Produced by:
Progressive Indiana Network: https:/www.progressiveindiana.net
Moderator:
Kacey Blundell: https://hoosierwomenforward.org/kacey-blundell/
Candidates:
Brad Meyer: https://bradmeyer.org/
Tim Peck: https://timpeckforcongress.com/
Keil Roark: https://www.keilroark.com/
Jim Graham was invited but unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict.
SUMMARY:
Progressive Indiana Network hosted the final primary debate of the 2026 cycle for Indiana’s 9th Congressional District, moderated by Kacey Blundell. Three candidates participated: Dr. Tim Peck, an emergency medicine physician from New Washington; Brad Meyer, a former manufacturing leader from Bloomington; and Keil Roark, a licensed electrical engineer, Navy veteran, and former UAW assembly line worker. A fourth candidate, Jim Graham, was invited but declined citing a scheduling conflict. The debate covered 11 questions across a broad range of policy areas -- including the cost of living, healthcare, education, infrastructure, immigration, data centers, and government accountability -- followed by a 15-question lightning round exposing intra-party fault lines, and closing statements from each candidate. Peck ran on a platform of rejecting corporate PAC money, reducing healthcare costs by eliminating middlemen and directing Medicare dollars to patient care, and labor-first infrastructure policy. Meyer advocated for a $20 minimum wage, Medicare for All, and a structural progressive overhaul of the economy. Roark positioned himself as the pragmatic, electable candidate, focused on ACA subsidies, a $15 minimum wage, and appealing to disaffected Republicans.
BREAKDOWN:
00:00:23 Welcome and Introductions
- Blundell introduces the debate and PIN, explains the format, and welcomes the three candidates.
- A fourth candidate, Jim Graham, was invited but could not attend due to a scheduling conflict.
- Opening statement order determined by random draw: Peck first, then Meyer, then Roark.
00:03:21 Opening Statements
- Peck introduces himself as an emergency medicine physician who co-led a bipartisan coalition to expand telemedicine ahead of the pandemic, frames the central problem as “it costs too much to work,” and pledges to accept no corporate PAC money.
- Meyer highlights 25 years in manufacturing leadership, calls for a $20 minimum wage, Medicare for All, and the first $20,000 in earnings tax-free, and argues Democrats lose by softening their message.
- Roark introduces himself as a Purdue-educated electrical engineer, Navy officer, and former UAW assembly line worker, calls for a $15 minimum wage and ACA subsidy restoration as pragmatic near-term priorities, and frames himself as the electable candidate in a conservative district.
00:09:43 Q1: What is your top priority for residents of Indiana’s 9th Congressional District, and how do you plan to achieve that?
Keil Roark
- Prioritizes reinstating ACA subsidies, passing a minimum wage increase, and repealing the “big, beautiful bill” to restore SNAP and Medicaid funding.
- Also called for a No Stock Trade Act to prohibit members of Congress from trading on insider information, and Supreme Court ethics reform.
Brad Meyer
- Top priorities: stabilize the ACA and rural health care system, and enforce the Impoundment Act to compel the executive branch to spend congressionally allocated funds.
- Called for impeachment proceedings against Trump for the Iran war and for gutting federal programs in violation of law.
Tim Peck
- Focused on the “costs too much to work” problem he hears at the doors: gas, housing, childcare, groceries, education debt, and health insurance all consume more than a paycheck provides.
- Proposed restoring war powers, first-time homebuyer assistance to compete with private equity, universal pre-K, grocery price gouging investigations, lower student loan interest rates, and reversing the big, beautiful bill’s ACA cuts.
00:15:56 Q2: How would you address rising costs of living, including housing, groceries, and health care for families in this district?
Brad Meyer
- Proposed $20/hour minimum wage, raising the non-exempt salary threshold to $100,000 for overtime purposes, and making the first $20,000 earned tax-free.
- Advocated for Medicare for All to reduce medical debt bankruptcies, ending corporate speculation in single-family housing, building more housing supply, and helping first-time buyers with down payments.
- Also called for stabilizing Social Security.
Tim Peck
- Identified corporate PAC money as the root cause -- arguing that business interests now control government, citing the current congresswoman’s Duke Energy record as a specific example.
- Proposed leveling the tax code between corporations and individuals: credit card interest rates, PE firm housing tax rates, and ACA premium taxation all favor corporations over working people.
