Mayoral elections are held in South Bend, Indiana for the city's mayor every four years in the year immediately preceding that of United States presidential elections. South Bend held its first mayoral election in 1865, the year in which the city was incorporated (electing William G. George, its first mayor). This first mayoral election took place in early June 1865, only two weeks after the formal incorporation of the city.
Elections before 1963
1963
The 1963 South Bend, Indiana mayoral election was held on November 5, 1963. It saw the election of Republican nominee Lloyd M. Allen.
Incumbent Democrat Frank J. Bruggner, who had reluctantly assumed the office after Edward F. Voorde's death in an automobile accident, did not seek reelection to the office.
This is the last time that a non-incumbent Republican won a South Bend mayoral election.
Primaries
Democratic primary Two candidates faced each other in the Democratic primary. Paul Krueper was favored by voters on the East Side and had the support of the Democratic establishment. However, Eugene Pajakowki was favored by voters on the West Side, which had a significant Polish-American vote at the time. The South Bend Tribune's political writer at the time, James Carroll, described the primary the two men waged as being, "one of the meanest in Democratic history". Krueper prevailed in the primary, but the ugliness of the primary had split the party. The party largely split along geographic lines, the city's East Side versus its West Side.
Republican primary City Judge Lloyd M. Allen won a large victory in the Republican primary, which saw sizable turnout.
General election While a Democratic city, at the time, South Bend was more competitive in its mayoral elections than it is today. A Republican had last won a mayoral election in 1951, and one had come close in the narrow 1955 election (losing a close race to Edward F. Voorde).
The election took place in the direct aftermath of the announcement that Studebaker, a major South Bend employer, would be closing its operations in the city.
Allen criticized the incumbent Democratic-run city administration for the poor condition of the city's streets, and promised that, if elected, he would institute a massive program to repave the city's roads. Allen also campaigned in areas of West Side that were Democratic strongholds and had typically been neglected by Republican candidates.
Allen won a landslide victory. and picked up 5 of the city's 6 districts. Allen's victory has been attributed to the split in the Democratic party following its fractious primary.
1967
The 1967 South Bend, Indiana mayoral election was held on November 7, 1967. It saw the reelection of incumbent Republican Lloyd M. Allen.
This is the last time that a Republican has won a South Bend mayoral election.
Nominations Republicans re-nominated incumbent mayor Lloyd M. Allen.
Democrats nominated Eugene Pajakowki, who had unsuccessfully sought their nomination four years earlier.
Two independent candidates were also running.
General election While, during his first term, Allen had received some criticism (including from some prominent city Republicans) for the amount of spending his government had undertaken, despite the city having just lost the major employer Studebaker. Allen defended his spending by declaring that citizens were okay with paying for necessary improvements, so long as they saw actual results.
Allen was endorsed for reelection by The South Bend Reformer newspaper.
Allen won a strong reelection, winning by a 10,500 vote margin. Allen received strong support from the city's African American wards. Allen even received a surprising number of votes in the heavily-Democratic 2nd and 6th wards.
Allen's victory had an arguable coattail effect, with Republican City Clerk nominee Cecil Blough winning his race.
1971
The 1971 South Bend, Indiana mayoral election was held on November 2, 1971. The election was won by Democratic nominee Jerry Miller.
Incumbent Republican mayor Lloyd M. Allen opted against running for a third term.
This election ushered in an era of continuous Democratic control of the mayor's office in South Bend, which continues to this day.
Nominations
Democratic primary Democrats nominated Jerry Miller, a St. Joseph County Commissioner who had served as President of the County Commissioners.
Republican primary Republicans nominated Common Council member Janet Allen (of no familial relation to then-incumbent mayor Lloyd M. Allen). Janet Allen was a conservative Republican who had regularly clashed with the more moderate Republican Lloyd M. Allen during his mayoralty, criticizing him on spending and taxes. Janet Allen had been the first woman ever elected to the South Bend Common Council when she was elected in 1963.
The Republican primary had been a divisive one, with a battle being waged between the cities moderate and conservative Republican Party wings.
General election The Republican Party remained divided after its primary.
Janet Allen would have been the first woman to be elected mayor of South Bend had she won the election. , no woman has been elected mayor of South Bend.
Jerry Miller had previously been on a study commission to examine a restructuring of the St. Joseph County and South Bend governments. Carrying some of the ideas he had adopted support for during his role on this study commission, Miller campaigned as a proponent of implementing a cabinet form of governance to South Bend's mayor's office Once elected, Miller successfully would re-organize the mayorship. In what was the largest restructuring of a local government in Indiana since Indianapolis' Unigov, the Indiana State Legislature passed legislation authorizing South Bend to restructure its government as such, and South Bend passed legislation to do so, reorganizing many governmental entities into six departments with heads appointed by the mayor.
Miller defeated allen by roughly 10,500 votes, nearly identical to the margin by which Republican Lloyd M. Allen won in the 1967 election. Over 48,000 people voted.
