The caucus for Indiana House District 24 convened on Dec. 9 at the Zionsville Presbyterian Church in response to the resignation of Representative Steve Braun. The results were close with Susana Suarez and Donna Schaibley tied in the second ballot with 22 votes of the 51 committeemen in attendance. After a third ballot Donna Schaibley won the majority vote with 27 votes followed by Susana Suarez with a close 23 votes.

“I am honored that the community picked me,” Schaibley said. “I do promise that I will be representative of all three communities of the entire district. That’s something that I’ve spoken to. I do believe that our school funding issue is the number one issue in our district. And I’m just very grateful. I’m really just gratified.”

While Suarez was a close candidate in the election, she was overall pleased with the results and was happy to run for the position.

“I think that regardless this is just an amazing field of candidates and it was a very, very tough choice for the precinct community people, and it was a well fought battle and it came back to two people,” Suarez said. “Everybody wins. We respected each other and we were very supportive and this is the way that it should be done. I’m just better person for having gone through this experience.”