Keil Roark
- Framed housing as primarily a supply problem stemming from the post-2008 construction slowdown, calling for tax incentives for development, low-interest loans for first-time buyers, and anti-monopoly cost controls on predatory developers.
- Tied grocery prices to fertilizer costs elevated by war, and argued ACA subsidy restoration would cut average monthly health care costs by roughly 25%.
00:21:59 Q3: What is your stance on public safety and criminal justice reform, and what specific policies would you support?
Tim Peck
- Supports funding police while also addressing the root causes that produce crime. Described a real incident from the night before -- a middle schooler waving a gun outside a high school dance in Salem -- as emblematic of the problem.
- Called for background checks, safe storage requirements, red flag laws, school-based mental health and conflict resolution, and access restrictions for those who should not have firearms.
Brad Meyer
- Framed the issue as reactive (policing and courts) versus proactive (addressing poverty and lack of hope).
- Criticized the country’s failures on mental health, addiction policy, and recidivism -- noting that roughly half of those released from prison reoffend.
- Called for body cameras and federal oversight to rebuild community trust, and argued the federal government’s retreat from consent decrees has made things worse.
Keil Roark
- Emphasized the direct link between unemployment and crime: good-paying jobs reduce recidivism.
- Called for upgraded police recruiting, training, and federal grants to struggling departments; eliminating cash bond for nonviolent offenders; and better in-prison vocational training to reduce reoffending.
00:28:19 Q4: How do you plan to support small businesses and economic growth in the suburban and rural parts of the district?
Tim Peck
- Argued that rural infrastructure is the prerequisite: broadband, transportation links, local hospitals, and schools must exist before small businesses can survive.
- Described his own community’s situation -- local hospital closed, fiber internet only recently arrived, limited transport to urban centers -- as the lived reality of rural economic hollowing.
Keil Roark
- Drew on his own blue-collar background in construction to argue for protecting small business tax deductions for equipment, materials, and operating costs.
- Called for working with local mayors and county leaders to identify specific infrastructure and economic development needs, then targeting tax incentives accordingly.
Brad Meyer
- Outlined four steps: reduce barriers to starting businesses (limit non-competes, pass Medicare for All to decouple health insurance from employment); strengthen the local economy through minimum wage and overtime policy; expand capital through the Small Business Administration; and invest in broadband, infrastructure, and workforce development.
- Noted that Kentucky receives roughly twice Indiana’s federal funding, and called that a failure of congressional representation.
00:34:39 Q5: What steps would you take to improve access to affordable health care for Hoosiers, given Indiana’s rankings near the bottom nationally for maternal mortality, mental health access, public health funding, and hospital costs?
Brad Meyer
- Short-term: reinstate ACA subsidies, expand telehealth and preventive care, increase rural provider reimbursement rates, and support mobile EMS units.
- Long-term: advocated for Medicare for All, arguing the for-profit system is unsustainable -- Americans die earlier and go bankrupt more than in comparable countries.
- Offered a personal story about using Planned Parenthood when he and his wife were young and low-income, and expressed strong support for restoring it.
Keil Roark
- Called for reinstating ACA subsidies and updating ACA language to include tax incentives for demonstrated preventive care activities -- citing Japan’s system as a model for how preventive care reduces downstream costs.
- Supported repealing the big, beautiful bill, whose Medicaid and SNAP cuts are putting severe pressure on district hospitals.
Tim Peck
- Described the EMS crisis in his own community: no local hospital, local fire department does not run EMS on weekends, and the next closest ambulance may be unavailable or transporting someone to Kentucky.
- Argued that without universal insurance coverage, rural hospitals cannot stay open -- and without hospitals, EMS collapses with them.
- Called for eliminating prior authorization, banning pharmacy benefit managers, and ensuring Medicare tax dollars go directly to patient care rather than executive bonuses and shareholder payouts.
00:41:50 Q6: How should the federal government support education and what changes would you advocate for schools in the district, given Indiana’s rankings of 37th in K-12 funding, 37% grade-level reading rate, and 39th in teacher pay?
Keil Roark
- Called for funding teacher assistants, after-school programs, and dramatically higher teacher pay, arguing that without better compensation, districts cannot attract STEM professionals.
- Drew on his experience as an Ivy Tech instructor and Navy recruiter -- noting he saw many enlistment candidates fail the ASVAB because of weak math skills -- as evidence of the STEM gap.
