The Race for Indiana State Treasurer
Behind The Filter Podcast
Peeling Back the Curtain on the Race for Indiana State Treasurer
Most people couldn’t tell you what the Indiana State Treasurer does. That’s part of the problem, according to Coumba Kebe, the Democratic candidate running for the office this November. On this week’s Behind the Filter, we talked with her about what’s at stake, why she’s running, and how she wants to make a famously opaque office feel understandable to everyday Hoosiers.
Two New York kids in the cornfields
Our conversation started with a surprise: Coumba and I are both from New York. She was born in New York and raised in Indiana, in Franklin Township near Greenwood, and later graduated from Franklin Central High School and IU Bloomington. We both remembered the same culture shock of landing in Indiana. I called my mom crying about the cornfields, and Coumba says she did almost exactly the same thing. As a first-generation American, she grew up with immigrant parents who expected her to make the most of the opportunities they’d sacrificed for: work hard, get good grades, and make something of yourself.
From home care to the campaign trail
Coumba studied public health and earned a master’s in health policy, then spent a decade in the Medicaid space focused on senior care. She started in home care, assessing clients and matching them with caregivers, before climbing into corporate roles managing budgets and chasing profit. She realized that wasn’t what she wanted, so she left to start a consulting company helping local home care agencies.
Then came 2025, and what she was hearing about Indiana’s Medicaid decisions. She told me she was happy to be an advocate outside of politics. What changed things was calling her own representatives and state senators, regardless of party, and being ignored. “If you don’t do your job, I’ll run and do it for you,” she said.
Four priorities, one theme: make it understandable
Coumba’s campaign centers on four ideas:
Transparency that’s actually accessible. The state has a transparency portal, but she argues you need a finance degree to read it.
People at the center of financial decisions. She wants the treasurer’s office to show lawmakers how budget and policy choices land on communities, including rural ones.
Planning for the future. She wants to promote programs run through the treasurer’s office, like the College 529 plan (usable for trade schools) and the ABLE savings program for disabled adults and veterans, including partnering with labor unions to spread the word.
Rebuilding public trust. The office should serve the community, not make headlines.
“We’re not a red state. We’re a state that doesn’t vote.”
Indiana hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide executive office since 2012, and Coumba knows the odds. Her answer is turnout. She believes low participation, especially in midterms, comes from people not seeing how local government affects them or seeing themselves in their leaders. She also pointed to the state’s long Republican supermajority and made the case for balance: “Don’t vote for me because I’m the Democrat,” she said. Vote because you like what she’s saying, and because the state needs more than one perspective at the table.
She also had a message for straight-ticket voters. She isn’t trying to change everyone’s mind, but to the Republican voter who is “feeling a little weird about what’s happening right now,” she says, let’s talk. Her view is that party isn’t an identity, and she votes on character, integrity, and willingness to show up.
The incumbent, ESG, and the surplus
Coumba didn’t hold back when we asked about the current treasurer. She criticized the decision to change course on certain investments over ESG concerns, arguing that BlackRock had said the Indiana holdings weren’t ESG investments, and that the move put public pensions at risk and cost taxpayers an amount that hasn’t been disclosed. She would keep investment decisions focused on returns, performance, and safety. She also gave the incumbent credit for using the Indiana Bond Bank to help communities in Northwest Indiana after the storms, and said she’d use it even more to support local infrastructure.
On the state’s budget surplus, she agreed that rainy day reserves matter, but said plenty of Hoosiers are living through a rainy day right now. She pointed to roughly 20,000 people on the Medicaid waiver wait list, struggling local governments, and rural hospitals closing, and said it’s tone-deaf to celebrate savings that came from Medicaid cuts.
Losing a primary, and running anyway
Before this race, Coumba ran in the May primary for Indiana House District 29 and came up short in a close contest. She says she learned a lot about the infrastructure and money it takes to run, and that the next day she heard from a man spending $20,000 in private pay to keep his mother out of a nursing home. That was enough to keep going. Today she’s out of work and campaigning full time, with fundraising numbers she says show her message is resonating.
What’s next
With Election Day on November 3rd, Coumba is traveling through multiple counties a day, and she told us she’ll show up to any meeting space that invites her. Win or lose, she says she’s “not going anywhere.”
Connect with Coumba Kebe: Website: kebe4indiana.com
Instagram: @kebe4indiana (weekly campaign calendar)
Watch or listen to the full episode below:
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~J
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