Trump pressures Indiana GOP senators ahead of key redistricting vote

Minister Donald Trump and allied groups are increasing pressure on Indiana Republican state senators who are resisting the president’s push for the red state to pass redistricting in Congress.

The Indiana Senate reconvened Thursday afternoon to vote on a new Trump-backed map that would create two more right-leaning congressional districts in the deep-red Midwestern state where the GOP currently controls seven of Indiana’s nine seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Democratic Reps. Frank Mrvan and Andre Carson’s districts will be eliminated.

The showdown in Indiana comes in a week Supreme Court It cleared the way for Republican-dominated Texas to use its newly redrawn map, which created five more right-leaning seats in the House of Representatives.

Indiana is the latest battleground in Trump’s aggressive national campaign to reshape congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections; As the party in power, Republicans will likely face traditional political headwinds as they defend their razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.

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And for Trump, who has recently emphasized that “we must maintain the majority at all costs,” the vote is seen as a key test of his enormous influence over the GOP.

The redistricting bill passed the Indiana House 57-41, with a dozen GOP lawmakers voting against the measure. But the stakes are much higher this week in the state Senate, where the GOP also has a supermajority. That’s because Republican leaders in the chamber resisted Trump’s efforts to draw new congressional maps.

Indiana Senate Republican leader Rodric Bray has repeatedly said there isn’t enough support in the chamber to move forward on redistricting. The state Senate was split 19-19 in a proxy vote last month.

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Trump repeatedly criticized Bray in a recent social media post, warning: “RINO State Senator Rodric Bray, who doesn’t care about maintaining the Majority in the House of Representatives in DC, is the root problem. Soon, he will be the Root Problem, as will the other politicians who support him in this stupidity.”

Changing course, Bray announced last week that the state Senate would reconvene to vote on redistricting, adding: “The issue of redrawing Indiana’s congressional maps mid-cycle has received a lot of attention and is causing contention here in our state.”

State Sen. Rodric Bray, the Indiana Senate Republican leader, speaks with members of the media at the Statehouse on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025, in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Kaiti Sullivan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump kept up the pressure on Bray and others in a social media post last weekend, emphasizing that the nine state Senate Republicans who have not yet announced their positions on the new map “need encouragement to make the right decision.”

And on the eve of the vote in the state Senate, the president once again criticized Bray in a lengthy post, calling him “either a bad guy or very stupid.” He also vowed to “do everything in my power” to oust Bray and others who voted against the redistricting bill in next year’s GOP primary.

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The latest attacks are part of Trump’s months-long effort to make Indiana the latest Republican-controlled state and change congressional maps. President summons state lawmakers and Vice President J.D. Vance He visited the state twice earlier this fall to discuss redistricting.

President Donald Trump, seen walking on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025, has repeatedly warned that Indiana state lawmakers who oppose the redistricting push would face primary challenges from the GOP. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a prominent Trump ally, also called Indiana lawmakers as part of the full court press briefing.

Meanwhile, the pro-Trump conservative outside political organization Growth Action Club and other groups have spent big money to run ads supporting redistricting in Indiana and, along with Turning Point Action, will target Republican state lawmakers who oppose the new map.

Club for Growth President David McIntosh sent a “FINAL WARNING” to Bray last week, warning that “failure to achieve this will mean you and the rest of the opposition will be defeated and removed from office at the next election.”

And Turning Point Action, the political wing of the influential political group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, held a rally at the State Capitol last week.

“This is an extremely high priority, and we will work with local residents to ensure their voices are heard and their priorities are not subverted by an uninformed elected class,” Turning Point Spokesperson Andrew Kolvet told Fox News Digital.

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By advocating a rare but unheard-of redistricting method in the middle of the decade, Trump aims to avoid what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats retook the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections.

Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio drew new maps as part of the president’s move. State lawmakers in GOP-dominated Florida recently took the first steps toward passing a redistricting measure, and right-leaning Kansas is also considering redrawing its map.

Last month, two federal judges in Texas dealt a blow to Trump and Republicans by ruling that the state could not use the newly drawn map in next year’s election. But the Supreme Court last week welcomed the Lone Star State’s new congressional map.

Democrats are resisting.

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at an election night press conference at the California Democratic Party office in Sacramento, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)

A month ago, California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that would temporarily derail the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and return the power to draw congressional maps to the Democratic-dominated legislature.

This is expected to result in the creation of five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California; This would oppose the passage of a new map earlier this year that sought to create up to five right-leaning House seats in Texas.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is considered a Democratic presidential front-runner in 2028, has led his state’s push for redistricting.

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Illinois and Maryland, two blue states, and Virginia, where Democrats control the legislature, are also taking steps or seriously considering redistricting.

Meanwhile, opponents of redistricting in Missouri submitted thousands of petition signatures calling for a statewide referendum on the new maps.

And in another blow to Republicans, a Utah district judge last month rejected a congressional district map drawn up by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternative that would create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.