The Libertarian in the Three-Way Race
Travis Gearhart says Northwest Indiana voters deserve more than party labels, utility excuses, and the same political machinery that keeps asking for another term.
Some interviews fit neatly into the boxes people expect.
This was not one of them.
When Travis Gearhart joined Hold ’em Accountable, he came on as the Libertarian candidate for Indiana House District 4, a three-way race in northwestern Indiana that includes Republican incumbent Ed Soliday and Democratic nominee Ryan Kominakis. On paper, that label tells voters something. Libertarian. Third party. Smaller government. Lower taxes. Personal freedom.
But labels only get you so far.
What made this conversation interesting was not that Travis fit perfectly into a political category. It was that he kept refusing to stay inside the category people might expect.
He talked like someone deeply frustrated with the Republican Party he used to belong to, openly skeptical of Democratic and Republican leadership alike, supportive of unions in a way many people might not expect from a Libertarian, strongly in favor of legalizing cannabis, opposed to corporate subsidies, alarmed by utility rate hikes, and impatient with politicians who hide behind sound bites instead of explaining how they actually think.
That is not a tidy political profile.
It is, however, a very Northwest Indiana one.
Because District 4 is not an abstract ideological laboratory. It is a place where people pay utility bills, drive roads, work union jobs, rent homes, worry about taxes, watch communities grow, and wonder why the people in power always seem to have a better explanation for the problem than a plan to fix it.
For Travis, the issue that pushed him into the race was direct.
“That’s easy,” he said when asked about the biggest issue facing the district. “NIPSCO.”
That answer set the tone for much of the conversation.
The Utility Bill as a Political Spark
Utility rates have a way of cutting through ideology.
Most people do not experience politics as a white paper, a committee hearing, or a party platform. They experience it as a bill arriving in the mail and wondering why it keeps getting harder to afford the same basic life.
Travis framed NIPSCO and its parent company, NiSource, as one of the defining concerns in House District 4. He said his campaign began with a six-point pledge, but he eventually added a seventh: a full audit of NiSource.
“One of the biggest issues around this area is the fact that all of our NIPSCO bills are going through the roof,” he said.
That is the sort of issue where voters may not care much about ideological branding. They care about whether elected officials are asking hard questions on their behalf.
Travis connected that frustration directly to Ed Soliday, arguing that Soliday’s role on boards and committees tied to energy decision-making gives him responsibility for what residents are experiencing. But his critique was not just about policy. It was about posture. In Travis’s view, the response from those in power has too often felt dismissive toward people struggling with rising costs.
He described it as the familiar pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps attitude: bills went up because it was winter, or because it was summer, or because people used their air conditioning.
That answer may satisfy a spreadsheet.
It does not satisfy a family trying to keep the lights on.
Travis also brought up the public dispute between Soliday and the mayor of Portage, describing a text message in which Soliday allegedly threatened future funding after disagreement over rate increases. For Travis, that story captured something larger than one argument between public officials. It represented what happens when political power starts treating dissent as disobedience.
And that is one of the threads running through Travis’s campaign: government should not be used as a weapon against people who question it.
A Former Republican, Politically Homeless No More
Travis did not arrive at the Libertarian Party as a lifelong party-line candidate.
He described himself as someone who had long leaned libertarian, even while spending years inside Republican politics. He served on the Hebron Town Council, ran for Porter County Council as a Republican, and spent time in what he called the political wilderness before eventually joining the Libertarian Party.
He did not pretend that journey was perfectly clean or ideologically pure. In fact, one of the more interesting parts of the conversation was his willingness to say where he changed.
On foreign policy, he admitted he once bought into the old hawkish argument that America had to fight enemies “over there” to avoid fighting them “over here.”
“It took me a lot longer than it should have for me to figure that out,” he said.
That kind of political evolution matters because voters rarely get to hear candidates explain what they used to believe and why they changed. Most campaigns prefer the illusion of lifelong certainty. Travis seemed more interested in explaining the path, even when the path wandered.
He also made clear that he does not see the Libertarian Party as simply a Republican protest lane. He sees it as a home for people who believe government has grown too large, too intrusive, too captured, and too willing to reward insiders.
That critique extended beyond Republicans.
At one point, he argued that both major parties are too comfortable with the same power structures, even when they pretend otherwise.
That may be where his message overlaps with voters who do not consider themselves Libertarian at all.
Because dissatisfaction with government is not a fringe position anymore. It is practically the weather.
Where Libertarians and Progressives Overlap
One of the most notable parts of the interview came early, when Travis pointed out that Libertarians and progressives may disagree on plenty, but they also share important concerns.
“There’s so many similarities and overlaps between progressive voters and libertarians,” he said, especially around “civil liberties” and “the right to privacy.”
That is not something voters hear often enough.
Our politics is usually packaged as two hostile camps with no common ground between them. But on issues like privacy, surveillance, corporate welfare, foreign policy skepticism, criminal justice, cannabis, and civil liberties, the overlap can be real.
Travis made clear that he opposes corporate subsidies, saying, “I’m not for handing out corporate subsidies.”
That matters because corporate welfare is one of those issues where voters across the spectrum often smell the same smoke, even if they describe the fire differently. Progressives may oppose subsidies because they see public money flowing upward to corporations that do not need it. Libertarians may oppose them because they see government distorting the market and picking winners.
Different philosophical roads.
Same pothole.
For Travis, taking away corporate subsidies on the front end would solve many problems on the back end. In other words, stop using government to prop up favored businesses, and you reduce the need to clean up the damage later.
That line of thinking appeared again when he discussed green energy subsidies. Travis said he wants cleaner energy and described himself as someone who loves the environment, but he argued that government grants can artificially prop up technologies before the market has forced them to become affordable and efficient.
That is not a denial of environmental concern.
It is a different theory of how progress should happen.
The Seven-Point Candidate
Travis’s campaign priorities cover a mix of issues that do not fit comfortably into one partisan drawer.
He talked about term limits. He called for legal cannabis. He wants to end right-to-work. He opposes new toll roads. He wants tax reform, including eliminating the income tax. He wants an audit of NiSource. He is skeptical of corporate subsidies and foreign entanglements.
Some of those positions sound traditionally Libertarian. Some sound populist. Some sound union-friendly. Some sound like the kind of thing that could win agreement from voters who would never attend the same party meeting.
On cannabis, Travis was blunt. Indiana, particularly Northwest Indiana, is watching money flow across state lines to Michigan and Illinois while Indiana continues to cling to prohibition.
“Your generation has to pick a lane,” he said while talking about politicians who want people out of jail for marijuana but still resist legalization.
For him, cannabis legalization is both a liberty issue and a practical budget issue. If Indiana is talking about shortfalls, he argued, it makes little sense to ignore revenue from a product already being purchased legally across nearby state lines.
On right-to-work, Travis was equally direct about his own political evolution.
As a younger union worker, he said he supported Indiana’s right-to-work law when it passed because he bought the argument at the time. Looking back, he sees it differently.
“All it did was take away your bargaining chip,” he said.
That is not a throwaway line. It is a rare admission from a candidate that he once supported a policy and later concluded it failed.
His reasoning was not built around a standard Democratic labor speech. He framed union power as a matter of voluntary association and bargaining strength. In his view, workers are part of the value of a business, and their ability to negotiate matters.
“I personally am pro-union,” he said. “I actually see it as more of a libertarian value.”
That is the kind of statement that scrambles the usual political bingo card.
Taxes, Renters, and the Poverty Premium
Tax policy is where Travis moved back toward familiar Libertarian territory, but even there, the conversation was more layered than a bumper sticker.
He said that if forced to choose, he would eliminate the income tax rather than the property tax. His reasoning included a point renters understand immediately: cutting property taxes does not necessarily mean landlords will lower rent.
“I rent,” Travis said. “If you cut my property taxes, my landlord’s not going to cut my rent.”
That is a practical observation, and it matters because tax debates often assume every voter experiences tax policy the same way. They do not.
Homeowners, renters, landlords, business owners, retirees, young families, disabled veterans, and working-class households all encounter the tax system differently. A reform that sounds clean in theory can land unevenly in real life.
Travis also connected with the idea of the poverty premium: the reality that people with less money often end up paying more. He offered a simple example. When someone runs out of toilet paper and is poor, they buy the small pack because that is all they can afford. Someone with more money buys in bulk and pays less per unit.
