2026 Voter Guide: Indiana's 6th Congressional District

Barb Anguiano: What are your campaign's top priorities?

Cynthia Wirth: So right now, Hoosiers are in distress economically, and one of the biggest issues we have is healthcare.

And we're hearing that across all 11 counties, that people are being priced out of healthcare, whether they're on the Affordable Care Act plans, whether they're on employer-sponsored plans, or whether they're trying to navigate something in between with like the charity healthcare plans that are available, it's all so expensive, and people just can't afford them.

Groceries and gas prices are just astronomical. You know, people are comparing their grocery bills from two and three, four years ago, and it's more than doubled in most cases.

Rent and housing costs, those are also increasing at a rate where people can't afford to live. Young people are finding that they can't buy homes, and this is young people even into their 40s.

So, I think, you know, rent prices, housing prices, those things. We're being priced out of our own lives. Not just in Indiana though, across the United States, but it is hitting Indiana pretty hard.

Ending corruption is another thing. Federally, we're seeing the level of corruption, just unbelievable, and every day it's something new. So, ending that corruption, making sure that we have all three branches of government performing those required checks and balances on each other, is really a key piece of our campaign.

Right now, the other things we're focusing on are eight of our 11 counties are FEMA federal disaster areas because of the flooding that happened on August 11 [in Henry County]. And that is something that I experienced in 2008. My husband and I lost everything in the 2008 flood in Columbus that took out our county hospital in Bartholomew County, and it took out Cummins Engine.

I think two-thirds of our town was affected, so we've been there. We know what that's like. We know what happens when FEMA says they're coming in and they say, "OK, well we're here to help you."

And then what you get back are offers for loans, offers for things that are help, but help with strings that maybe you can't afford, and I think we're starting to see that now in Cambridge City, in Wayne County, in Newcastle, in Henry County, in Connersville, in Fayette County.

And we're seeing that if we have a federal government that is strong and functioning, then we have a FEMA that is strong and functioning, and right now that $80 billion that was supposed to go to FEMA has gone to ICE.*

Which brings me to another thing, which we need to abolish — ICE. ICE, as we know it now, is currently, as we speak, in Indiana, taking people off the streets from gas stations, from restaurants. This has been happening all week this week, and it's a big, a big concern because we're a nation of immigrants.

We're, almost all of us, are from immigrant families, and we need to make sure that everyone has due process, and we uphold human rights for everyone.

*Editor's note: The Trump Administration cancelled billions in Federal Emergency Management Agency grants to rural communities and planned to eliminate the agency, but Congressional Republicans did not explicitly transfer those funds to increase ICE's budget to $85 billion. 

Anguiano: How do you feel your background prepares you for this position?

Wirth: So, it's a great question because I have a very interesting background, and I've had the opportunity to have a lot of different experiences, and not because I wanted them, but because life went that way, and I just took that opportunity.

I'm a small businessperson. I'm a teacher, and I'm a scientist. And I think those things make me aware of a lot of things that are going on in people's everyday lives. If you don't have that intersection of those areas of education and small business and science and technology, you may miss part of that.

How I ended up that way is just by chance. I was a first generation college graduate and came out as a scientist. And of course, there really weren't any jobs. So, my husband and I opened a small business. We had that until we lost everything in the flood in 2008. We're just entrepreneurs at heart. So again, you know, we would do something else.

I started teaching so that we would have health insurance after 2008, and I think that background of teaching is what led me here, because from my classroom I could see things that were affecting families. In 2017, was teaching environmental science, we were watching the EPA being gutted in real time, and my students were asking me what I could do about that.

And because they learned the value of, you know, what the EPA does, how it protects people, what those laws are for, where they came from, and why we have them. And I said I don't know what I can do. I went looking and ended up on a fellowship to Capitol Hill, learning how to write policy that would protect people and help people out in their everyday lives, and that's what good policy does.

So, I have a strange background that is not traditional, but it does put me in a position where I have had those experiences. I've been able to put it all together and make some sense of it.

While I was on Capitol Hill, I had the opportunity to write an original bill, and that original bill did pass the House, the Senate, and was signed into law, which is another unusual thing that doesn't generally happen even on Capitol Hill with lifelong people who work there.

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

Wirth: I think there's so many people in politics right now that are there for the wrong reasons, and from what I see, traveling around to the 11 counties in Indiana's sixth district, no one has listened to them in a couple of decades.

I have meetings at libraries and cafes and public places where I invite people to come in and tell me what keeps them up at night. And at every stop, I have had a line waiting for me when I get there, and that tells me that people are hungry for someone to listen to them. And I think when you really care about what's going on, you're willing to take the time and listen, and that's the job.

I think too many times now, people look at political offices as a sort of appointment of whatever they can do to pad their resume or establish their legacy or whatever it is that that feeds their own pocketbook and speaks to their own profit, and I'm in this to help people. I'm not in this to pad my own wallet. I've lost everything before.

I know what that's like, so I know what people are going through. You know, my husband's lost several jobs because of cuts, and we know the reality of that. And I think having somebody who knows that is really important. But too many times, I think people are just in it for the wrong reasons.

Anguiano: You touched on this a little bit earlier, but another concern for voters is affordability. What's your plan to tackle affordability in the state?

Wirth: So, there are federal programs that we can put back in place that have been gutted when DOGE came through and made all those cuts. A lot of things were gutted. We can put those back. It's not going to be immediate, but it can be done in a timely manner.

Those are programs like affordable housing programs where we can actually have incentivized builders, incentivized to build affordable housing units. I think we're over 50 million affordable housing units short in the United States.*

That's hitting Indiana pretty hard, also.So that's one program that we can do with affordability, holding big corporations accountable for antitrust laws, and making sure that we aren't all just being ripped off at the expense of, or for the profit of big corporations.

And putting those laws back into place and putting teeth back in them, that's another priority that will help consumers directly help keep prices down, making sure that this tariff madness ends. You know, that's another one that's driving prices through the roof, and there's no reason for it.

You know, we all know that we pay the tariffs. It's not some other government that does. It's everyday people who pay those. So, we need to roll those back. Start treating our allies across the world as our actual allies and our trading partners and not sort of hold them hostage to these insane tariff demands.

*Editor's note: National estimates vary and the gap varies state to state, but there is agreement the U.S. has an affordable housing problem that is a crisis in many places. 

Anguiano: Is there anything else you want to tell voters?

Wirth: I have been fighting and standing up [to] injustice my whole life. You know, as a five year old, I was taking on the neighborhood bullies, and I think, and I mean, that went through elementary school and college, and as a young person in my, in my hometown of Columbus.

And I think we need people right now who understand what people are going through and are willing to stand up and fight for everyday people and hold powerful people accountable. And I'm ready to do that on day one. I'm ready to do that right now.

I am, you know, holding people accountable as things go on with the flooding, as things go on with ICE, calling for the abolishment of ICE, holding our county and local and state representatives accountable for the decisions that they have made that are supporting these draconian measures that are affecting everyday people.

If you look online right now, people don't like what's happening, and they're being very vocal about it. So, if you are an everyday working person like me, come join us.

Anguiano: Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Cinde.

Wirth: Thank you for having me.