2010 Indiana State Treasurer election

2010 Indiana State Treasurer election

← 2006 November 2, 2010 2014 →
Turnout	38.96%
Nominee Richard Mourdock Pete Buttigieg Party Republican Democratic Popular vote 1,053,527 633,243 Percentage 62.5% 37.5%
County results Mourdock:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90% Buttigieg:      50–60%
Treasurer before election Richard Mourdock Republican Elected Treasurer Richard Mourdock Republican

The 2010 Indiana State Treasurer election was held in on Tuesday, November 2, 2010, as part of the 2010 Indiana elections, held during the 2010 midterms.

Incumbent Republican Treasurer Richard Mourdock won reelection.^[1] His Democratic opponent was Navy veteran Pete Buttigieg.^[2]

Debate in the campaign largely centered around Mourdock's decision to invest $43 million of state pension funds and other state funds in Chrysler junk bonds (losing Indiana a large amount of money due to the restructuring of Chrysler during the company's bankruptcy, and his subsequent decision to launch unsuccessful litigation in an effort to stop Chrysler's bankruptcy plan (including the Chrysler-Fiat merger) from taking effect.

The 2010 elections was anticipated to be (and ultimately was) a Republican wave election, and Indiana was a Republican-leaning state. Therefore, as the Republican nominee, Mourdock's prospects were favored by prognosticators. With the 2010 election conditions in Indiana favoring Republicans, Buttigieg had hoped to persuade voters that were planning to vote Republican in other races to split their ticket for him. Ultimately, Mourdock defeated Buttigieg by a wide margin.

Mourdock would go on to run unsuccessfully for the United States Senate in 2012 before resigning as treasurer. Buttigieg would go on to be elected mayor of South Bend in 2011, ultimately serving two terms. In 2020, Buttigieg would run an unsuccessful but competitive campaign for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president. During this campaign, he attained broad prominence; subsequently, he was appointed U.S. secretary of transportation in 2021 by newly elected president Joe Biden.