INDIANAPOLIS — In less than a month, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb will turn over the reins to his successor, Governor-elect Mike Braun.
Holcomb spoke with 13News in a final sit-down interview, looking back at the past eight years and looking forward to the future.
At the time of the interview, Holcomb said he still had yet to finalize his plans for where he and soon-to-be former first lady Janet Holcomb would be landing once they moved out of the Governor's Residence in January.
Holcomb talked about the legacy he leaves behind, some of the bills he signed into law as governor and what comes next for Eric Holcomb, private citizen.
"I feel like we've come out of the fourth turn and we're sprinting toward the finish," Holcomb said.
Leave it to the governor of Indiana to use a racing metaphor to describe his final days in office.
"I hope people feel like this was a time of not just growth, but opportunity and new opportunities,” said Holcomb.
As part of that legacy, Holcomb touted the capital investment in Indiana he's secured during his time in office.
"We're leaning into becoming the epicenter of plant, animal and human health, life sciences and so we've evolved over time,” Holcomb explained. “We're not just in the conversation. We're in the room where these small, medium and large mega deals are being done.”
Some of those deals Holcomb said he'll be handing over to Braun.
"My goal is to leave the cupboard full, the pipeline full, so there are deals that had I had another year, I would have been working on and give my successor a good kind of head start on their first year,” Holcomb said.
His past eight years in office haven’t been without challenges. One of the biggest, a global pandemic. Holcomb was criticized by some in his own party, accused of overstepping his bounds by issuing a mask mandate. Hoosiers also staged protests outside the Governor's Residence over the closures of schools and businesses. None of that shaped how Holcomb views the way his administration handled such an unprecedented event.
"I'm proud of the way that we conducted ourselves, never got off course, let the facts drive us as we knew them on a daily basis,” Holcomb said. “We were a strong state going into the pandemic. We are a much stronger state post-pandemic.”
Any criticism Holcomb faced about his response to COVID-19 didn't stop him from winning re-election in 2020.
"I will mention, it may sound petty, but post the pandemic, we had an election of which, we, this administration, I got more votes than anyone that ran for the office before or since,” Holcomb said.
Two years into his second term, Indiana became the first state to pass a near-total abortion ban during a special session after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. Holcomb signed the ban into law after weeks of protests from thousands of Hoosiers on both sides of the issue.
"I believe, in according to my conscience, that it was the right thing to do to sign that bill into law,” Holcomb said, adding he didn’t think the ban would define him when the history books recount his time as governor. "I think the state will be remembered for... for kind of turning that corner. I think also the future on this topic will be all about trying to persuade hearts and minds the other way, like they were for the past 50 years, trying to become more of a pro-life state.”
Indiana’s 51st governor hasn't always been in lockstep with his party on other controversial issues.
During the 2022 legislative session, he vetoed another bill on an issue that saw passionate support on both sides, a ban on transgender girls participating in girls’ school sports. At the time, Holcomb said a policy from the Indiana High School Athletic Association covered that issue and a law was unnecessary and opened the state up to legal challenges. Lawmakers overturned his veto and the ban became law.
"It might have made some feel better that this law was passed, but it certainly did nothing,” Holcomb said. “It added no progress to what was in place before, from my perspective."
The following year, Indiana saw more legislation impacting the trans community. This time, it was a proposal to ban doctors from prescribing hormone therapies and puberty blockers for transgender youth. Holcomb called the bill “clear as mud” and then signed it.
"There is a, I think, a clear line where procedures that change permanently one's body, such as their gender, should be made when they're an adult and should not be when they're 8 or 11 years old and going through a lot of changes, like we all go through in those ages,” Holcomb said.
Even through the many controversial issues Holcomb saw during his time as governor, he hopes Hoosiers remember him as a leader who stayed steady through it all.
"I hope people feel like this was a time of not just growth, but opportunity and new opportunities,” Holcomb said.