Produced by:
Progressive Indiana Network :
https:/www.progressiveindiana.net
Moderator:
Rachael Chatham: https://rchathampr.com/
Candidates:
Mary Allen: https://www.maryallenforcongress.com/
Chris Rector: Campaign Facebook Page
Tabitha Zeigler: https://tabithazeiglerforcongress.com/
Mario Foradori was invited and RSVP’d, but has since stopped participating in campaign events; he has made no official withdrawal announcement.
SUMMARY:
Three Democratic candidates for Indiana’s 8th Congressional District debated across ten policy categories — foreign policy, accountability, immigration, affordability, healthcare, education, human rights, taxation, social security, and labor — followed by a rapid-fire speed round and closing statements. All three candidates broadly agreed that the Trump administration has gone beyond the bounds of constitutional governance and that working families have been abandoned by both parties’ leadership. Chris Rector, a 25-year Army veteran and service-connected disabled veteran from Knoxville, Tennessee now living in the 8th District, brought a blunt, movement-politics energy and a focus on the struggles of working and struggling families. Mary Allen, an at-large city councilor in Evansville, healthcare worker, and former small business owner, emphasized her track record of showing up and her experience seeing where policy hits people in the real world. Tabitha Zeigler, a multi-generational Hoosier, 20-year union member, working farmer, and LGBTQ+ community member, left her position at the U.S. Postal Service to run and brought firsthand experience with autism, domestic violence, and the economics of rural life.
BREAKDOWN:
00:00:20 - Introduction
- Rachael Chatham introduces herself as an independent journalist from Southeast Indiana and the debate moderator; credits Scott Rogers of HoosLeft with running production and the Progressive Indiana Network as the presenting organization
- Notes that Mario Foradori originally RSVP’d but has been unresponsive and did not participate, though he remains on the ballot
- Outlines the format: two-minute opening statements, ten policy questions, a speed round, and closing statements
00:02:07 - Opening Statements
- Chris Rector: 25-year Army veteran, service-connected disabled veteran, certified peer support specialist with the VA, and former sheriff’s investigator; frames his candidacy around working and struggling families; vows not to reach across the aisle to “wannabe white Christian nationalists, fascists, racists, and corrupt politicians”; says fighters fight, and this is our home
- Mary Allen: healthcare worker for 15 years, nonprofit organizer, small business owner, and current at-large city councilor in Evansville; union household upbringing — her father was a Teamster truck driver; three adult daughters and two grandchildren; never missed a meeting or vote on city council; recently sold her business to focus full-time on the campaign
- Tabitha Zeigler: multi-generational Hoosier with roots to at least 1822; steelworker and farming family background; still lives on a working farm; 20-year union member with the airlines and U.S. Postal Service; left her USPS position to run; LGBTQ+ community member, domestic violence survivor, autistic, and parent of three autistic children
00:08:19 - Q1: FOREIGN POLICY — The War with Iran, Gaza, and the U.S.-Israel Relationship
The U.S. has been at war with Iran for six weeks, initiated at the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has triggered an international energy crisis. Gaza and the West Bank remain under occupation. Both the war and the U.S. relationship with Israel have divided Democrats. Where do you stand on the war with Iran, and is it time to fundamentally reevaluate the U.S. relationship with Israel?
- Allen: calls it a war of choice; says Congress is abdicating its constitutional responsibility to declare war; calls for repealing outdated war authorizations; speaks as a veteran and member of Veterans for Peace; warns that our enemies are becoming our friends and our friends are becoming our enemies
- Zeigler: says the U.S. is supporting a genocide not just in Palestine but in Lebanon and Syria as well; argues for diplomacy over war; says her millennial generation has effectively been at war since 9/11 and she has watched too many friends come back not okay
- Rector: draws on his own military service; calls the spending of a billion dollars a day on war criminal when that money could fund universal child care and healthcare in the 8th District; criticizes Democratic leadership in D.C. for going along with it
00:14:21 - Q2: ACCOUNTABILITY — Impeachment, Criminal Prosecution, and the Limits of Removal
President Trump has defied court orders, weaponized the DOJ, attempted to strip birthright citizenship by executive order, launched an unconstitutional war without a single vote of Congress, and committed what one resolution calls outright tyranny. House Democrats have introduced multiple impeachment resolutions while party leadership has largely sat on their hands. Is impeachment on the table on day one? Is removal even enough, or are we talking about criminal prosecution?
- Zeigler: says we have not seen a government like this ever; argues impeachment alone is insufficient and criminal prosecution is necessary; invokes the Nuremberg trials as the appropriate framework; says this goes beyond the president to everyone complicit in war crimes
- Rector: commits to filing for impeachment on day one; cites Rep. Al Green as the only House member willing to say it out loud; says we have to impeach, convict, remove, and prosecute anyone proven to have committed war crimes or genocide
- Allen: supports both impeachment and prosecution; warns accountability cannot stop with Trump; points to the Epstein files as one example of broader lawbreaking that must be investigated; argues Congress must reassert itself against executive overreach regardless of which party holds the White House
00:19:36 - Q3: IMMIGRATION — Abolishing ICE and the Future of DHS
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was removed and replaced with another MAGA loyalist. Multiple U.S. citizens have been shot and killed by masked, unidentified agents. ICE’s funding would rank it among the top 15 military budgets on the planet. A majority of Democrats now support abolishing ICE outright, though elected Democrats have been reticent to say so. Can this agency be reformed, or should it be abolished? Has DHS outlived its original purpose?
