Indiana Republicans Buck Trump, Vote Down His Redistricting Push
HuffPost
After two months of pressure and violent threats, Republican state senators voted against Trump's effort to eliminate two House seats held by Democrats.
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.
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.
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.
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