SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Republican Incumbent, Rudy Yakym, is seeking a third term to represent Indiana's 2^nd district in Washington, D.C. While Democrat, Jamee Decio, hopes to flip the district blue for the first time in a decade. Libertarian William Henry is looking to give people a different option aside from the two major parties.

ABC57 asked the candidates about a number of topics including affordability, data centers, the war with Iran and transparency and accessibility. Below is a description of each candidate and their responses to the issues that matter most to you.

Rudy Yakym (R): Currently serves as Indiana's 2^nd District Representative in Washington, D.C. Yakym has served as the Representative in this district since the end of 2022 after longtime former Congresswoman Jackie Walorski died in a car accident. He then won the following special election later in the year, as well as reelection in 2024. Yakym is a fourth-generation Hoosier, IUSB graduate, husband and father.

William Henry (L): A lifelong Hoosier, wartime veteran, serving in the U.S. Army and the Indiana Army National Guard. He is also a researcher. Henry has lived in Elkhart with his family for the past five years.

Jamee Decio (D): Born and raised in Elkhart. Deecio is a double Notre Dame graduate. She previously served as a deputy prosecutor in Elkhart. Deecio is also a screenwriter, a mother and a grandmother.

Affordability

Decio: "We need to eliminate tariffs, Trump's tariffs, because they're not working. It's a tax on people who are buying the products, the food, everything. Thirdly, I think we need to raise the minimum wage here. It's not been raised in 16 years."

Henry: "Introducing legislation or encouraging other people introducing legislation or co-authoring some of these bills that make it easier to file our taxes would be my, you know, one of my first routes. The second is to stop the overseas spending, to stop the wasteful spending, the fraud, waste, and abuse that's happening."

Yakym: "We passed the working families tax cuts. That's why we're putting more money in Hoosiers' pockets, delivering on things like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, tax relief for seniors. We've made significant progress, but we've got a long way to go."

War with Iran

Decio: "I would keep the working family tax cuts because people need that. In addition, I think I think raising the minimum wage and eliminating the tariffs would be enormous relief because the tariffs are added taxes to all the all the imports."

Henry: "This isn't a response that's happened because of something Iran has done to America. We attacked Iran unprovoked. We gave scenarios in which why we attacked Iran. We backpedaled on those scenarios."

Yakym: "The things that we want from Iran are very simple: no nuclear weapon, open the Straits of Hormuz, stop funding your terrorist proxies. That's it. And while that's all being negotiated right now. Of course, we want that, as the President has said, we want the war in Iran to come to a very quick conclusion."

Data Centers

Decio: "These data centers need to be transparent. There should be a benefit to the community as well. They need to hire union workers. They also need to pay their fair share of all their utilities. There should be a moratorium until there are federal guidelines."

Henry: The data centers are an extreme use of our resources. They're getting a lot of subsidies and tax breaks, and now we're seeing the local governments and the local individuals being able to kind of fend that off for themselves. My point in Congress would be to help strike down any bill or anything that would take away that local governance ability away from people.

Yakym: "I will always fight to protect and preserve local decision making when it comes to data centers. Of course, we always welcome people who want to come and make investments in our community, but at the same time, they should not be federal decisions. It should be up to local authorities and local decision makers to decide where those data centers would go. What I also firmly believe is that data centers have to pay their fair share for utility bills. The Hoosiers I serve should not see their utility bills go up as a result of a new data center coming to town. If anything, they should see their utility bills stay flat or go down, which is why before we left Washington D.C. for the election day recess, we passed the Ratepayer Protection Act. This is the bill that I voted for that will ensure that data centers pay their fair share for the power generation as well as the transmission lines that it takes to deliver power to the data centers."

Constituent Accessibility and Transparency

Decio: "I respect and adhere to the Constitution. I understand what the press does, and we need them. I will hold town halls. I will meet with you. That's the job, to be transparent. I have nothing to hide."

Henry: "It's keeping them informed about what I'm doing and having that open communication, meeting with reporters, doing interviews, pushing out press releases and media advisories about what we're doing, and where we're going to be, and be accessible in those points, and not just have a captive audience waiting for you, where you come in and you do your speech and you leave because you seemingly have too much going on to sit down for a few minutes with these people and answer the tough questions in which you're being asked,"

Yakym: "I certainly feel like I'm very accessible here to Indiana Second District. There's a number of ways that accessibility takes place. When people reach out to my office, we take about 2,000 incoming messages or emails per week, letters per week that people reach out to us on. We respond to every single one of those. If you go to my website yakym.house.gov, where people submit their questions at, we took a lot of those questions and in my newsletter, which you can sign up for, it goes out every Saturday morning."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Decio: I said before that we should repeal and replace ICE. I think we have to secure the borders is one thing, and we need agencies I think that are well trained. People that have committed violent crimes need to go, but people that are living here, we need to find a way for them to become citizens because we're a land of immigrants, and that's who we are. We can't change that now."

Henry: "Immigration has been a failure of both Democrat and Republican parties. There's a lot of things that could have been solved over the last 20 years administratively, making it easier to file applications, taking costs away or lowering costs at least for some of these administration files, having digital transfers of paperwork and and those type of things. Immigration is something that is a net positive for the United States of America. The United States of America is founded off of immigration, and and that's how we developed our nation to allow all of these countries to come and rebind as one to have the freedoms in which we enjoy, and that's what we want to promote.

Yakym: "We have to think about immigration reform going forward, but at the same time, the single biggest problem that we had is a wide open southern border under the previous administration. I mean, we saw hundreds of 1000s of people coming across the southern border in a chaotic instance, going back to the previous administration, and so the priority one was certainly closing the southern border. But then at the same time, we've got so many people who are here illegally who committed crimes after they came here, and so that's where I think the focus needs to be going forward."

Campaign Funding

Decio: No, I don't take money from AIPAC. I don't think we need to. We need to get rid of Citizens United. I think corporations should get out of giving money. It needs to go back to the old-fashioned way. Those corporations don't vote. 70% of my money is from Indiana."

Henry: "I am personally funded. I am funded below the $5,000 threshold of reporting. So, the last three terms, I've been able to have an efficient enough campaign to where I don't expend over $5,000 in reportable funds and spending. I have a communications background, so that layout design, the website management, those type of things are ran by me, and those things are on a budget."

Yakym: "I'm funded by people making donations to my campaign, just like every other campaign. We have a number of folks who contribute to my campaign with all types of interests, and frankly, a lot of the most of the people that contribute to my campaign are Hoosiers who live right here in this district."