- Rector: will push to abolish ICE on day one and replace it with a reformed version of the pre-9/11 INS; calls the current agency “an armed regime”; says everyone — documented or not — has a right to due process
- Zeigler: 100% abolish ICE; calls it a rebranding from the slave catcher days; praises community organizing in Minnesota as a model for the interim; argues the money should be redirected to immigration judges, lawyers, and USCIS processing capacity to make the system actually work
- Allen: supports abolition and prosecution of agents who broke the law; argues money spent on detention camps should build courts instead; says we can have both humanity and a secure border — they are not mutually exclusive
00:25:29 - Q4: AFFORDABILITY — The Root Cause of the Cost-of-Living Crisis
Grocery prices, rent, healthcare, and child care keep climbing. Saying “we’ll lower costs” is insufficient. What is the root cause of the affordability crisis and what specific steps would you take in Congress to actually address it?
- Allen: argues poverty is a policy choice; calls out the reconciliation bill as the biggest transfer of wealth from working people to billionaires in recent memory; draws on her own experience as a single mother who worked two jobs to afford child care; supports child care for all
- Zeigler: argues $1–2 billion a day in war spending could fund universal healthcare and child care; calls out tariffs and backroom deals; describes the current moment as obscene — Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire while American children are trafficked and starving
- Rector: asks why universal health care and child care remain out of reach while genocide is being funded; describes his work modeling a universal child care program after New Mexico’s free, taxpayer-neutral system; wants to implement it first in the 8th District
00:30:58 - Q5: HEALTHCARE — Medicare for All, the ACA, and How to Get There
The free market will not deliver the healthcare results we need — the rest of the industrialized world has already figured this out. More market competition? A bolstered ACA? A public option? Medicare for all? A hybrid model? What’s your solution and how do you get there?
- Zeigler: looks to European and Portuguese models; argues taxing the 1% appropriately would fund the system; calls out Walmart’s deliberate wage suppression as a mechanism for offloading worker healthcare costs onto SNAP and Medicaid
- Allen: supports a transitional approach — ACA subsidies as a near-term Band-Aid, moving toward Medicare for all or a single-payer system; shares a door-knocking encounter with a recently widowed woman in her sixties, working at Walmart, navigating her late husband’s hospital bills while too young for Medicare
- Rector: points to the VA model as proof that universal healthcare is achievable at low cost — the VA provides glasses, exams, and lenses for a dollar; argues big pharma and billionaires are the only reason it hasn’t happened for everyone
00:36:51 - Q6: EDUCATION — Vouchers, Title I, and a Sustainable Future for Hoosier Educators
The Trump administration has taken a chainsaw to the Department of Education, slashed Title I funding, and pushed voucher schemes that siphon public dollars into private and religious schools. Cory in Clay City is studying to be a music teacher and wants to know: how will you ensure that Cory and all Hoosier educators will have a sustainable career?
- Rector: calls for fully funding public education before any voucher program exists; wants arts and trades programs restored in high schools; frames school choice as a political tool that benefits neither students nor teachers; says music is life
- Allen: agrees on full public school funding; criticizes the appointment of Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education; calls for affordable higher education and expanded apprenticeship and technical training pathways; notes her daughter is a fourth-grade public school teacher
- Zeigler: holds up Finland as a model — teaching is one of the most highly regarded and competitive professions in the country; calls for universal free pre-K, smaller class sizes, proper teacher training and compensation, and trades programs for students who don’t pursue college
00:42:10 - Q7: HUMAN RIGHTS — LGBTQ+ Rights, “Culturally Normal,” and Where Democrats Draw the Line
Gavin Newsom has argued Democrats need to be more “culturally normal” — language that drew immediate pushback from LGBTQ+ advocates. His own state’s LGBTQ+ caucus has called him out for siding with conservatives on transgender athletes. Is Newsom right? Where do you draw the line between smart politics and abandoning the people who need the party’s protection most?
- Allen: says she doesn’t know what “culturally normal” means; filters all decisions through a commitment to loving people well; frames human rights as civil rights for all regardless of identity; says she is a woman of faith and that faith compels her to love all her neighbors
- Zeigler: states trans rights are human rights; invokes the “first they came” framework — once they come for one, they’re coming for you; speaks from personal experience as a gay woman who has been beaten for her identity; argues gender-affirming care is actually more common in the straight community than people acknowledge
- Rector: calls LGBTQ+ issues a manufactured political distraction used by the government to push something else; shares a story from his Texas state legislative race about the representative who implemented the drag ban, now on Trump’s cabinet; says “a little cross-dressing never hurt anyone”
00:48:04 - Q8: TAXATION — Wealth Tax, Corporate Taxes, and the Billionaire Threat to Leave
Gavin Newsom opposed a wealth tax at the New York Times DealBook summit, implying the Democratic tent needs to include billionaires. Warren and Sanders are barnstorming the country arguing the opposite. Do you support a wealth tax? What about raising the top marginal rate and corporate taxes? And what do you say to the argument that the rich will just leave?
