2026 Voter Guide: Indiana's 4th Congressional District

Jeremy Reuben: I'm joined by David Bokash, who is running as the Independent candidate for Indiana's fourth congressional district. Thanks for sitting down with me.

David Bokash: Thank you for inviting me.

Reuben: Can you start by telling voters what your top priorities would be if elected?

Bokash: Yeah, I start out on the first line of my website saying I was very disappointed in both the Democrats and the Republicans for not doing anything about the budget deficits. We've been running these pandemic-level budget deficits roughly since the pandemic, and if you look around the world, nobody else is doing that. Only our folks are so irresponsible they can't, you know, get back to business.

Reuben: So, what policy changes could you advocate for with respect to federal spending?

Bokash: Overall, to get down to what our income level is or our income level will be, we're probably going to have to do across-the-board spending cuts. And I like the committees that run the different departments, like the Foreign Affairs Committee runs the State Department, so they set the budget for the State Department, but ideally set approximately a 5% year, a cut per year, cut and hopefully that'll drive down at least a few 100 billion every year.

Reuben: Can you explain your current thinking around United States foreign policy and what approach would benefit your constituents in Indiana?

Bokash: Right now, frankly, it's a bit chaotic. I think we need to redeploy the, the real diplomats. I think those guys have been sidelined for most of this administration, and I think we need to bring them back in the loop.

The Iranian folks, for instance, are very experienced at doing this, so it doesn't surprise me that our inexperienced guys are feeling frustration — because they haven't dealt with the Iranians before. So, assuming Democrats at least take control of the House, I'd like to have a little sit down with them. Trump administration needs — President's plans for wrapping up the war.

We need to get some real diplomats involved, and we need to hold a vote. We can do that in secret because I'm not, I don't want to give the enemy any, any of what we're planning on doing, but we need to involve Congress at this point going forward. If there's any military actions, standard procedure for decades has been to at least inform the gang of eight, and that clearly did not happen this time.

And it needs to happen going forward. And I think with — at least control of the House — the Democrats will kind of bring that to the fore and make it, make it work.

Reuben: Are there any concrete changes to healthcare that you would push for in office?

Bokash: Yeah, there's some waste, there's some inefficiency, and there's some fraud. For instance, I've been on an ACA plan for the last three years, and at 10 months after the calendar lapses, I get hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of refunds, yet they've raised the rates pretty dramatically every year since then.

So I think there needs to be, like a public utilities commission that'll look at these rate increases and say, OK, you underspent by 10% last year, so why do you need to raise the rates this year? And I think that'll tamp down a lot of the unnecessary rate rises, if necessary, right now there's a ceiling of 20% on G&A costs. We can maybe put a floor in there too to take away the risks. But I think that'll help bring down some of these year-by-year rate increases that we're seeing. It won't do all of it, but it at least it's a start.

Reuben: Many voters told us they don't think today's politicians listen to their constituents. Why do you think that is, and how would you address the concern? 

Bokash: Well, overall, I see the problem as today's class of politicians tell voters what they want to hear, as opposed to what they need to hear. And I'm definitely of the "tell you / tell them what they need to hear" camp.

And I think I'll be different from that perspective. I don't know if I'll be better or worse, but we need change, and somebody's got to get there and try it. And I guess it's me for the moment, in Indiana.

Reuben: What do people need to hear?

Bokash: They need to hear. Honestly, I do almost like a wartime announcement — like Roosevelt did after the Pearl Harbor attack — We have this deficit problem.

It's going to take hard work and sacrifice from pretty much everybody across the board to bring things in line, but if we don't bring things in line, we're risking a much more problematic collapse of some sort. And with the bubble being as big as it is, $40 trillion, it could be of the scale of the Great Depression. Honestly, if the right things go wrong.

Reuben: What kinds of policies would you support to strengthen the working and middle classes in District Four?

Bokash: Yeah, that's I think getting back to the whole affordability argument, and while prices have come up somewhat, and we can do a few things to to bring some of those prices back. The real thing is to sort of stimulate company spending around employee wages. From the end of World War II, if you plot a curve, employee wages have gone down by 50% since the end of World War II.*

Yet corporate profits have doubled since the end of World War II, and we need to reverse that trend more than anything. And I think we can do it via tax policy. In other words, reward companies for raises and profit sharing and employee pay, and we've got to pay them more more than it costs them to do that, or they won't do it. But I think there's ways to do that via tax credits.

For instance, say right now they can deduct all of employee wages as an expense. Let's take the the salary increase part of that and the profit sharing part of that, and let them deduct it a second time is a tax credit. I think that'll give them enough of a financial incentive that hopefully we can reverse these curves and maybe make things better for people across the board.

*Editor's note: It's unclear the statistics the candidate is referring to, but WFYI found this Forbes article  on whether or not wages have risen faster than productivity. A blog from Federal Reserve Bank of New York economists reports the labor share of income decreased more than 10% since World War II.

Reuben: Thanks for sitting down with me.

Bokash: You're welcome.

Jeremy Reuben: I'm joined by Drew Cox, who is running as the Democratic candidate for Indiana's fourth congressional district. Thanks for sitting down with me.

Drew Cox: Thanks for having me, Jeremy. It's great to be here.

Reuben: Can you start by telling voters what your top priorities would be if elected?

Cox: The top priorities for the district I live in are, I believe, access and affordability for healthcare, an affordable economy, and I think overall just corruption in government broadly speaking.

Reuben: So, what policy changes could you advocate for with respect to federal spending?

