GOP candidate sees “winnable” race, despite criminal cases
Desmont Upchurch, the Republican nominee for mayor of South Bend, says he is frustrated by the prospect that Democrats will tar him with two criminal cases in which he pleaded guilty over two decades ago in his home state of North Carolina and the lack of support from his own party.
Frustration is compounded by realization that no Republican has been elected mayor of South Bend since 1967.
“I think this is still a winnable race,” Upchurch said during a long discussion over coffee in which he freely admitted guilt in the criminal cases, assault involving a girlfriend and a larceny charge involving a credit card.
“I slapped her,” Upchurch said of the altercation with the girlfriend. He said he pleaded guilty because, “I mean, I did it.” Although the charge did not cite domestic violence, Upchurch said, he has talked of his own incident in speaking here about preventing domestic violence.
In the other case, Upchurch said, he allowed use of his credit card in what was first charged as embezzlement, but was reduced to larceny. He again pleaded guilty. He said “about $800” was involved.
Both cases were in Durham County, where the 46-year-old candidate was born and raised. He said there was no sentence to jail in either case and he was excused from a required anger management class in 1999, when he joined the Army. He said he served for two decades, with three combat tours in Iraq, and completed duty as a recruiter in South Bend, concentration on enlisting Notre Dame premed students for future Army health care.
Upchurch told of problems in obtaining support from local Republicans.
He conceded that rumors of the past criminal charges and concern that Democrats are aware of them could be scaring away some Republicans and leaving him with scant funding for the fall race against Mayor James Mueller, the Democratic incumbent.
“They’re worried I will bring down the rest of the ticket,” Upchurch said.
He disagreed with that, saying that he as the first Black Republican nominee for mayor could reach into Black precincts for support and that he could take advantage of recent Democratic voter apathy.
Upchurch also lamented that a fundraising lunch that he had scheduled with Sen. Todd Young was canceled, “even though I was ready to put it on.” One Republican official with knowledge of the cancellation said he was one who warned Young’s staffers that an appearance with Upchurch could be problematic.
“I may have turned off people during the auditor’s race,” Upchurch said in discussing lack of party support. He came within 1 percentage point of being elected county auditor last year. However, it was a Republican year, with party nominees winning numerous county races.
A criticism of Upchurch is that he also could have won with the Republican tide if he had campaigned more actively.
Upchurch said his campaigning was disrupted by three deaths in his family and attending three weddings, one out of the country. That, he said, could have created the “unfortunate depiction . . . that maybe I wasn’t that serious.”
He said he also was running against a popular and qualified Democrat and, just as now, didn’t get much financial help from his party.
Whether he will get party support now, he said, will be shown in campaign finance reports that will reflect party priorities.
In openly discussing the past charges, Upchurch could be seeking to get ahead of any late-campaign attack by Democrats.
Upchurch contended he still could “have a great shot” at upsetting Mueller to become the first Republican elected mayor since 1967 and first Black mayor ever.