Indiana Congressional Candidate Campaigning From Overseas

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) — One Indiana congressional candidate is running her campaign online while living overseas.

Rachel Covington, 25, is running for the 8th Congressional District seat in Indiana, the Courier & Press reported . She's been campaigning primarily on her website and on Facebook while living in Japan as an English teacher.

Covington said she doesn't think the 6,500 miles and 14-hour time difference between her and Indiana has made it more difficult to engage with voters.

"If I had to rate it, I would say it's not been too hard to contact most voters," she said. "Contact has been a little harder for probably less than 1 percent of the people I've messaged."

Covington has engaged with people through Facebook and answered questions on Reddit during an "ask me anything" session.

Covington said she'll move back to Indiana if nominated during the Republican primary in May. Covington would have to establish residency in Indiana by the Nov. 6 general election in order to be elected.

She's seeking to unseat four-term Republican U.S. Rep. Larry Bucshon. According to Covington's website, she supports legalizing marijuana, abortion rights, lowering military spending, rehabilitating drug offenders over prison and providing access to fully insured birth control.

Despite her stripped-down campaign that has raised little money with no staff, Covington said she's not intimidated by her opponents. Richard Moss, a physician from Jasper, is also running for the GOP nomination.

"It's a bit like the turtle and hare story," she said. "In this case, I'm metaphorically running around less, and I'm putting information on my website. The others are metaphorically running faster, and I think they'll end up metaphorically sleeping and not noticing my part of the race, and then I'll win in the end while the other two are doing other things."