That is not just economics.
That is lived experience.
And it is another example of where a Libertarian candidate and a progressive host can look at the same problem and agree that the system is punishing people who already have the least room for error.
Tired of Sound Bites
Maybe the most revealing part of the interview came when Travis talked about why he dislikes the usual 30-second political answer.
“I hate the 30-second politician bits,” he said. “One thing leads to the next. There’s a line of reasoning here.”
That may sound simple, but it explains a lot about his style.
Travis is not a candidate built for perfectly sanded talking points. He meanders. He argues out loud. He gives examples, then detours, then comes back around. Sometimes it sounds less like a stump speech and more like someone trying to show voters the wiring behind the wall.
He said he fills out candidate questionnaires live on air and posts them on YouTube so voters can hear his reasoning in real time.
“I’m giving the listeners a chance to see this is what my thought process is,” he said.
That approach will not appeal to everyone. Some voters want concise answers. Some want polish. Some want the candidate who never leaves the script.
But there is value in hearing how someone thinks before giving them power.
Especially when so much of modern politics is built around hiding the thought process entirely.
Fresh Faces, Fresh Ideas, and the Problem with Power
During the interview, Travis described speaking at a Chamber of Commerce event and asking the audience to raise their hands if they were satisfied with government. According to Travis, the people in office raised their hands. The rest of the room did not.
His response was sharp.
“The only people raising their hands are the ones getting a paycheck,” he said.
Then came the broader argument: “We need fresh faces, we need fresh people, we need fresh ideas.”
That is the message at the core of his candidacy.
Not just that he disagrees with Ed Soliday. Not just that he wants an audit of NiSource. Not just that he wants cannabis legalized or right-to-work revisited.
His larger argument is that the current political machinery has become too comfortable. Too insulated. Too willing to ask voters for patience while the same problems keep arriving at their doors with higher bills attached.
It is a familiar insurgent argument, but Travis gives it a third-party edge. He is not asking voters to switch from red to blue. He is asking whether the red-blue structure itself is part of the trap.
Hold ’em or Fold ’em
The interview ended with a rapid round that also complicated any easy caricature of a Libertarian candidate.
Asked whether healthcare should be considered a human right and every Hoosier should have access to affordable healthcare, Travis answered yes.
Asked whether corporate PAC money has too much influence in politics and candidates should refuse it, he answered yes.
Asked whether Indiana should fully fund public schools before expanding private school vouchers, he answered yes.
Asked whether workers should have the right to organize and collectively bargain without interference, he answered yes.
Asked whether marijuana should be legalized, regulated, and taxed for adult recreational use, he answered, “Unequivocally, yes.”
Asked whether elected officials should be willing to vote against their own party if it is in the best interest of constituents, he answered yes.
Those answers do not erase the real disagreements progressives may have with Travis on taxes, the size of government, foreign policy, or the proper role of the state. They should not.
But they do show something important.
The actual conversation was more interesting than the label.
And voters deserve interesting conversations.
They deserve candidates willing to explain their reasoning, defend their ideas, admit where they have changed, and answer questions outside the comfort of their own political tribe.
That does not mean every voter in District 4 will agree with Travis Gearhart.
It means they should know what he is actually saying.
The Bigger Question for District 4
The race in House District 4 gives voters three choices, but the deeper question is not only which candidate they prefer. It is what kind of politics they want.
Do they want another cycle of party machinery, utility explanations, and carefully managed frustration?
Or do they want a race where the arguments get messy enough to become useful?
Travis Gearhart is betting there are enough voters in Northwest Indiana who are tired of being told their only choices are the same two teams running the same old plays.
His campaign is asking whether a Libertarian can make a serious argument in a district where utility rates, labor rights, privacy, cannabis, toll roads, taxes, and government accountability all collide.
That is worth paying attention to.
Not because third-party candidates are magic.
They are not.
Not because Libertarians have all the answers.
They do not.
But because democracy gets weaker when voters stop hearing real arguments and only receive pre-approved party noises.
Travis Gearhart came on the show and gave voters something more useful than a slogan.
He gave them a line of reasoning.
That is where accountability starts.
