Look at a map of Indiana’s congressional districts and you’ll probably be surprised to see a little patch of blue, far away from Indianapolis, in the far Northwest corner of the state. That’s the First District which, having not elected a Republican to Congress in 94 years, is one of the most Democratic in the country. That’s because the district is located almost entirely in Indiana’s sliver of the Chicago metropolitan area, and as such tends to vote like most of the rest of the Windy City’s suburbs. It’s from this Democratic corner that Thomas McDermott Jr., the longtime mayor of Hammond, Indiana, hopes to springboard himself to the U.S. Senate.

He’ll have his work cut out for him though. Although Indiana has elected a Democratic senator as recently as 2012, the state has trended solidly Republican ever since, setting up incumbent Senator Todd Young for what should be an easy reelection campaign. Young was able to declare victory this August as one of the loudest supporters of the bipartisan CHIPS bill, which creates millions of dollars in grants for domestic semiconductor manufacturing, but outside of a spell as the chair of the NRSC, he’s been quiet, typically voting with the party line. He’s had his own maverick moments, however, voting to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia, override Trump’s veto of a resolution calling for an end to U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen, and introducing legislation to repeal the 1991 and 2002 war authorizations alongside Democrat Tim Kaine. No word yet on how he feels about marijauana, though, which has emerged as McDermott’s pet issue – he’s released an ad on 4/20 where he espouses the benefits of cannabis while taking a hit from a joint, and even admitted to smoking pot at two recent Grateful Dead shows at Wrigley Field. If there’s any upside for McDermott for what seems like an inevitable loss, it’s that he won’t have to submit to a federal employee drug test anytime soon.

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