1975
The 1975 South Bend, Indiana mayoral election was held on November 4, 1975. The election was won by Democratic nominee Peter Nemeth, who had unseated the incumbent Democratic mayor, Jerry Miller, in the party's primary.
Nominations Democratic primary Democratic incumbent Jerry Miller was unseated in the primary, being defeated by common council member Peter Nemeth. Nemeth's victory was considered an upset.
In the municipal Democratic primaries, 27,330 votes were cast, which set a record high for a South Bend municipal primary.
Republican primary John Slafkosky won the Republican nomination.
Also seeking the Republican nomination was George Williams Jr. Williams was the first black man to run for mayor of South Bend. Williams was a community organizer.
Independent candidates Ronald R. Kronewittier ran as an independent candidate.
General election Due to the strength of the Democratic Party, his upset primary victory, and his popularity as a common council member, Nemeth was favored to win. He ultimately won a landslide victory.
1979
The 1979 South Bend, Indiana mayoral election was held on November 6, 1979. It saw the election Democratic nominee Roger Parent.
Nominations Primary elections were held May 8.
Democratic primary Roger Parent won the Democratic primary.
Parent won roughly 6,500 votes. The runner-up was St. Joseph County engineer William J. Richardson, who lost to Parent by a roughly 800 vote margin. Third-place finisher was George E. Herendeen, who had roughly 1,400 fewer votes than Parent had received. Fourth place finisher was Mary Chris Adams, who received roughly 1,800 fewer votes than Parent had received.
Parent had been the front-runner since launching his campaign. His strategy placed strong hoes on winning the vote in his own city council district.
Republican primary H. Chris Overgaard was unopposed in the Republican mayoral primary, receiving roughly only 2,100 votes, which was described by Jack Colwell of the South Bend Tribune as a record-low for the number of votes to be cast in a South Bend mayoral Republican primary in "modern political history". In fact, at only 2,264, the turnout in the city's overall Republican primaries were also described as a record-low for modern-time Republican municipal primaries in the city.
General election the city saw its lowest turnout for a mayoral election since 1925. 29,196 votes were cast.
Parent won by a roughly 2–1 margin over Republican H. Chris Overgaard.
Immediately after the Democratic primary, all of Parent's three largest opponents gave him their support for the general election.
1983
The 1983 South Bend, Indiana mayoral election was held on November 8, 1983. It saw the reelection of incumbent Democrat Roger Parent.
Nominations Primary elections were held on May 3.
Democratic primary Democrats renominated incumbent mayor Roger Parent.
Republican primary Republicans nominated businessman Howeard Hoodhew. Goodhew defeated school board member Oscar Brookins.
American party nomination The American Party nominated Kathryn Brookins, wife of failed Republican primary contender Oscar Brookins.
General election At 62%, turnout, while showing an increase over that of the previous mayoral election, was not considered all that high.
Many local Republicans saw Goodhew as presenting the party with its best chances of winning the mayoralty since Lloyd M. Allen left office.
In the closing period of the campaign, Howard Goodhew ran harsh attacks on Parent and the city government he had overseen. Internal polling by Parent's campaign late in the race had shown the race between him and Goodhew narrowing, with Goodhew gaining on him. However, in the very last days of the election, Parent's polls again showed him with a more comfortable margin. Some believed that the last-minute attacks on Parent by Goodhew may have backfired on Goodhew.
Parent's campaign had been satisfied that voter turnout improved over the previous election, as they believed that apathy among voters would hurt his chances of reelection.
While Goodhew denied it, there were allegations that a state board that he was chair of was playing politics to aid his campaign when it delayed a bond issue for the city of South Bend.
Parent carried the vote in five of the city's six Common Council (city council) districts The coinciding election for the Common Council (which also had two at-large seats) saw the Democrats retain the 8–1 majority that they had won four years prior.
1987
The 1987 South Bend, Indiana mayoral election was held on November 3, 1987. Joe Kernan defeated Republican Carl Baxmeyer. This is the closest that a Republican has come to the mayoralty of South Bend since the last Republican victory in 1967.
Background Incumbent Democratic mayor Roger Parent opted not to seek a third term as mayor. Rumors arose that internal polling had shown that, with controversy around the construction of Stanley Coveleski Regional Stadium, Parent would not have been able to win a third term. Several allies of Parent on the Common Council with involvement in the stadium construction would ultimately lose their reelection bids in the May primaries.
Primaries Primary elections were held in May.
Democratic primary The main two candidates in the Democratic primary were Joe Kernan (the city's former comptroller from 1980 to 1984) and Richard D. Jasinki (an incumbent county commissioner). The primary widely being viewed as a race between the two of them, with their campaigns against each other proving heated and divisive. In addition to Kernan and Jasinki there were several less-prominent candidates running in the primary, including James A. Guy II, R. McAlister Ellis Jr., and Lester Johnson. Kernan prevailed in the primary, receiving 51% of the vote.