Tim Peck
- Argued that Mike Braun and the state Republican majority will not raise teacher pay, so the federal government must act through its leverage over funding.
- Proposed tying federal education dollars to living-wage requirements for teachers and prohibiting those funds from flowing into private school voucher programs.
- Supported universal pre-K as a bipartisan investment with a measurable return, noting a Republican-authored bill already exists on the subject.
Brad Meyer
- Called for restoring and protecting the Department of Education, which channels roughly $3 billion in Title I funds to Indiana’s struggling schools.
- Supported universal pre-K and a national child care program, and called for better congressional coordination of over a dozen federal adult education and retraining programs.
- Argued that state leaders bear primary responsibility and are failing, and that federal pressure must be applied.
00:48:17 Follow-Up: Should the federal Department of Education be kept or returned to the states?
Keil Roark
- Supports keeping the Department. Argued that federal funding leverage is real -- Indiana will listen when dollars are at stake -- and that the Department provides essential national oversight of graduation rates, credentialing, and curriculum standards that states cannot self-police.
Tim Peck
- Supports keeping a well-funded, centralized Department. Argued that federal dollars give Congress the power to require states to fund public education rather than divert money into voucher programs, which Indiana has done and plans to expand.
Brad Meyer
- Supports keeping the Department, emphasizing its role as an independent evaluator of school performance -- one the administration wants to eliminate specifically to hide what privatization is doing to student outcomes.
- Called the proposed elimination a “shell game”: Trump will increase military spending and defund education, then send responsibility to states that will let it collapse, causing the $3 billion Indiana has historically received to simply vanish.
00:54:21 Q7: What is your position on infrastructure spending -- roads, broadband, and public transportation -- for the 9th District?
Tim Peck
- Argued that federal infrastructure money should be conditioned on worker protections and fair wages -- the PRO Act does exactly that and has bipartisan support, but Speaker Johnson will not put it on the floor.
- Described the broadband rollout in his rural community as a cautionary tale: subcontractors using questionable labor are breaking things that union workers then have to fix, spending the money twice.
Keil Roark
- Called for local mayors and county councils to serve as the clearinghouse for infrastructure priorities -- they know which roads, bridges, and fiber connections are needed and where.
- Supported federal funding for roads, bridges, broadband, and school improvements as long as it is tied to genuine community needs and balanced between maintenance and new development.
Brad Meyer
- Noted over 1,000 deficient bridges and another 1,000 in disrepair in Indiana; an aging electric grid unable to keep pace with growth; and neglected water treatment infrastructure.
- Argued the federal government’s core role is to fund the big, expensive, long-term things local communities cannot handle alone, and that Congress must work with regional and state officials to target that money effectively.
01:00:26 Q8: How would you approach border security and immigration policy?
Keil Roark
- Opposed defunding ICE but called it broken -- citing the firing of Noem as evidence -- and called for stronger recruiting standards, body cameras, and accountability.
- Supports strict border security and wants to reinstitute a strengthened E-Verify to hold employers accountable for hiring undocumented workers.
Tim Peck
- Argued Congress has shamefully abdicated its power by failing to push back on Trump’s legally invalid “invasion” rationale for blocking asylum cases, which a federal judge has since rejected.
- Supports stronger borders through more judges, more officers, and better drug detection equipment -- along with a faster, fairer asylum adjudication process, rather than releasing claimants into the country for years while their cases wait.
Brad Meyer
- Led an anti-ICE protest at Camp Atterbury in August and supports rolling back current ICE expansion -- but acknowledged that doing so only returns policy to 2024, which was also inadequate.
- Reframed immigration as an economic issue: the U.S. labor participation rate has declined for 40 years and the country needs more workers; immigration policy should be redesigned to bring workers in legally, with dignity, in a controlled and values-consistent way.
01:06:18 Q9: As the district’s congressman, what actions would you take to address environmental concerns raised by data center development while balancing economic growth?
Brad Meyer
- Opposed irresponsible data center implementation; called for establishing clear national standards for responsible siting, requiring transparent permitting (without NDAs or gag orders on communities), engaging the EPA, and ensuring the grid can handle additional load.
- Called community gag orders potentially illegal and argued local residents must have more power in the process.
Tim Peck
- Argued data center companies, unlike casinos, make private deals with governments before communities can weigh in, then consume water and drive up electricity prices with no community benefit.
