Jasper Doctor Files to Seek Republican Nomination for State House District 63

Jasper surgeon Dr. Richard Moss filed with the Indiana Secretary of State on April 4 to seek the Republican nomination for State House District 63, stepping into the first open-seat race the district has seen since 2017 after nine-year incumbent Rep. Shane Lindauer announced last October he would not seek re-election.

The open seat matters to Dubois County in concrete ways. Lindauer, also of Jasper, won re-election in November 2024 with 76.3% of the vote, leaving a formidable seat now available to whoever emerges from the Republican nomination process. Whoever wins will carry the district's voice to Indianapolis on votes touching property tax rates, rural hospital funding formulas, and state workforce rules that flow directly to employers in Jasper and the surrounding county.

Moss, a board-certified surgeon who has maintained a private practice in Jasper for more than 35 years and has written political columns for the Dubois County Herald, is running on what he calls an "Indiana First" platform. His most geographically specific proposal is a ban on foreign ownership of Indiana land, which he frames as a national-security imperative given the proximity of Naval Support Activity Crane in neighboring Martin County. District 63 covers all of Martin County as well as portions of Daviess, Dubois and Pike counties, putting Crane squarely inside the boundaries of the seat Moss wants to hold.

"Too many politicians have put global and special interests ahead of Hoosiers," Moss said in announcing his filing. He described his campaign as being "about protecting what belongs to the people of Indiana."

Beyond the land-ownership proposal, Moss pledges fiscal conservatism including balanced state budgets and low taxes, regulatory rollback, and a hard line against any return to pandemic-era business closures or workplace mandates, a commitment with direct relevance to Dubois County's manufacturing base.

Moss is not new to this particular contest. He ran in the 2014 Republican primary for what was then also District 63, losing to Mike Braun, who subsequently won the seat, left for the U.S. Senate, and now serves as Indiana's governor. Lindauer was appointed to fill that vacancy in 2017. Moss re-enters a district that has changed considerably in a dozen years but remains one of the more reliably Republican seats in southern Indiana.

The Indiana primary is scheduled for May 5, 2026. Candidate forums and fundraising disclosures in the weeks ahead will give Dubois County voters the clearest picture of who is competing for the nomination and what each candidate would actually do in Indianapolis.