- Harrison County Hospital suspended its OB unit effective April 1, 2025 — it performed up to 400 deliveries per year but lost both OB providers and recruitment efforts failed. Patients who already drove 30+ minutes for care now face 50+ minute drives to deliver a baby.
- Indiana has lost 12 rural labor-and-delivery units since 2020, with 70% closing in the past two years; nearly a quarter of Indiana counties are 'maternity care deserts' (March of Dimes). Harrison County is now among them.
- Caesars Southern Indiana (Elizabeth, Harrison County) is the district's largest single employer; Tyson Foods and Harrison County Hospital are the next largest. Tourism (historic Corydon — Indiana's first state capital) supplements the economy.
- The 'One Big Beautiful Bill' passed by House Republicans would cut Indiana's Medicaid by up to $28B; the Indiana Hospital Association projects hospitals will lose $1B annually, threatening the 12 most financially fragile rural hospitals with closure. Harrison County Hospital is already on the edge.
- Harrison County's unemployment rate (3.2%, Sept 2025) is better than Indiana's average (3.5%), but wage levels are depressed by the service-sector nature of casino and tourism employment.
Harrison County Hospital closed its delivery room. Mothers in Corydon now have to drive 50 minutes in labor to have a baby safely. This is what Republican health policy looks like on the ground — not a talking point, a closed door when you need it most.
Caesars writes the biggest paychecks in Harrison County, and that's fine — but a county seat that can't deliver babies, can't recruit doctors, and watches its young people leave for Jeffersonville isn't thriving. We need investment in the whole community, not just the casino floor.
The 'Big Beautiful Bill' would gut Medicaid so deeply that Harrison County Hospital may close entirely. The same politicians who put 'pro-life' on their yard signs just voted to take away the only place in this county where a mother can get emergency care. That's not pro-life — that's hypocrisy with a price tag.
Southern Indiana's opioid crisis has been documented, devastating, and insufficiently addressed. Scott County gained national attention in 2015 for an HIV outbreak driven by needle-sharing. Jackson, Lawrence, and other CD-9 counties continue to see high overdose mortality rates. Rural communities often lack inpatient treatment, recovery housing, and peer support programs.
- The opioid crisis in Southern Indiana is not an abstraction — it's families watching their children, siblings, and neighbors die of preventable overdoses. Indiana's settlement funds are a real opportunity to build recovery infrastructure.
- Naloxone access, peer recovery support, and harm reduction programs save lives between active addiction and recovery. Southern Indiana communities need this infrastructure.
CD-9 encompasses counties where critical access hospital survival is uncertain. Washington, Scott, Lawrence, and Orange counties have hospitals operating on thin financial margins. Obstetric care deserts are expanding — Indiana's maternal mortality rate is highest in rural counties.
- A county without an OB/GYN is a maternal health emergency. Pregnant women in Lawrence and Orange County deserve the same access to prenatal care as women in Indianapolis.
- Rural hospital closures are a policy choice — the result of decades of underfunding and inadequate Medicaid reimbursement rates. They can be reversed.
Agricultural counties of CD-9 — Bartholomew, Decatur, Jennings, Jackson, and Dubois — are major grain and livestock producers. Dubois County is nationally significant for poultry production. Tariff disruptions to export markets affect commodity prices and farm operating margins across the district.
- Southern Indiana farm families are not insulated from trade war disruption. When export markets close and input costs rise simultaneously, operating margins disappear. That's what's happening right now.
CD-9's rural counties — Brown, Orange, Crawford, Switzerland, Ohio, Perry — have some of the worst broadband access in Indiana. Mountainous terrain in Brown and Crawford counties creates physical deployment challenges. Rural households without reliable internet face compounding disadvantages in education, healthcare access, and economic participation.
- Students in Brown County, Crawford County, and Orange County should not have to drive to a McDonald's parking lot for WiFi to do their homework. This is an infrastructure emergency.
SEA 1's homestead deduction restructuring affects CD-9's communities in complex ways. Clark and Floyd counties — part of the Louisville metropolitan area — have seen significant property value appreciation. The more rural Southern Indiana counties have had more modest changes but depend heavily on property tax revenue for schools and local services.
- Southern Indiana families in Clark and Floyd counties are experiencing something very different from families in rural Washington or Crawford County. Property tax policy needs to honestly account for that.
How to Frame This Race
This is a TURNOUT / LONG-SHOT district — the goal is to build Democratic infrastructure, recruit volunteers, and increase the baseline Democratic vote. Every percentage point gained here builds the foundation for future competitive cycles.