A committee of top Indiana Republicans picked a new candidate for governor on Tuesday, filling a gap left when Governor Mike Pence was tapped as Donald Trump’s running mate.

Eric Holcomb, Pence’s lieutenant governor, was chosen by the committee, a group of 22 local and state Republican leaders who voted on the issue during a private meeting in Indianapolis.

The departure from the race of Pence, who remains in office to finish his first term and was until this month seeking reelection this fall, set off a frenzy of jockeying for his job in a state where Republicans control the capital. Four people sought to be picked, setting off a cascade of uncertainty and chaos about other races around the state. Some vying to be governor dropped out of other races, and those not selected are expected to seek to return to races they left.

The committee’s selection, Holcomb, will face John Gregg, a Democrat who lost a narrow race against Pence in 2012, in November.

None of the possible Republican replacements are as well known across Indiana as Pence, and any of them would have been starting at a disadvantage in campaign time and funds raised. But Pence’s reelection had not been seen as a certainty; he had drawn intense criticism, including among some Republicans, for his handling last year of a law that could have allowed religious conservatives to deny services to same-sex couples.

New York Times