Indiana state senators handed President Donald Trump a massive loss on Thursday by failing to pass a mid-decade redistricting bill that would redraw the state’s congressional lines to give Republicans the advantage in all nine congressional districts.
The 19-31 vote followed months of pressure by the White House, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Gov. Mike Braun (R-IN), and their allies. The Senate has adjourned until January 2026.
“I am very disappointed that a small group of misguided State Senators have partnered with Democrats to reject this opportunity to protect Hoosiers with fair maps and to reject the leadership of President Trump,” Braun said in a statement. “Ultimately, decisions like this carry political consequences. I will be working with the President to challenge these people who do not represent the best interests of Hoosiers.”
The vote in the Indiana Senate was largely viewed as a test of Trump’s ultimate power and influence in a state he has won three times. The state House made quick work of it last week, when it sailed through the House Elections and Apportionment Committee and then passed on the floor. It has not been as easy in the Indiana Senate, where the Senate Elections Committee sat through a six-hour marathon session on Monday in which nearly 130 Hoosiers registered to weigh in on the new map.
State Sen. Greg Goode, the only Republican senator to host a town hall on the issue, said his constituents were unhappy that they would be drawn into a district with Indianapolis and its suburbs, which would dilute their rural voices.
He also pointed to the added pressure the new map would place on county clerks and the likelihood of costly lawsuits for the state, warning that the entire redistricting push could backfire on Republicans.
“Friends, we’re better than this. Are we not?” he said. “The United States is counting on the state of Indiana.”
Civic leaders such as Common Cause Indiana Director Julian Vaughn also tried one last time to sway lawmakers ahead of Thursday’s vote.
“Today, we’re going to find out if the Republicans in the Indiana Senate stand with Hoosiers or with politicians from Washington D.C.,” she said. “The vote today is unprecedented, and the fight waged in our state for the past four months is unprecedented.”
She added that if senators did not “stand up to the bullies who have swatted and threatened them,” then that type of behavior would be rewarded and used as a blueprint in the future.
Trump threatened electoral consequences for any Indiana Republican who defied his demand to change the map to boost the GOP headcount for next year’s midterm elections.
In a lengthy Truth Social post Wednesday night, Trump called out Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray’s defiant opposition to the redistricting bill.
“Rod Bray and his friends won’t be in Politics for long, and I will do everything within my power to make sure that they will not hurt the Republican Party, and our Country, again,” he wrote. “One of my favorite States, Indiana, will be the only State in the Union to turn the Republican Party down!”
He called Bray a “bad guy” or, at least, a “very stupid one,” and also claimed that the anti-redistricting state lawmakers are the “favorite Republicans” of Democratic leaders in Congress.
“Anybody that votes against Redistricting, and the SUCCESS of the Republican Party in D.C., will be, I am sure, met with a MAGA Primary in the Spring,” Trump added.
Vice President JD Vance subsequently posted that Bray had told him he “wouldn’t fight redistricting while simultaneously whipping his members against it.”
“That level of dishonesty cannot be rewarded, and the Indiana GOP needs to choose a side,” Vance posted.
Threats of violence against Indiana Republican lawmakers have been widespread since the issue of redistricting was raised. More than a dozen lawmakers or their families have been threatened or doxed.
If Democrats are able to flip the U.S. House, they could render Trump a lame duck during his last two years in office by blocking his legislation and launching congressional investigations.
TRUMP ATTACKS INDIANA REPUBLICAN RODRIC BRAY ON DAY BEFORE FINAL REDISTRICTING VOTE
That prospect has led Trump to verbally bash and strong-arm senators into voting how he wants them to.
A coast-to-coast redistricting fight broke out after Trump first publicly called on Texas to redraw its map to give Republicans a five-seat boost heading into the 2026 midterm elections. California countered, passing a ballot measure in November that would redraw its map, giving Democrats the advantage in five GOP-held districts. Republicans in Florida, Ohio, and Missouri followed Texas’s lead and passed maps that favored the GOP.