Trump-backed candidates win majority of GOP primary races for Indiana Senate
COLUMBUS, Ind. — The majority of Republican senators from states whose opponents supported President Donald Trump lost Tuesday, handing the president victory in a deep red state just four months after lawmakers rejected his redistricting plan.
Of the seven challengers backed by Trump, at least four have won.
Twenty-one Republican senators voted against redistricting in December, and eight are running for re-election this year. Trump has backed his primary challengers to seven, and the president’s allies have spent millions of dollars in races that rarely get much attention from Washington.
It is a costly and unprecedented intraparty battle that has heightened tensions among Republicans ahead of the November midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.
Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith said the state Senate primary races are between “Republicans who tend to want to avoid fighting and Republicans who feel like we have to fight.”
“So the only question is, ‘Are you going to fight or are you going to get trampled by the other side?'” Beckwith said.
Indiana rejected Trump on redistricting
Trump last year began leaning on Republican-led states to redraw their congressional maps to make it easier for his party to hold its slim majority in the House of Representatives. Although redistricting is normally done once a decade, after a new census, Trump wanted to abandon tradition to gain political advantage.
Texas was the first to follow through, and the White House pressured Indiana to follow as well. Vice President JD Vance met with politicians in Washington and Indianapolis, and Trump spoke via conference call.
However, Indiana’s senators rebuffed the initiative, marking one of the president’s first significant policy defeats of his second term.
The redistricting fight has divided Republicans in Indiana, a state that Trump has won three times by as many as 16 points. Republican Gov. Mike Braun, U.S. Sen. Jim Banks and organizations such as Turning Point Action worked alongside Trump to unseat incumbent leaders.
“Big night for MAGA in Indiana,” Banks posted on social media.
Jim Bopp, a prominent Indiana lawyer who leads a political action committee aligned with Braun, predicted that Trump’s support would prevail over challengers.
“Republican voters overwhelmingly support Trump and when they find out that Trump supported a particular candidate for Senate, they give them their support,” he said.
Indiana’s opposition came from voters and the former governor
Opposition to the effort has come from anti-Trump Republicans and those wary of the president interfering so deeply in state decision-making. Former Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, who had stepped away from politics after leaving the governorship in 2015, has reemerged to help raise money for targeted incumbents.
Senators who broke with Trump said they were listening to their constituents who were overwhelmingly opposed to his redistricting plan. Some said they didn’t like Trump’s aggressive tone in promoting the plan.
“We hate being told what to do,” said Mike Murphy, a former Republican state representative. “We’re very independent people. So when Donald Trump and his henchmen come along and try to tell us we need to redistrict to help his political future, that’s the worst thing you can do.”
He said Trump and those who spend big money to eliminate incumbents don’t understand Indiana politics.
“There are so many errors in judgment by people because they tend to fly at 50,000 feet and they don’t go to barbecues and church fish fries and things that are Indiana politics,” Murphy said.
Bopp, who supports Trump-backed challengers, said the primary is an opportunity for Indiana Republicans to express how important it is to redraw congressional lines in this region.
“It’s not about Trump’s power,” Bopp said. “These are Republican voters who support his agenda and do not want a Democratic House that would be extremely destructive to the Trump presidency and to the country.”
