has Ordinances 2026-22 and 2026-23 on the books: a special-permitting requirement and a temporary moratorium on data centers, battery storage, utility-scale solar, and commercial wind. That is local control written into the code. It has not been the loudest story this fall, but it is the clearest statement the commissioners have made about what they do not want built without a public process.

PrideFest and the square

PrideFest took place on the Loogootee Public Square on September 5 only because a federal judge ordered it there. The court struck down the city’s special-events ordinances, ruled them too broad and too discretionary under the First Amendment, held the city in contempt after earlier rewrites, and required the requested street closures. Organizers had declined the green space and the pavilion. The city had spent three years trying to keep the fountain area for ordinary civic use after the 2023 flower-pot displays and the packed council meetings that followed. A federal courtroom settled the question instead.

That is the definition of overreach for a lot of people who live here: a small-town council trying to set ordinary time, place, and manner rules for its own square, and a judge in another city deciding the rules were not narrow enough. The practical result is that the square was scheduled by injunction.

The longer cost is the one that does not show up in the court order. The fight has gone on for years. It has filled council agendas, local Facebook groups, and newspaper pages. Longtime residents who have no affiliation with either side — people who simply want the fountain, the sidewalks, and the street closures handled the way other community events are handled — have grown tired of it. They did not ask for the culture war to be imported into the middle of Loogootee, and they did not ask for it to keep returning every fall. The legal outcome is clear. The exhaustion is quieter and more widespread than either set of activists likes to admit.

The November 3 ballot

Early voting is underway. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.

Locally the ballot is thin. Most offices are unopposed Republicans:

• Assessor: Carolyn S. McGuire
  


• Circuit Court Clerk: Julie Fithian
  


• Prosecutor: C. Michael Steiner
  


• Council Districts 1–3: Jordan Robert Berry, Jimmy Ray Hamby Jr., Monty L. Gregory
  

Contested:


• Sheriff: Keith D. Keller (Republican) vs. Larry Gibson (Independent)
  


• Commissioner District 2: Paul R. George (Republican) vs. John R. Collins (Democrat)
  


• Council District 4: Sheri Bowling (Republican) vs. Ronald Gilbert (Democrat)
  

Federally, Martin County is in the 8th Congressional District. Incumbent Mark Messmer (R) faces Democrat Mary Allen. The seat is rated solidly Republican. Messmer has spoken recently about reducing regulatory costs and has said parts of Indiana can decide for themselves on data centers. No U.S. Senate race is on the Indiana ballot this year. Statewide, the Secretary of State contest (Republican Max Engling, Democrat Beau Bayh, and others) is the highest-profile race.

What is not on the ballot

The things that have actually occupied Martin County this year — a corridor that may or may not take new ground, and a courthouse that put an event on the square — will still be here after the votes are counted. The ballot itself is mostly a choice between known local Republicans and a handful of challengers. The larger arguments about who controls the roads and the land will be settled, or not settled, in the next round of INDOT studies and whatever ordinance the city writes next for public events.