INDIANAPOLIS — The Republican-dominated Indiana Senate voted 31-19 on Thursday against redrawing the state’s congressional districts — spurned months of demands from President Donald Trump.
The final outcome remained uncertain until 21 Republicans joined all 10 Democratic senators in rejecting the redistricting plan.
With that tally, Indiana became the first Republican-led state Legislature to vote down Trump’s wish to squeeze out more GOP-friendly congressional seats in hopes of improving the party’s chances of keeping its slim U.S. House majority after the 2026 midterm elections.
Mike Gaskill, R-Pendleton, sponsored the redistricting bill in the Senate and voted in favor of it.
The Indiana House last week approved the new maps crafted by the National Republican Redistricting Trust to produce a 9-0 Republican delegation. It did so by carving up the two districts currently held by Democratic Reps. André Carson in Indianapolis and Frank Mrvan in the area along Lake Michigan near Chicago.
But the Senate’s Republican leader, President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, has said repeatedly that too few GOP senators supported the mid-decade redistricting for it to pass.
Thursday’s Senate outcome came even with Trump, Gov. Mike Braun and other redistricting supporters continuing to cajole — and politically threaten — Bray and other senators who opposed the move.
Trump was calling individual senators this week seeking support and took to social media Wednesday night to seethe over Bray and other Indiana Republicans who weren’t following his demands.
“Unfortunately, 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’s post said. “He is putting every ounce of his limited strength into asking his soon to be very vulnerable friends to vote with him.”
Indiana House Republicans pushed the proposed maps through that chamber last week by a 57-41 margin, with 12 GOP members joining Democrats in voting “no.”
Several Republican senators against the redistricting plan cited what they described as overwhelming public opposition. Others said they didn’t believe it was proper to overhaul the Republican-drawn maps approved in 2021 for such blatant political purposes, with some objecting to the overt gerrymandering of Indianapolis among four districts spanning as far away as the Ohio River.
Trump started the national redistricting fight by pushing Texas Republicans to redraw its congressional map this summer, followed by Republican redistricting moves in Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina. An attempt by Kansas Republicans for a special session on redistricting stalled this fall.
Democrats responded with their own redistricting in California and possible moves in Illinois and Virginia.
Trump’s Wednesday night post appeared to foreshadow the outcome of the Indiana Senate vote.
“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,” the post said. “One of my favorite States, Indiana, will be the only State in the Union to turn the Republican Party down!”
Bray isn’t up for election until 2028.