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Indiana Republicans Buck Trump, Vote Down His Redistricting Push

President Donald Trump’s furious effort to force Indiana Republicans to adopt a new congressional map designed to eliminate the state’s only two House seats held by Democrats failed on Thursday after enough Republican state senators voted against it. The final vote was 19-31.

Trump’s failure in Indiana is a huge loss for his bid to rig the House by forcing GOP-run states to engage in unprecedented mid-cycle gerrymandering to eliminate as many Democratic-held seats as possible ahead of the 2026 midterms. Democrats have fought Republicans to a draw after California matched Texas by redrawing the lines of five House seats and likely blocked a Missouri map that eliminated one Democratic seat.

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No state had faced as much pressure to enact a new mid-cycle congressional map to erase seats currently held by Democrats than Indiana. Trump pressured lawmakers with promises of backing primary challenges if they bucked him. Vice President JD Vance made multiple trips to the state capitol to cajole GOP lawmakers. The increasing pressure also led to a spat of serious violent threats against the GOP lawmakers who did not support redistricting.

The pressure from the White House and the violent threats escalated after the Indiana Senate adjourned the first special session on redistricting called by Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, in November. At the time, Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, a Republican, declared that his party did not have the votes to pass the map.

State Sen. Greg Goode, a Republican from Indiana, was one of several GOP state senators to face violent threats for opposing Trump's redistricting push.

The GOP members who voted to adjourn soon found themselves the target of increasingly dangerous threats. Someone attempted to have the police swarm Sen. Spencer Deery’s house with a false call of imminent danger ― a practice known as swatting. The same thing happened to Sens. Greg Walker and Greg Goode. Sen. Jean Leising was the target of a pipe bomb threat. Sen. Linda Rogers reported threats called into her home and business.

These threats flowed from Trump’s increasingly angry diatribes against Republicans who would not do as he demands. These attacks continued up to the final vote on Thursday.

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“Indiana Senate ‘Leader’ Rod Bray enjoys being the only person in the United States of America who is against Republicans picking up extra seats, in Indiana’s case, two of them,” Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday. “He is putting every ounce of his limited strength into asking his soon to be very vulnerable friends to vote with him. By doing so, he is putting the Majority in the House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., at risk and, at the same time, putting anybody in Indiana who votes against this Redistricting, likewise, at risk.”

Trump promised to “do everything within my power to make sure that they will not hurt the Republican Party, and our Country, again.”

In the end, the threats from the president or from the public did not deter the few Republicans who broke ranks. Those few who spoke during debate on Thursday noted their conservative bona fides while arguing that gerrymandering undermined democratic accountability.

“No one benefits when we shield those who hold power from the will of the voters,” Sen. Gary Byrne said. “Fighting fire with fire burns the world down.”