Indiana Senate Republicans are not aligning with President Donald Trump’s gerrymandering plan to keep control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.
Molly Swigart, spokesperson for Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, put it simply when speaking to Policy Wednesday. “The votes are not there for redistricting,” she said.
Four people familiar with the matter spoke anonymously to Politico, and two of them suggested that Bray and his leadership team were resistant to mid-cycle redistricting. “If Bray personally released his leadership to support this, there would be enough votes for this to pass,” one of these people said.
The White House reportedly conducted a telephone poll, which found that the majority of Republicans supported the redistricting effort. But one Republican claimed his colleagues were confused by the ballot instructions and that the White House had not provided specific guidance on how to proceed with redistricting.
Three of the people who spoke anonymously with Politico said Gov. Mike Braun was inclined to call a special election to redraw the state’s congressional district maps to scrounge up additional seats for the GOP. In September, Braun had fleet the idea of lawmakers returning for a special session in November, and warned there could be “consequences” for breaking with Trump’s wishes.
A spokesperson for Braun told Politico that the governor is “confident” in his ability to secure a majority of Republicans in the state Senate to “ensure fair representation in Congress.”
The Trump administration has previously urged Indiana needs to follow the lead of other states’ redistricting efforts and offer Trump one or two additional Republican seats in the House. In August, Vice President JD Vance visited more than 55 Republicans in the Indiana House of Representatives, pressing them to approve a new map, and Trump met privately with Republican leaders of the Indiana House and Senate in the Oval Office.
Trump’s redistricting efforts are widespread across the country. On Wednesday, North Carolina Republicans pass a new congressional map that diluted the voting power of black residents and merged districts to make them more conservative, likely giving the GOP another congressional seat.
