Monroe County Democrats elect Geels as chair, eye 2026 elections

At a caucus held on Sunday afternoon at Bloomington city hall, the Monroe County Democratic Party elected Chrissie Geels its new chair. (It’s pronounced like “gales.”)

She is replacing Samuel Ujdak, who resigned in the third week of June, three and a half months after being elected, citing personal reasons. Geels was not a surprise selection. She was vice chair and there were no other candidates who submitted a statement. Another caucus will now have to be scheduled to fill the vacancy that Geels leaves as vice chair.

It now falls to Geels to make the Democratic Party’s appointment to the county election board. She told The B Square after the caucus that she expects to be making the election board appointment in the next two weeks, but has not yet settled on a choice.

After John Fernandez resigned as the party’s appointee earlier this year, Ujdak at first announced that he would be appointing former county commissioner Penny Githens to the three-member election board. But after some internal party pushback, he installed himself for one month as a kind of placeholder. In the meantime, he resigned.

Geels served as the campaign manager for Githens in 2022, in her unsuccessful bid for the District 62 state house seat.

Presiding over Sunday’s caucus was the party chair just before Ujdak, David Henry, who wielded the gavel in his role as the deputy district chair for political affairs for the 9th District. That’s a congressional seat that Democrats have not held since Baron Hill’s service concluded at the beginning of 2011.

The caucus served as an occasion to rally for the upcoming mid-term elections. Henry called on the precinct chairs and vice chairs who attended the caucus to “get out there and do the work” for this election cycle in the 9th District, adding, “We all know that success in the 9th District comes through Monroe County.”

Since 2010, the best showing for a Democrat in 9th District election results came in 2012, by Shelli Yoder, who received 44.5% of the vote. Yoder now serves in the state senate representing District 40, which covers much of Monroe County. Yoder attended the caucus, as did Matt Pierce who represents District 51, which covers most of Bloomington. Several other current and past elected officials attended the caucus in their roles as either precinct chairs or vice chairs.

After Democrat Liz Watson received 43.5% of the vote in the 2018 general election, the Democratic nominee for the 9th District seat has received a percentage somewhere in the low 30s: 34.1% for Andy Ruff in 2020; 33.6% for Matthew Fyfe in 2022; and 32.8%for Timothy Peck in 2024.

The 2026 primary field so far for the Democrats includes Peck, James Graham, Bradley Meyer, and Emilee McCartney. The most recent campaign finance reporting, through June 30, shows Graham with $77,573 raised, with Peck at $30,420, and Meyer at $3,439.

The most recent report also shows that the Republican 9th District incumbent Erin Houchin has raised about a half million dollars.