Indiana Republicans Reject Trump’s Redistricting Effort
Indiana Republicans Overwhelmingly Reject Trump’s Redistricting Effort
For the last six months, we’ve seen several Republican state legislatures implement rare, mid-decade redistricting efforts at the behest of President Donald Trump. While the GOP has largely been grossly submissive to Trump, a group of Republican state senators in Indiana displayed a surprising amount of backbone on Thursday after voting against a redistricting effort in the state.
According to NPR, the Indiana Senate voted 31-19 against a new congressional map that would likely have given Republicans control of two House seats currently held by Democrats. Republicans make up 40 of the Indiana Senate’s 50 seats, making this the first time members of his own party have shut down Trump’s redistricting push.
“My opposition to mid-cycle gerrymandering is not in contrast to my conservative principles, my opposition is driven by them,” Republican state Sen. Spencer Deery said during the debate. “As long as I have breath, I will use my voice to resist a federal government that attempts to bully, direct, and control this state or any state. Giving the federal government more power is not conservative.”
Of all the Red states that Trump has pressured into a mid-decade redistricting effort, Indiana has consistently put up the most resistance. Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray had repeatedly said the measure didn’t have the votes in the months leading up to the redistricting effort.
Despite previously saying he didn’t want to move forward with redistricting unless he knew it had the votes, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun called a special session focused on redistricting, knowing it would likely fail in the state Senate.
Braun and Trump have both threatened to support any primary challenger against the Republican state senators who voted against redistricting. That could potentially be another effort that has them out here looking stupid, as the majority of Indiana voters were not in favor of a mid-decade redistricting effort.
During the vote, members of the public could be heard outside the Senate floor chanting “vote no” and “Hoosiers fight fair.” Unlike Trump, the state senators who voted against the effort were actually doing what their constituents wanted. I don’t know how they could make “they did the thing you asked them to do” a successful point of attack in a campaign ad.
This is yet another blow to Trump’s attempt to maintain control of the House through gerrymandered maps. Democrats only need a net gain of three seats to flip control of the House.
The nationwide redistricting battle began in July when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott used the Kerr County floods as cover to call a special legislative session on redistricting. After a fraught process, Texas ultimately passed a map that creates five new House seats in districts that favor Republicans. While the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the map can remain in effect despite a lower-court ruling that it was racially discriminatory, the gains have already been neutralized by California voters passing Prop 50, which implements a new congressional map designed to counter the Texas map.
Missouri hastily pursued a mid-decade redistricting effort intended to give Republicans another House seat, despite voters essentially opposing it. In fact, they were so opposed to it that a petition has been submitted to place the new map on the ballot next year. Should it have enough signatures, Missouri will have to conduct the 2026 midterms with the old map. Additionally, Virginia announced a surprise redistricting effort in October to add 2 to 3 new House seats in districts that favor Democrats. Despite Trump’s best efforts to gerrymander his way to a midterms victory, the math still only favors Republicans by a small margin.
In addition to all the moves and counter moves, November’s elections heavily favored the Democrats, giving them momentum going into the midterms. Even elections held in districts considered safely Republican are showing cracks. Tennessee’s special election this month saw Republican Matt Van Epps win, but only by nine percentage points in a district his predecessor won by 20. So while the redistricting effort has created more districts that, on paper, favor Republicans, it could still be a close fight for many of the newly created House seats.
SEE ALSO:
Indiana Redistricting Effort Faces State Senate Resistance
Indiana Redistricting Push Stalls As Utah Potentially Has ‘Dummymandered’ Map
Indiana Republicans Overwhelmingly Reject Trump’s Redistricting Effort was originally published on newsone.com
