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Scott Costello
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Scott Costello (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Indiana's 1st Congressional District. He lost in the Democratic primary on June 2, 2020.
Costello completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Scott Costello was born in Rockford, Illinois. He earned a bachelor's degree in social work from Illinois State University in 1993 and a master's degree in social work from the University of Illinois, Chicago in 1993. Costello’s career experience includes working as a social worker.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: Indiana's 1st Congressional District election, 2020
Indiana's 1st Congressional District election, 2020 (June 2 Democratic primary)
Indiana's 1st Congressional District election, 2020 (June 2 Republican primary)
General election
General election for U.S. House Indiana District 1
Frank Mrvan defeated Mark Leyva and Edward Michael Strauss in the general election for U.S. House Indiana District 1 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Frank Mrvan (D) | 56.6 | 185,180 |
 | Mark Leyva (R) | 40.4 | 132,247 | |
| Edward Michael Strauss (L) | 2.9 | 9,521 | ||
| Total votes: 326,948 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Ryan Lamb (D)
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House Indiana District 1
The following candidates ran in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Indiana District 1 on June 2, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Frank Mrvan | 32.8 | 29,575 |
 | Thomas McDermott Jr. | 28.2 | 25,426 | |
 | Jim Harper | 10.1 | 9,133 | |
| Melissa Borom | 8.7 | 7,792 | ||
 | Mara Candelaria Reardon | 7.8 | 6,997 | |
 | Sabrina Haake | 4.8 | 4,365 | |
| Carrie Castro | 1.5 | 1,330 | ||
| John Hall | 1.4 | 1,223 | ||
 | Scott Costello | 1.3 | 1,126 | |
 | Antonio Daggett Sr. | 1.1 | 965 | |
| Wendell Mosby | 1.0 | 893 | ||
| Jayson Reeves | 0.6 | 526 | ||
| Andrew Sylwestrowicz | 0.4 | 396 | ||
 | Ryan Farrar | 0.3 | 297 | |
| Total votes: 90,044 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Watch the Candidate Conversation for this race!
Republican primary election
Republican primary for U.S. House Indiana District 1
The following candidates ran in the Republican primary for U.S. House Indiana District 1 on June 2, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Mark Leyva | 34.9 | 10,799 |
| William Powers | 22.9 | 7,073 | ||
 | Spencer Lemmons | 15.4 | 4,748 | |
 | Mont Handley | 11.7 | 3,625 | |
 | Dion Bergeron | 10.1 | 3,127 | |
| Delano Scaife | 5.0 | 1,552 | ||
| Total votes: 30,924 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Libertarian convention
Libertarian convention for U.S. House Indiana District 1
Edward Michael Strauss advanced from the Libertarian convention for U.S. House Indiana District 1 on March 7, 2020.
Candidate | ||
| ✔ | Edward Michael Strauss (L) | |
| ||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Scott Costello completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Costello's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am a social worker and my candidacy is to fight for the working class which is horribly under-represented in Congress where 98% of elected officials are from the upper classes. Every-day Americans are struggling - 40% of Americans have less than $400 in the bank - 400 richest families own more wealth than 60% of Americans. We cannot continue with extreme income disparity. We are a consumer-based economy and our purchasing power is decreasing every year, meanwhile China's markets are booming and American corporations continue to invest there and no here. All of our nation's net economic growth has been in California, all other areas have been flat since 2008. Areas that have increased the minimum wage have seen no job loss and improved economies. We also need to invest in sustainable energies, infrastructure and reduce carbon emissions. Finally, all Americans deserve affordable healthcare. I believe in Medicare for All.
- Representing working class Americans and protecting all unions
- Medicare for All
- Invest in sustainable technologies to keep America energy independent, competitive with China and to reduce carbon emission.
I am passionate about helping people. I have been a social worker my whole life, community organizer, mental health practitioner, manager, director and volunteer of many charities. I am passionate about healthcare, sustainable energies, and an economy that works for everyone. I am passionate about diversity in government representation and voting rights. In a more general sense, I am passionate about equality - where all of us equal opportunities at success.
There are so many people that I find interesting. I'm not sure if "look up to" - or admire/respect/appreciate: politicians with courage, such as Justin Amash and what he said about the role of congress. He changed parties at an important time for an important reason. We need congressman who stand up to their party and act like leaders as well as representatives.
Yes. RFK's speech for Humanity.
Honesty, compassion, selflessness, and thoughtfulness. Equality. Opportunity. Fairness.
Core responsibilities: To defend the constitution and the country. To improve the lives of the people in their district and the people of America.
That I helped unite working class Americans as one group, white and black, male and female, young and old, as a powerful political force that can no longer be taken advantage of. That I helped Americans realize that they can find common ground, that the differences that they see and the political fights they presently engage in are only there to take power away from the working class.
First historical event - I remember watching Jimmy Carter on television talking about the Iran hostages. I was around 10 years old. I remember seeing Reagan's inauguration, and I remember seeing the assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan on television in 6th grade.
