EVANSVILLE — Chosen by Republican voters who elected him to party positions by large margins on May 7, Michael Daugherty was banned again this week by Republican officials.

Daugherty isn’t just banned from seeking any office as a Republican until 2030 — he’s also banned from the Indiana GOP state convention in Indianapolis this weekend.

Daugherty, the Libertarian candidate for Evansville mayor last year, says he had planned to attend the convention at the Indiana Convention Center as a guest to work for Noblesville pastor Micah Beckwith’s campaign for lieutenant governor. Beckwith seeks the support of the convention’s roughly 1,800 delegates in a floor contest pitting him against state Rep. Julie McGuire, the choice of Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Braun. It’s the state GOP’s first competitive lieutenant governor contest in decades.

But Daugherty, who Republican voters elected to be a state delegate and a local GOP precinct committee member, isn’t welcome.

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“Every guest (at the convention) has to be registered,” he said. “I only told two people that I was going to be there working, and they hadn’t told anybody, so I’m assuming my name came up on the ‘registered guests’ list and (the Indiana Republican Party) said, ‘Oh, hell no,’ and put a stop to it.”

The news was conveyed to Daugherty by Beckwith’s campaign, which offered him the chance to work a booth for the candidate outside the convention. Daugherty declined, he said, to avoid becoming a distraction.

Griffin Reid, press secretary for the state GOP, acknowledged that Daugherty won’t be allowed inside the convention.

Reid sent a text message quoting a party rule saying admission to the convention comes by tickets that go to delegates, media and “guests invited by the State Committee.”

“This individual (Daugherty) was recently determined to not be a Republican in good standing by the (party) officers of his congressional district, and is therefore not eligible to attend the convention this year,” Reid wrote.

It’s part of civil war engulfing Vanderburgh GOP

The four-member 8th District Republican Congressional Committee banned Daugherty, Ken Colbert and Cheryl Batteiger-Smith from seeking any office as Republicans until 2030 after holding a hearing in Evansville on June 3.

The committee, headed by Posey County GOP activist Brenda Goff, was acting at the behest of Vanderburgh County party chairman Mike Duckworth. Daugherty, Colbert and Batteiger-Smith are critics of Duckworth who have vowed to seek his removal and to transition the local GOP into a more lean and ideologically conservative organization.

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Duckworth had tried unsuccessfully in February to persuade the Vanderburgh County Election Board to remove Daugherty from the May 7 GOP primary election ballot as a candidate for precinct committee and convention delegate slots. His argument: Daugherty’s Libertarian campaign for mayor put him in direct opposition to unsuccessful Republican nominee Natalie Rascher in violation of party rules defining a “Republican in good standing.”

But the election board foiled Duckworth’s attempt to remove Daugherty from the ballot, with the GOP’s own representative to the board — attorney Joe Harrison Jr., a former party chairman himself — siding with Daugherty. Duckworth responded by exercising his prerogative as GOP chairman to replace Harrison on the board with Chad Sullivan, the lawyer who had represented him in his attempt to block Daugherty.

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Duckworth’s opposition to Daugherty didn’t stop Republican voters themselves from supporting Daugherty in the primary.

Daugherty beat another Republican for a precinct committee slot with 73% of the vote. He received 1,260 votes to finish fourth in a field of 24 Republicans seeking 10 seats at the state convention.

But that, in turn, did not deter Duckworth from seeking Daugherty, Colbert and Batteiger-Smith’s removal at the June 3 party hearing — 27 days after they had been elected in the primary.

‘Bad optics’

Guest tickets for this weekend’s Republican convention in Indianapolis were sold out as of at least Wednesday, according to the event’s web page.

Daugherty plans to root on Beckwith from home this weekend, staying in contact with other Beckwith supporters at the convention. He said he respects the Indiana Republican Party’s right to ban him from being a guest at its convention, in the process backing up Duckworth.

But that doesn’t mean he thinks it’s a good idea.

“I think it’s bad optics for the party,” he said. “I think they’re trying to make me an example and strike fear into all Republicans so that they can move their agenda forward without any resistance.”

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Michael Daugherty banned from Indiana GOP state convention