W. Wayne Townsend (May 1, 1926 – July 3, 2015) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Indiana. A Democrat, he was his party's gubernatorial nominee in 1984. Townsend was defeated by the incumbent Republican Governor Robert D. Orr in a year in which Indiana joined forty-eight other states in reelecting the Reagan-Bush ticket.Townsend was born, on May 1, 1926, on the family farm in Grant County, Indiana, near the town of Upland.