Cox: Well, with with DOGE, we had that the idea of cutting waste was a great idea, except for DOGE really didn't cut the wasteful things that I think a lot of the American public worry about, which is defense spending.

We have a defense budget that's ballooned to over $1 trillion a year now, and it gets bigger every single year. So that would have been a good opportunity. That defense spending has doubled since like 2005 or 2006.*

Other reforms would include regulating — I think ICE. Their budget has ballooned from, they used to get about 10 billion dollars a year, and now with the big beautiful bill, they received a slush fund of about 75 billion. So that's two things. Are we talking with, specifically, just with budgets? Or reforms more broadly?

*Editor's note: The defense budget is higher but not quite doubled. 

Reuben: It's more or less up to your discretion. We can talk big budgets. We can do littler things, but I think we were trying to get a big picture.

Cox: OK, so data centers need to be regulated as well. So those in, the, in the fourth district, we have a lot of data centers. We have moratoriums on data centers, and we have no comprehensive plan for how much water they consume. We have no sort of speed limit for that.

We have no amount of, we have nothing that kind of prevents them from passing their utility costs onto consumers, and that's a big concern right now, is the cost of power.

And so I think that our campaign would definitely support a moratorium on building data centers until we have some sort of regulations in place that hold them to a certain standard of you know water consumption and, and a standard that keeps them from passing their electrical costs onto consumers, and just overall standards that make them work for the communities that they are in, as opposed to taking away, you know, from the communities that they're in.

Reuben: Can you explain your current thinking around United States foreign policy and what approach would benefit your constituents in Indiana?

Cox: I think the first thing when I think of foreign policy is the war in Iran, and I definitely support withdrawing from that as soon as possible. I think that that has caused, at this point, enough destruction that we probably don't, won't be able to tell to ascertain what all the destruction is.

So, and, what's happened with that, is it's caused the Strait of Hormuz to be closed, which has caused the flow of goods to stop, so the cost of things have gone up. The cost of fuel is not going to be going down for a few years for farmers. Fertilizer passes through that strait, so that's going to be an increased cost for farmers, which is a huge part of the fourth district in Indiana in general.

I believe that we, as a nation, should not be giving any more aid to Israel based on what's happening in Gaza right now. I think that Ukraine is a nation that is suffering because they're kind of the scapegoat of, well, they're they're the victim, the victims of a Russian invasion.

But as the war prolong, is prolonged, it doesn't help them much at all. So, I support Ukraine. I support ultimately ending the war and doing things that help them end the war as opposed to sustaining it.

So, a foreign policy that treats other countries as not as enemies, like we've we've kind of treated China in this defamatory way, and as a result, they have you know pulled their market share of soybeans. So they are not buying our soybeans. So our farmers are going to have to come up with new ways to generate revenue because we've, you know, lost that market share, and it's because we've treated China like an adversary.

So if we treat other countries like you know — not like enemies — and more like partners, then that would help our country have better, you know, free market dealings throughout the world.

Reuben: Are there any concrete changes to healthcare that you would push for in office?

Cox: I 100% support Medicare-for-All, and the the plan that Bernie has written up that's in committee right now is good. I think it probably could go further to address rural health issues, but I definitely think that the the system we have now is not working. The system we have now allows for 500,000 roughly medical bankruptcies per year.

I have multiple family members that have been kicked off of Medicaid, which means a lot of people in my family are feeling the effects of being kicked off Medicaid, and that happened at the same time that we passed the Big Beautiful Bill last summer. So that was, you know, I feel it's a gigantic moral crisis.

It's an issue of right and wrong. And I think that the U.S. government has a responsibility to promote the general, general welfare of its citizens. And as a result, the, the government should really prioritize healthcare and should prioritize taking care of everyone. But we have a system that is profitized, and we need to remove — I believe — remove the idea of profit from healthcare.

Reuben: Many voters told us they don't think today's politicians listen to their constituents. Why do you think that is, and how would you address the concern? 

Cox: We're already addressing it because we're having town halls in every county in the district. So there are 16 counties in the fourth district, and Jim Baird is the incumbent. And so I made a vow that if I, if I made it past the primary in May, I would have a town hall in every single county, and also step down from teaching at Purdue.

And so we have all these town halls scheduled. We've had three already. We have 13 left to go. We've invited the incumbent. He is has not showed up at any of the first three. We don't expect him to show up at the remaining 13. He has, is going to rely on the fact that this district has been Republican for 30 some straight years, and so he's going to continue to not be present.

He's going to continue to not debate me. He's going to not appear at a town hall, and I think that we're making some progress, showing people that I am going to be there for the constituents. I am, have a very robust town hall campaign, and also door knocking, canvassing, phone banking.

So we're very much trying to be accountable and present for the district. And it's going to take a lot of that to, to turn this district blue for the first time in, you know, 30 — over 30 years.

Reuben: What kinds of policies would you support to strengthen the working and middle classes in District Four?

Cox: I think that for the working and middle classes, we, for one, Congress, you know, is supposed to be in charge of tariffs, and tariffs have made prices too high for the middle class. I also support raising the minimum wage.

I mean, it's been $7.25 for almost 20 years. So the price of diesel and the, you know, and the minimum wage are pretty close to the same — which is, you know, pretty unbelievable to me.

So I immediately support raising the minimum wage again, treating other countries like partners instead of adversaries — like China for instance — and that would allow us to have, you know, better free market exchanges with other countries, and, you know, trade policies that benefit United States workers, yeah.

Reuben: Thank you so much, Drew. That's all the time we have. Thank you for sitting with me.

Cox: Sweet. Thank you very much for having me, Jeremy.