- Zeigler: uses Massachusetts as a case study — the wealthy threatened to leave, didn’t, and Boston remains a hub for billionaires; argues higher taxation funds the public infrastructure billionaires also depend on, from roads to public safety; California has more billionaires than almost any other state despite high taxes
- Rector: agrees without reservation; frames the wealth tax as reclaiming what the top 1% has stolen from working families over 50 years; says they go to bed dreaming about beach condos while working families can’t sleep worrying about the electric bill
- Allen: endorses Warren’s two-cent-on-the-dollar wealth tax framework; supports raising the corporate rate from its 2017 cut; draws on her city council work reviewing tax abatements and says we should only reward businesses that offer living wages
00:53:08 - Q9: SOCIAL SECURITY — Solvency, the Payroll Cap, and the Promise to Working Hoosiers
Without changes, Social Security is headed toward insolvency by 2032 — just six years away — at which point benefits would automatically be cut by nearly 28%. Republicans want to privatize it or raise the retirement age. Progressives say lift the payroll tax cap above $176,100 and make the wealthy pay in on their full income. What is your plan, and what do you say to Hoosiers in their 40s and 50s who have paid in their whole lives?
- Rector: currently on Social Security himself; frames the program as belonging to the workers who fund it, not the government; objects to privatization without reservation; stops short of a specific solvency mechanism but says government needs to get out of the way
- Allen: calls it non-negotiable; rules out raising the retirement age; supports lifting the payroll cap and taxing wealthy investment income more aggressively; shares a story from a community event about a retired couple living on one Social Security check — the husband chops his own firewood for heat and grows a garden to cut the grocery bill, and worries he won’t be able to keep doing it
- Zeigler: calls the current structure highway robbery for the wealthy, who draw from Social Security while already holding multi-generational investment wealth; proposes means-testing so high earners no longer draw from the system; says at 42 she already doubts Social Security will be there for her
00:58:23 - Q10: LABOR — The Rank-and-File Drift and How to Win It Back
Democrats call themselves the party of labor, but private sector trade union members — pipefitters, electricians, ironworkers, Teamsters — have been drifting toward Republicans for decades. In a district like the 8th, that drift is the difference between winning and losing. Diagnose why it’s happening and tell us what you would specifically do in Congress to win those workers back — not just union leadership’s endorsement, but the rank-and-file votes.
- Allen: supports the PRO Act; frames union rights as a North Star; credits unions with the 40-hour week, eight-hour day, and child labor protections; says they’ve had our backs and we need to have theirs
- Zeigler: traces the drift directly to Democratic complicity in deindustrialization — NAFTA happened on Democrats’ watch; argues workers in formerly unionized areas watched their factories close and never saw a clear path back; says Democrats have been abandoning the working class for 40 years and workers know it
- Rector: whose father and brother were Teamsters for over 40 years and who has walked picket lines with them; says union members are right not to buy what the elite of the Democratic Party is selling; argues that in Indiana, union organizing won’t work until the state’s right-to-work law is repealed
01:03:07 - Speed Round
- Federal moratorium on new data center construction: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes
- Expand the Supreme Court beyond nine justices: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes
- Statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes
- Constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes
- Federal legalization of recreational cannabis: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes
- Free public higher education: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes
- Cancel all outstanding student loan debt: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes
- Universal federally funded child care: Rector — Yes, and working on a plan now / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes
- Is Hakeem Jeffries your candidate for Speaker: Rector — No / Zeigler — No / Allen — No
- Federal assault weapons ban: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes
- Abolish the federal death penalty: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes
- Federal minimum wage (currently $7.25 since 2009) — give a number: Rector — $20 / Zeigler — $35 / Allen — $17 (with the caveat that she was thinking incrementally; notes the living wage in southern Indiana is currently about $20.85)
01:06:36 - Closing Statements
- Zeigler: closes on lived experience — multi-generational Hoosier, union member, domestic violence survivor, parent of autistic kids; argues Congress needs people who can speak to those pain points from the inside; contrasts herself with Republican incumbent Mark Mesmer; asks voters who want someone from the working class who understands the struggles to vote for her
- Rector: argues the Democratic Party has lost its way and become the party of the elite; invokes the party’s legacy of movement politics — civil rights, women’s suffrage, LGBTQ+ rights, disability rights — and says those movements were won in the streets, the hills, and the halls of power, not with polite letters; says it’s time to not be nice; thanks the Progressive Indiana Network and his fellow candidates
- Allen: opens by clarifying her minimum wage answer — she supports a living wage indexed to cost of living, currently about $20.85 in southern Indiana; closes on her ground game, her kitchen-table background, and her commitment to being the 8th District’s voice on healthcare, pocketbook issues, dignity, and democracy; asks for the vote on May 5th
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Rachael closes the event, thanks the candidates and PIN, notes early voting is underway with primary day May 5th, and calls the winner’s general election race one of the most consequential midterm elections in modern American history
