Terre Haute Vice News

[This article was inspired by the work of Dave Askins, lead writer at the B Square Bulletin, in Bloomington, Indiana]

January 18th was the deadline for candidates to submit 2022 year end campaign contribution reports. A list of these reports and candidates who failed to submit by the deadline can be found on the Vigo County Clerk’s website.

According to Duke Bennett’s CFA he started 2022 with $121,059 and added $58,257, after subtracting expenditures he is starting the 2023 pre-election campaign season with $167, 433 cash on hand and investments.

As of January 23rd Duke Bennett and Pat Goodwin were the only two individuals to have filed as candidates in the 2023 race for mayor, and Goodwin does not have a CFA posted on the county website.

Several contributors to Bennett’s campaign also contributed to his 2019 race for mayor including Terry Baker, president of HWC Engineering, who contributed $3,000 to Bennett on September 12th of last year.

Other large donations were made by Sanjay Patel, president of MHG Hotels, donating $1,500, and Kenneth DePasse, president of Republic Services, donating $1,000.

Pictured below are the locations of individual contributions made to Bennett and Goodwin’s campaigns. Over 70% of donations made to Goodwin’s campaign came from donors with a Terre Haute address compared to

Of those individual donations to Bennett’s campaign the amount that were $250 or less made up less than 1% of his total amount raised during 2019. The same category amounted to over 12% of the total funds raised by Goodwin.

The charts pictured below show the amounts and number of donors to Bennett and Goodwin’s campaigns from Corporations, Labor Unions, and Political Action Committees.

Approximately 3% of Goodwin’s total contributions came from organizations, compared to 68% of Bennett’s. The largest organizational donors to Bennett’s campaign were Faegre, Baker, Daniels ($7,500) and Commonwealth Engineers ($6,000).

Goodwin’s two largest organizational contributors were EMC Resources ($1,000) and the Indiana Realtors PAC ($900). Bennett’s organizational contributions totaled $50,849 and Goodwin’s amounted to $2,200.

When the locations of individual contributions to Bennett and Goodwin’s
campaign’s were analyzed by the Urban Institute’s Spatial Equity Tool it can be seen that renters and residents with low incomes were significantly underrepresented.

Also significantly underrepresented by Bennett’s contributions were black
residents and households without internet access. Additionally, residents
without a college degree were slightly underrepresented by both candidates.

Overrepresented by both campaigns were white residents, seniors, and residents with a college education. A full analysis of both candidate’s contributions can be seen below.

Duke Bennett:

Pat Goodwin: