> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://bsquarebulletin.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Zulich announces for 2027 Bloomington mayor’s race, putting District 6 council seat in play - URL: https://bsquarebulletin.com/zulich-announces-for-2027-bloomington-mayors-race-putting-district-6-council-seat-in-play/ - Published: 2026-08-22T12:00:57.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-22T12:07:07.000Z - Description: Bloomington councilmember Sydney Zulich launched her 2027 mayoral campaign Saturday, calling for more local hiring and fewer out-of-town consultants. Her entry points toward a 3-way Democratic Party primary with mayor Kerry Thomson and Joe Davis, while opening Zulich’s District 6 council seat. - Author: Dave Askins - Tags: Local Government, #no-inline-feature ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/20/6f/206f9007-c0a7-47d4-b87b-686c21961f22/content/images/2026/08/zulich-file-photo-bsquarebulletin.comwp-contentuploads2023062023-06-30-Democratic-Party-Caucus-Sydney-Zulich1-IMG_8098-topaz-denoise-sharpen-1.jpeg) B Square file photo of Sydney Zulich from June 30, 2023. Bloomington city councilmember Sydney Zulich has launched a campaign for mayor, setting up what is likely to become a three-way race in 2027 for the top job in city government. Zulich, a Democrat who represents council District 6, and who currently serves as the council’s vice president, announced her candidacy Saturday (Aug. 22) on a platform “to create lasting affordability, invest in the city and keep Bloomington local.” “We’re in a spiral of corporatizing our city and hiring out-of-town consultants to solve our problems,” Zulich said in the campaign announcement. She said Bloomington should make greater use of local talent and develop more solutions inside city government instead of sending local dollars elsewhere. Zulich’s announcement did not single out for specific criticism any consultants, contracts or decisions by current Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson’s administration. Thomson, who took office in January 2024, was not mentioned in the release. The launch itself was low-key. Zulich’s campaign distributed the [announcement](https://bloomdocs.org/wp-content/uploads/simple-file-list/2026-08-22-Zulich-mayor-announcement.pdf) to local news organizations Friday morning under an embargo until 8 a.m. Saturday. The release does not identify a public kickoff event, speech or gathering connected to the announcement. One of the campaign’s media contacts confirmed to The B Square that the launch would take place primarily online. The campaign announcement stresses the idea of keeping economic activity local. The release says Zulich wants to find ways to prioritize local companies and businesses instead of awarding contracts to companies outside Bloomington. It also casts Zulich as the kind of person who exemplifies the solution to a challenge that Bloomington needs to confront. That’s to persuade more Indiana University graduates to stay in the city after they finish school. The announcement puts it like this: “After graduating from Indiana University in 2023, Zulich chose to stay and work in Bloomington. Zulich is the prime example of the type of graduate we must work to keep in Bloomington—intelligent, dedicated, passionate and ready to invest her skills back into our community.” Zulich graduated from IU in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in international law and institutions, and Slavic and East European languages and cultures. Since late 2024, she has worked as associate publisher for Bloom Magazine. The announcement wraps up with a paragraph that begins this way: “On day one, Zulich is ready to build a team of folks who truly understand and care about what makes Bloomington a great place to not only go to school and attend sporting events, but also to stay, to work, to buy a home and to raise a family.” The preparation for the launch dates back at least to July 9, when the internet domain for the campaign website, zulichformayor.com, [was registered](https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/domain/zulichformayor.com). No website has yet been set up for the domain. Zulich would be running for the Democratic Party’s nomination. The actual paperwork for a declaration [can’t be filed until Jan. 6, 2027](https://bloomdocs.org/wp-content/uploads/simple-file-list/2027-Indiana-election-deadlines-SOS-Calendar-Brochure%5FFINAL.pdf). Even though there has not been a public announcement from Thomson that she is seeking re-election, it’s not considered to be an open question. On Wednesday, Joe Davis told The B Square he intends to stand as a candidate in the Democratic Party’s primary, which would make for a potential three-way race for the Dems. ### Background as campaign staffer Zulich’s announcement about her candidacy for mayor comes a little more than three years after she first secured a spot on a Bloomington ballot. The path to her place on the November 2023 general election ballot as the Democratic Party’s nominee for District 6 city council did not follow the conventional primary election route. In spring 2023, Zulich was [preparing to run as an independent](https://bsquarebulletin.com/2023/05/20/local-democratic-party-wont-contest-district-6-bloomington-council-election-outcome-now-leaves-door-open-to-future-action/) for the newly drawn District 6 council seat and had collected the nine signatures she needed for ballot access. But Democrat David Wolfe Bender, who had won the May Democratic Party primary unopposed, resigned as the party’s nominee amid questions about whether he actually lived in the district. Zulich switched tracks and sought the Democratic Party’s nomination through a ballot-vacancy caucus. On June 30, 2023, she was the only candidate in the caucus and was [unanimously selected](https://bsquarebulletin.com/bloomington-district-6-city-council-dems-pick-zulich/) by the five eligible Democratic Party precinct chairs who participated. No Republican candidate was placed on the ballot, so Zulich was unopposed in the November 2023 election. By then, Zulich had a lot of experience behind the scenes. Her LinkedIn profile lists her as an event coordinator for Penny Githens’s 2022 campaign for Indiana House District 62\. That was a close contest that was won by Republican Dave Hall. In early 2023, Zulich was field director for Isak Asare’s successful campaign for an at-large Bloomington city council seat. Zulich later served as regional campaign manager for Tim Peck’s 2024 congressional campaign and as field director for Democrat Thomas Horrocks’s 2024 Indiana House campaign. At the same time, she served as the Monroe County Democratic Party’s director of coordinated campaigns, working across a slate of about 20 candidates. Most recently, Zulich served as campaign manager for David Henry’s 2026 primary campaign for Monroe County commissioner District 1\. Henry’s January campaign announcement identified fellow city councilmember Courtney Daily as campaign chair, Zulich as campaign manager and county auditor Brianne Gregory as treasurer. Henry lost the May primary to Trent Deckard by a roughly 20-point margin. Zulich’s candidacy for mayor means the District 6 city council seat will be open. The seat was uncontested in both the primary and general elections in 2015 and 2019 elections, when Steve Volan was the incumbent. After the redrawing of the districts to conform to the decennial census, Volan’s residency was in District 4, and he chose to run at-large in 2023, in an unsuccessful campaign. Bender was the sole candidate in the 2023 Democratic Party primary for District 6. In 2027, if more than one candidate declares for a District 6 primary, it will be the first time there’s been a contested primary race in that district since 2011, when Sandi Cole lost the primary to Volan. ### At least three names taking shape for 2027 Zulich is the first of the likely candidates to make a public mayoral announcement, but the emerging 2027 field could have at least three names: Zulich, Thomson and Joe Davis. No one can be an officially declared candidate for city office in 2027 until the [window for that paperwork](https://bloomdocs.org/wp-content/uploads/simple-file-list/2027-Indiana-election-deadlines-SOS-Calendar-Brochure%5FFINAL.pdf) filing opens on Jan. 6\. Thomson has not publicly announced a reelection campaign. But by this spring, she was openly acknowledging that her preparations for the 2027 city election were underway. In April, a [political survey distributed by text message](https://bsquarebulletin.com/political-poll-on-bloomington-mayor-hopewell-south-other-city-issues-circulates-by-text/) asked Bloomington residents a series of questions about Thomson’s job performance, whether city government needed minor or fundamental change, and whether respondents would vote to reelect Thomson or support another Democrat. Thomson declined explicitly to confirm to The B Square that it was her campaign that had commissioned the poll. But in response to a question about it, she said: “We’re starting to prepare for next year’s city elections and doing the usual groundwork—fundraising, building a team, and continuing to gather input from Bloomington residents.” Thomson raised a substantial amount of money last year. Her 2025 annual campaign finance report showed $54,791.51 in contributions during the year. After expenditures, Friends of Kerry Thomson finished 2025 with $127,642.99 cash on hand. Zulich’s campaign finance committee for city council showed no contributions during 2025 and a finishing balance of $1,284.67 There have been other informal signals that Thomson is seeking re-election. Thomson’s Facebook campaign account has become more active, and Thomson has recently indicated to city councilmembers that she intends to resume giving them regular updates in person. Davis, meanwhile, would be making a second attempt at the mayor’s office. In 2023, Davis tried to qualify for the ballot as an independent candidate for Bloomington mayor, but fell 14 valid signatures short. He challenged the disqualification of some of his petition signatures before the Monroe County election board, but without success. Davis more recently ran in the three-way 2026 Democratic Party primary for Monroe County clerk, [finishing third with 21% of the vote](https://bsquarebulletin.com/monroe-county-2026-primary-election-results-live-updates/). On Wednesday this week, Davis told The B Square that he is planning to run in the Democratic Party’s primary for mayor in 2027, but he is focused right now on appealing a decision by the election board to [disqualify him as a write-in candidate](https://bsquarebulletin.com/candidates-write-in-bid-blocked-by-monroe-county-election-board-court-challenge-planned/) for county clerk. Under Indiana state law, he can’t be a candidate for clerk in the general election because he lost the primary for clerk. Davis is looking to challenge the constitutionality of the law. All that means Zulich’s announcement does not yet officially establish an official three-candidate field. But it pushes the developing 2027 contest in that direction, with an incumbent preparing for a second campaign, a councilmember now publicly in the race, and a perennial candidate expected to take another shot at the mayor’s office. ### What does “out-of-town consultants” mean? One of the more pointed parts of Zulich’s campaign announcement is about the use of consultants to do work for the city. The announcement criticizes “out-of-town consultants” and says Bloomington needs to use more of the community’s own talent. Some recent Thomson administration initiatives that have recently made the news fit the literal description of using out-of-town consultants. One is the city’s $95,000 place-branding contract with CivicBrand, part of the Texas-based MODassic Group. Bloomington signed the contract in January 2025 to develop a civic brand for the city. By November 2025, the city had paid the entire $95,000 contract amount. But in March, the city [claimed in response to a formal records request](https://bsquarebulletin.com/bloomington-paid-full-95k-branding-contract-key-deliverables-still-not-finished-4-months-later/) from The B Square that two major portions of the contracted work were still under development—a brand strategy and implementation guidance. As recently as July 21, in response to a formal records request from The B Square, the city claimed that no additional deliverables had yet been provided to the city by CivicBrand. In another recent case, Thomson administration paid $37,900 to aQity Research & Insights Inc., an Evanston, Illinois, firm, for the community survey whose results were [presented to the city council on Aug. 5](https://bsquarebulletin.com/council-rips-bloomington-survey-for-sidelining-college-students/). Councilmembers criticized several aspects of the survey methodology, especially a decision not to pursue a sampling methodology that ensured a good representation in responses from Bloomington’s significant college student population. Even an attempted clarification emailed by the consultant after the council’s criticism included a concession of the main point: “Because of the extremely low response among IU students (which could be attributed to multiple factors—lack of time, awareness, interest), we had to adjust our sample weighting to more closely align with those who responded, namely the non-student adult population.” Zulich was among the sharpest critics. She called one explanation from the consultant “a stunningly insulting answer.” She also pressed the administration on how aQity had been selected and learned that the city had not issued a request for proposals. Zulich ultimately said she did not consider the survey a responsible use of taxpayer money. A third notable out-of-town consultant is Flintlock LAB, the Fayetteville, Arkansas, firm whose Alli Thurmond Quinlan has played a central role in the Thomson administration’s redesign of Hopewell South. The redevelopment commission first authorized a Flintlock contract of up to $300,000 for work that included design of pre-approved housing plans. It later approved another [$145,000 contract](https://bsquarebulletin.com/bloomington-rdc-5m-for-roads-145k-for-hopewell-south-rezone-58k-for-police-hq-study/) for Flintlock to shepherd the Hopewell South planned unit development through the rezoning process. But the Hopewell South case also seems to illustrate why Zulich’s statement isn’t necessarily a categorical criticism of any initiative that relies on a consultant headquartered outside Bloomington. On the Hopewell South project, Zulich was consistently among the councilmembers aligned with Thomson’s push to move the project forward. On Feb. 18, when the council [declined on a 2–7 vote](https://bsquarebulletin.com/bloomington-council-signals-support-for-hopewell-south-pud-zoning-but-wont-vote-sooner-than-march-25/) to introduce the Hopewell South PUD, because the supporting materials had not been filed by the usual deadline, only council president Isak Asare and Zulich voted to introduce it. On March 4, the council voted 6–3 to wait until March 25 before taking final action. Asare, Zulich and Daily cast the three dissenting votes because they wanted to vote on approval that night. Three weeks later, the same three councilmembers dissented from another [6–3 postponement vote](https://bsquarebulletin.com/hopewell-south-pud-vote-postponed-by-bloomington-city-council-until-april-1/), again because they wanted the council to approve Hopewell South without further delay. On May 6, the full council eventually [approved the Hopewell South PUD](https://bsquarebulletin.com/hopewell-south-pud-wins-unanimous-ok-from-bloomington-city-council/) unanimously after reaching a compromise on affordability requirements. ### Dual roles as candidate, councilmember For the eight and a half months between now and Bloomington’s May 4, 2027 Democratic Party primary, what Zulich says and does as a councilmember will also be viewed through the lens of her role as a challenger to the current mayoral administration. There’s a chance to watch that dynamic as early as next week, with the [final two nights](https://bloomington.in.gov/council/meetings) of the council’s review of Thomson’s [proposed 2027 budget](https://bsquarebulletin.com/mayor-transit-payment-election-costs-account-for-nearly-all-of-bloomingtons-2027-budget-gap/). Monday (Aug. 24) brings presentations from parks and recreation, economic and sustainable development, public works administration, animal care and control, facilities, fleet and sanitation. On Wednesday (Aug. 26), the council will hear from the capital improvement board, clerk, council office, controller, legal, human resources and information and technology services, as well as Thomson’s own mayoral-office budget.