Indiana primary will test Trump’s control over Republican Party after redistricting defiance

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The only thing stopping President Donald Trump from getting revenge on Indiana state senators is people like Julie Wise.

She is 48 years old, works in a hospital, describes herself as a conservative and voted for Trump in the last election. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to vote against her Republican senator just because he defied the president’s request to redraw Indiana’s congressional map.

“I’m not going to say that ‘because that’s what the president wants, that’s how I’m going to vote,'” Wise said from his storefront on a sunny spring afternoon.

Indiana’s May 5 primary has become an unlikely test of Trump’s hold on the Republican Party. After state senators defied White House pressure by opposing redistricting, Trump backed seven primary challengers in races that rarely attract Washington’s attention.

The campaign, backed by national organizations such as Turning Point Action and pro-Trump groups that spent more than $4.2 million on advertising, has no precedent in recent memory. Gov. Mike Braun and U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, both Republicans, are also working against incumbent state senators in a show of deference to Trump.

One of their targets is Spencer Deery, a first-term state senator who knocked on Wise’s door while riding around his West Lafayette neighborhood on an electric scooter.

PHOTOS: Indiana primary will test Trump’s control of Republican Party after challenging redistricting

“It’s just one thing,” he told The Associated Press. “And that’s control.”

An avalanche of campaign spending

Deery represents the 23rd Senate District, a seven-county swath of farmland that borders Illinois to the west, extends north to West Lafayette and touches the outskirts of Terre Haute to the south.

Four years ago, Deery’s campaign spent $142,000 to win his seat in a race where fewer than 11,000 people voted. One of the main candidates he beat was Paula Copenhaver, a veteran Republican activist and local party chairwoman.

Now, Trump has endorsed Copenhagen, an aide to Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, and Deery is facing a spending avalanche of nearly $1 million. A television ad declared that “Senator Spencer Deary voted against President Trump’s agenda.”

“This is about sending the message that any state that doesn’t align or any legislator that doesn’t align with the political forces in Washington should be on the alert,” Deery said. “This should concern you in a constitutional democracy.”

Deery has spent $167,000 so far and he hasn’t received any help from outside groups.

An opponent supported by Trump

Copenhagen declined to respond to phone calls and text messages from The Associated Press after initially saying she was willing to discuss the campaign. Trump endorsed her in January, calling her a “MAGA warrior” — a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement — and a “terrific candidate for Indiana’s 23rd state senatorial district.”

He wrote on social media that Copenhagen was “running against an incompetent and ineffective RINO incumbent named Spencer Deery who, for whatever reason, betrayed his constituents by voting against redistricting in Indiana.” RINO stands for “Republican in Name Only.”

Last year, the White House leaned heavily on Indiana lawmakers to break with precedent and pass a new congressional map, part of an unusual nationwide redistricting stunt that Trump hopes will help Republicans protect their slim majority in the House of Representatives in November’s elections. Vice President JD Vance met with Indiana politicians in Washington and Indianapolis, and Trump spoke via conference call.

Some opponents of the proposal have been threatened. Deery was targeted with a false police report intended to cause a dangerous situation by sending a SWAT team running to his house.

But the Republican-controlled state Senate voted against redistricting in December, a defeat for the president.

Trump then tried to shake it off, telling reporters in the Oval Office that “I didn’t work very hard at it.”

Touring the electoral campaign

As Deery moved from door to door in the well-kept suburb on the edge of a clover field northwest of West Lafayette, two motorcyclists out and about Saturday stopped to cheer him on.

“I wanted to thank you for having the courage to vote against redistricting,” one said.

Annette and Curtis Williams chatted politely with Deery at their door. Curtis said Trump’s threat to oust Deery was “inappropriate.” Neither he nor his wife would say how they planned to vote.

Beckie Eikenberg, a quality assurance associate at an Indiana pharmaceutical company, has seen the ads targeting Deery, but she doesn’t trust them. The 47-year-old, who calls herself a “libertarian on the conservative side,” spoke with the state senator at the end of her standoff.

She voted for Trump but frowned when asked whether the president should have a say in Indiana’s congressional map.

“He doesn’t necessarily know what’s going on in our state. He’s not there. He doesn’t see the day to day,” she said.

Governor remains allied with Trump

The campaign to oust incumbents also aims to unseat Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodrick Bray, who helped block redistricting and faced criticism from Trump.

Bray is not up for re-election this year, but Braun wanted his primary challengers to commit to opposing him as Senate leader, according to three people familiar with the matter. The people were not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Trump’s political aides said they were monitoring the campaigns. Representatives for Banks, the White House ally U.S. senator, did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Braun, the Republican governor, said he supported the primary challengers not because of redistricting but because he needed help to advance his agenda. For example, he disagreed with Bray over property taxes early in his term.

Braun is investing $500,000 from his political action committee into state Senate races.

“Whether you support this or that, my goal is to have entrepreneurial senators and representatives,” Braun said Monday. “So when it comes to what you do to support or not support certain legislators, for me it will mostly come down to the question: ‘Are you willing to help me take Indiana to places that all states would like to be?’”

One of Braun’s predecessors is working against him in the primary. Former Gov. Mitch Daniels Daniels, a Republican who retired from politics after leaving office in 2015, has been quietly working to protect incumbents targeted by Trump.

Daniels recorded a video and helped raise money for Deery, who was chief of staff to the former governor when he became president of Purdue University.

Deery said his vote against redistricting was not meant to defy Trump or his allies.

“I don’t work for them,” Deery said. “I work for my constituents, my constituents.”