Mowing lawns in the Summer and shoveling driveways in the Winter. My father was a teacher and my mother, a homemaker. So, if I wanted anything, I had to work for it. I worked where ever I could during high school, bagging groceries or whatever. In college, I worked at a lumbar yard and hardware store, pulling and delivering orders. I did that for many years. After college, I worked as a business manager at an affordable housing charity and also volunteered at several other charities as a community organizer, president and treasurer. I later worked as a case manager with adults suffering from chronic and severe mental illness while at the same time acting as part-time director of another furniture bank charity. I volunteered for the death penalty moratorium and wrote a brief recommending no death penalty without DNA evidence (there were 8 death row inmates exonerated). I also wrote a successful grant for $1 million for pregnant incarcerate women for better services so that they could bond with their child in prison. I finished my Masters in 1997 and worked as a program manager in child and family services for several years. I then worked as clinical director for residential mental health programs before starting my own private practice which I managed and worked for 16 years. I retired from that in 2017 to work in hospital emergency rooms and behavioral health assessment and referral programming managing mental health emergencies. I have been in leadership and management roles my entire career and worked with charities and government agencies all along. I read and write policies weekly and I conduct scientific research on various issues, currently I am working with colleagues on papers regarding suicide prevention, re-evaluating the construct of malingering, and over utilization of emergency room services.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.
Personally, I think that qualities of honesty, compassionate, selfless and thoughtful are important. Knowledge is important, but not as important as social skills and reasoning skills. I believe that real leadership begins in the US House. I believe that congress is the most representative body in our government and a first among equals. So, leadership and courage to do what's right and best is most important.
No. I believe that the qualities mentioned in the previous question are enough. Federal representatives do not need experience; they will have staff and colleagues to support them. Also, having experience in other areas of government might be a hindrance to the ability to be effective in the House. Learning new is easier than unlearning old habits that don't apply to this unique body of lawmaking.
I believe that America needs to overcome (not in order of importance):
1. Income equality that has reached extremes; it is hurting Americans and greed is the cause.
2. Staying competitive with China with regards to sustainable energy technologies; we need to be independent and ahead.
Yes. There are many to choose from and frankly, all of them are interesting. However, my priority would be Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, as well as: Energy, Foreign Affairs, Ways and Means, and Science.
Yes. I believe that many people should run and that there should be a fair amount of turn-over in this body of government. I think that it would be more energizing to Democracy to have higher turnover, increase diversity, not just in ethnicity, but in ideas, but also bring the congress closer to the hearts and minds of the people. Honestly, I kind of loathe career politicians - not all of them, but in general, they all seem to become cynical, stop dreaming, smug or comfortable with the status quo. There are some who keep dreaming and fighting - like Bernie Sanders - love him or hate him as you will, but we need passionate leaders who care about all Americans, not just the rich.
We shouldn't have them except for judges. I don't think life-time appointments are a good idea. A single term of a decade is probably wiser since Senator McConnell has appointed all of these extremist corporate judges, I fear that we will have a tyranny of bad jurisprudence in the coming decades when we need progress more than ever.
I'm not sure. I think that each representative should be a leader and discourse should occur among leaders. I'm not a fan of seniority.
Not any single one, but some were eloquent or smart, or dreamed big and I appreciate that. I think we need to reach for the starts to at least get to the moon. I think people appreciate eloquence as long as it's not phony. I think RFK, although not perfect, as a great leader - fighting for ending apartheid, affordable healthcare, unions, ending the war at a time when these things were very unpopular. When asked by medical students who would pay for healthcare, he responded, you would.
Yes. One person, a working mother, her car broke down and she struggled to get to work. She had no money for repairs, no help from any relatives because they were all not doing well either. Her kids get nothing for Christmas. We can do so much better for our brothers and sisters here in America. We need to stop investing in China or other countries and invest in America.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign advertisements
| "US Congressional Candidate Scott Costello on Free College Education" - Costello campaign ad, released May 6, 2020 |
| "US House Congressional Candidate Scott Costello on Medicare for All" - Costello campaign ad, released May 6, 2020 |
| "Scott Costello on Jobs and Raising the Minimum Wage" - Costello campaign ad, released May 12, 2020 |
| "Scott Costello, Social Worker and Candidate for the US House of Representatives, NW Indiana, CD1." - Costello campaign ad, released May 26, 2020 |
See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ ’’Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on January 25, 2020’’
Senators
Jim Banks (R)
Todd Young (R)
Representatives
District 1
Frank Mrvan (D)
District 2
Rudy Yakym (R)
District 3
Marlin Stutzman (R)
District 4
Jim Baird (R)
District 5
Victoria Spartz (R)
District 6
Jefferson Shreve (R)
District 7
André Carson (D)
District 8
Mark Messmer (R)
District 9
Erin Houchin (R)
Republican Party (9)
Democratic Party (2)