- Called for transparency and accountability before construction, noting that casinos historically deliver community infrastructure as part of their deals and data centers do not.
Keil Roark
- Called for clear value propositions: communities must know the tax revenue, lease terms, maintenance agreements, and ownership structure before ground is broken.
- Supported using the EPA and Department of Energy to clamp down on reckless development, and praised local moratoriums already in place in some counties as a model.
01:12:34 Q10: How will you ensure transparency and accountability in your role if elected to Congress?
Keil Roark
- Called for aggressive use of committee hearings and subpoena power to force administration officials to testify under oath, arguing that contempt of Congress and pleading the Fifth are themselves accountability tools that create political pressure.
- Said he would seek assignments on the Veterans Committee or STEM Committee.
Brad Meyer
- Described a long list of current administration abuses: replacing inspectors general, using unconfirmed acting agency heads, resisting subpoenas, weakening White House visitor log transparency, relaxing ethics waivers, and undermining the FEC.
- Called for structural reforms including a healthcare amendment, balanced budget amendment, and election finance reform.
- Acknowledged that Congress itself has done “a suck-egg job” of oversight and said he would not take corporate PAC money once campaign finance reform is passed legislatively -- but declined to unilaterally disarm during the current cycle, arguing the campaign will need $3 million or more.
Tim Peck
- Pledged no corporate PAC money and called out his opponents for not making the same pledge.
- Said he has already signed the Take Back Accountability in Congress pledge along with 70 other Democratic challengers -- committing to no corporate PACs, a five-year lobbying moratorium after leaving office, a four-term limit, and no individual stock trading.
- Called for restoring checks and balances on the Supreme Court and reclaiming war powers and the power of the purse from the executive.
01:20:33 Speed Round
- Federal moratorium on new data center construction: Meyer no, Peck no, Roark no
- Expand the Supreme Court beyond nine justices: Roark no, Peck no, Meyer no
- Statehood for DC and Puerto Rico: Peck yes, Meyer yes to Puerto Rico, Roark yes (both)
- Constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College: Meyer yes, Roark no, Peck yes
- Federal legalization of recreational cannabis: Meyer yes, Roark no (too many unknowns), Peck yes
- FISA reauthorization as currently written: Roark no, Meyer no, Peck no
- Withhold military aid to Israel: Peck yes, Roark no in certain circumstances, Meyer partially
- Impeach President Trump: Meyer yes (for the Iran war), Roark yes (for Impoundment Act violations), Peck yes (depending on the article)
- Free public higher education: Roark no (expanded: merit-based in high-demand fields with payback requirement), Peck pathway to get there (expanded: removing barriers is a national security and workforce imperative), Meyer yes for the first year (expanded: real education costs have risen 10x since 1970 -- this was intentional and must be fixed)
- Cancel all outstanding student debt: Peck no (not all of it), Meyer yes, Roark no (merit-based forgiveness for teachers and doctors who serve required years)
- Federally funded child care: Meyer yes (funding mechanism still unresolved), Roark yes with a cost cap, Peck tax incentives for small businesses
- Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker: Peck no, Roark no, Meyer no
- Federal assault weapons ban: Meyer yes, Peck yes, Roark not necessarily (depends on the weapon)
- Abolish the federal death penalty: Meyer no (struggles with it), Roark no (capital punishment necessary in some cases), Peck yes
- Federal minimum wage by 2030: Roark $22-23/hour, Peck low 20s, Meyer $20 now then adjust as needed
01:30:09 Closing Statements
- Roark closes by arguing he is the only candidate who can win over disenfranchised Republicans in a deeply red district, citing Peck’s 55,000-vote loss last cycle as evidence that progressive candidates struggle in the general, and framing his economy-and-jobs message as the path to November.
- Meyer pushes back directly on Roark’s “safe bet” framing, arguing that every major progressive victory in American history -- Social Security, Medicare, civil rights -- came from courage rather than caution, and closes: “the meek may inherit the earth, but they’re never going to take back the House.”
- Peck argues something has changed in the district -- 700-person rallies in towns of 3,000, Republicans at the doors saying it costs too much to work -- and that the moment calls for a candidate who has built the organizing infrastructure to win, not just the right positions.
01:37:01 Moderator’s Closing Remarks
- Blundell thanks the candidates and PIN, notes early voting is underway, and closes by calling the primary winner’s general election race one of the most consequential midterm elections in modern American history.
