The Indiana Senate voted against the congressional redistricting plan called for by President Trump in his attempt to help Republicans win the 2026 midterm elections.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump’s nationwide effort to reshape the midterm elections in favor of Republicans has succeeded in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina but not in Indiana.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Yeah, Republicans in those other states obeyed the president’s order to skew the elections in Republicans’ favor. Republican state senators in my home state decided otherwise. The president and his allies threatened consequences for Indiana if they did not submit. After enough lawmakers ignored him, Trump minimized his defeat.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, we won every other state. That’s the only state. It’s funny ’cause I won the – I won Indiana all three times by a landslide, and I wasn’t working on it very hard. Would have been nice. I think we would have picked up two seats if we did that.
MARTIN: For more on this, we’re joined by Ben Thorp of WFYI in Indianapolis. Good morning, Ben.
BEN THORP, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: Thanks for getting up early because you were there in the State Capitol pretty late. So tell us about the vote.
THORP: Yeah. It was very suspenseful. There were protesters against redistricting in the Capitol, and you could kind of hear them as senators debated for over three hours. The outcome, I think, was really unknown, and in the end, the redistricting bill failed by a vote of only 19 in favor and 31 opposed. It’s important to mention that the Indiana Senate is heavily Republican. So of those 31 opposed, 21 were Republicans. Here’s one of them. This is state Senator Spencer Deery, who said that redistricting just to get political gain went against his conservative values.
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SPENCER DEERY: I see no justification that outweighs the harms it would inflict upon the people’s faith in the integrity of our elections and our system of government.
THORP: He said he’d fight with, quote, his last “breath” to prevent the federal government from bullying a state. Others just said their constituents did not want this.
MARTIN: So that state senator called it bullying. The Trump administration probably called it trying to be persuasive. So what did they do to try to steer this the president’s way?
THORP: Yeah. So it started months ago. Indiana lawmakers were brought to the White House. Vice President Vance went to Indiana. In fact, during the debate, Vance tweeted that Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray was being dishonest in trying to defeat this bill, and Bray did ultimately vote against it. Trump and Republican Governor Mike Braun here threatened to back primary challenges against senators who didn’t get on board. And the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., tweeted yesterday that he would come campaign here against them. You heard some of what Trump said there at the top. He also said he’d support someone to run against Bray. For his part, the governor, Braun, warned that, quote, “decisions like this” are going to “carry political consequences.”
MARTIN: And what would this redistricting have done?
THORP: Yeah, the state has seven Republican members of the House and two Democrats now. This would have redrawn the lines to help flip those last two seats. Supporters said it was legal, even though redistricting is normally done after the census at the start of the decade. They said Democratic-led states have gerrymandered like that in the past, but opponents said it would have divided up minority voters here in Indianapolis and put them in districts where their votes would be outnumbered by suburban and rural voters, basically diluting their vote.
MARTIN: So where does President Trump’s redistricting effort stand now?
THORP: So far, Republicans have been able to tilt a couple more seats their way than Democrats. Texas redistricted to help the GOP win maybe five seats there. Missouri and North Carolina each did one seat. California Democrats have countered by tilting five seats their way. But the question now is whether Republicans in other states where this is being considered, like Florida and Kansas, will go ahead with redistricting.
MARTIN: That is Ben Thorp in Indianapolis. Ben, thank you.
THORP: Thank you so much.
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