SOUTH BEND — It’s getting testy in the race for Indiana’s 2nd District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The two main party hopefuls, Republican Jackie Walorski and Democrat Brendan Mullen, traded pointed television advertisements last week, each ad critical of the competition. And on Wednesday, the strong language from the two sides continued.

“We anticipate it getting uglier,” said Mullen, responding to a query after a campaign event here to announce formation of a coalition of veteran and military backers.

In describing the race’s sharper tone, Mullen alluded to an earlier Walorski campaign ad that shows her driving around the 2nd District in a car, a Honda judging by the logo on the auto’s steering wheel. “I’m disappointed. My opponent did a 55 mile per hour U-turn in her Honda, in traffic,” Mullen said.

Brendon DelToro, Walorski’s campaign manager, shot back, saying the GOP hopeful has stuck to the facts through it all. Indeed, each side claimed the high road, accusing the other of injecting rancor, dirty politics even, into the contest.

“We’ve been sitting here talking about the facts and how to put Hoosiers back to work,” said DelToro, reached by phone after Mullen’s South Bend event. He later added: “I hope you note, we have never name-called in the campaign.”

Mullen has been focusing on jobs and the economy, the Democrat said, “while (Walorski’s) talking smear tactics.”

‘VETS HELP VETS’

Tuesday’s event, held on the front steps of the St. Joseph County Courthouse in downtown South Bend, featured around 20 veterans and military people from the varied branches of service. They stood up the steps behind Mullen and former Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan, a Democrat, U.S. Navy vet and one of the main speakers.

Kernan called Mullen, a U.S. Army veteran and operator of a consulting firm, a “man of conscience” who “will not be tied because of party affiliation.” Mullen, like Walorski, has decried what he says is gridlock among leaders in Washington D.C. and said he’d be able to work with Republicans to get things done.

Kernan brought up Walorski’s support as a state lawmaker for the 2006 decision to lease Indiana Toll Road operations to a private consortium, saying Mullen wouldn’t have voted that way. Now northern Indiana bears the brunt of supporting the toll road through tolls, Kernan maintained, while a portion of the funds generated by the state via the lease go elsewhere.

Some of the veterans on hand expressed their support for Mullen, largely because he’s a military veteran himself. Mullen served in the U.S. Army for five years after graduation from the U.S. Military Academy, including a stint in Iraq.

“Vets help vets,” said Kenny Griswold, a farmer from Plymouth who served in the U.S. Marines from 2003 to 2011.

‘DESPERATE ATTEMPT’

DelToro rebuffed Kernan’s toll road comment, saying maybe if Mullen had been in Indiana at the time — he lived from 2006 to 2011 in Washington, D.C. — he would have had an “educated opinion” on the subject. He defended Walorski’s support for the lease and said emergence of the issue is a “desperate attempt by Brendan Mullen’s campaign to smear Jackie’s campaign.”

More broadly, the two sides — responding to queries — defended themselves and offered swipes at each other, stemming largely on the two ads from last week.

Walorski’s ad calls Mullen a “D.C. insider” in part because of the three homes he owns there, said “Washington liberals” had recruited him to run for the House and decried “special interest” contributions he’s received. It also noted his backing of the federal Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare to critics, which Mullen would like to tweak, but, unlike Walorski, not necessarily repeal.

Mullen’s ad, in response, features a fellow U.S. Army veteran, Chad Gibson of Osceola, who calls Walorski, a three-term former member of the Indiana House, a “career politician” and alludes to her criticism as a “smear.” For Walorski to lodge the criticism in light of Mullen’s military service is “downright un-American,” Gibson continues. “Jackie Walorski ought to be ashamed of herself.”

Mullen’s campaign manager Andy Reynolds on Tuesday said the three Washington homes are investment properties and that the simple fact of having lived in the national capital hardly makes him an insider. The political left, moreover, “would not be happy with a lot of positions (Mullen’s) taken,” Reynolds added, calling Mullen, a conservative Democrat, a “center-of-the-road guy.”

Mullen, for his part, attributed his decision to run for the U.S. House to a “public service drumbeat . . . in the back of my head.” He returned to South Bend, where he grew up, about the time he announced his bid for Congress last year.

DelToro, Walorski’s campaign manager, stood by Walorski’s ad, noting, among other things, some $120,000 in contributions from union groups to Mullen. He maintains that Mullen moved from Washington, D.C., to South Bend simply to run for the U.S. House.

“I don’t think our campaign has put out one negative statement,” said DelToro, saying the Mullen strategy amounts to “name-calling and dirty campaigning.” “We’ve stuck to the facts.”

Libertarian Joe Ruiz is also running for the 2nd District seat.