Indiana lawmakers reject congressional redistricting plan despite Trump pressure

Indiana state lawmakers rejected Thursday a bill that would give the state a new Republican-friendly congressional map.

The bill with the new map received 19 votes from state senators in favor and 31 votes against it. It would have needed 26 votes in favor to pass. Overall, 21 Republicans voted with all 10 Senate Democrats to block the new map.

Indiana currently has seven Republican and two Democratic members of the U.S. House -- and changes to the map could have helped Republicans get additional congressional seats in 2026 as they work to maintain their razor-thin majority in the lower chamber and advance President Donald Trump's agenda.

The proposed map, which would have made both Democratic-held U.S. House districts lean Republican, has been supported by the White House and Indiana's governor.

The vote marks a rare rebuke from a red state of Trump's push to redraw state maps mid-decade.

Speaking to reporters after the vote on Thursday, Trump said -- despite his social media posts about the state's redistricting effort -- he "wasn’t working on it very hard."

Referring to Indiana state Sen. Pro Tem Rodric Bray -- who had indicated the Senate did not have enough votes to pass the map and ultimately voted "No" --  Trump said he would support a primary challenge against Bray the next time he is up for reelection. 

"He'll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is," Trump said. "I hope he does, because he's done a tremendous disservice."

Ahead of the vote, Trump in a social media post had called on Bray and Republican state senators to pass the map "AS IS" to "deliver a gigantic Victory for Republicans in the 'Hoosier State,' and across the Country."

But multiple Republican state senators said their constituents do not want redistricting or that they feel it is the wrong choice for Indiana.

That divide was evident during hours of discussion on the state Senate floor on Thursday, where multiple Democrats spoke up in opposition to the map – and one key Republican condemned the political pressure that had been put on GOP legislators.

Republican state Sen. Greg Goode, who says he faced a swatting threat but had not revealed his position on redistricting, said that he had heard from his constituents that they overwhelmingly opposed mid-decade redistricting.

"The overwhelming feedback from constituents, regardless of political leaning or party affiliation, has clearly demonstrated that the consensus of Hoosiers in District 38 is to vote against HB 1032," he said of the bill.

Those concerns included that the new map would split up districts across counties and draw some rural residents into a district that includes some of Indianapolis and its suburbs, which he said would dilute their voices.

“All of these concerns remind me of the wisdom of our Founding Fathers. They designed a 10-year-census to guide fair representation and trusting states with the responsibility to update their districts to match shifting populations,” Goode said.

The senator slammed the political pressure and threats that had been put on legislators to vote in favor of the new map.

“Misinformation, cruel social media posts. over the top pressure from within the statehouse and outside, threats of primaries, threats of violence, acts of violence. Friends, we're better than this. Are we not?” Goode said.

Democratic state senators remained uniformly opposed to the new congressional map.

"The people I serve have been unmistakably clear. They do not want the map, not because of politics and not because of personalities, but because they understand what every Hoosier understands, that representation is not simply about geography," Democratic State Sen. Mark Spencer said.

State Sen. Spencer Deery, a Republican who has also faced swatting threats and who has openly opposed redistricting, framed his "No" vote in a patriotic, conservative view.

"It's time for patriots to stand by the Constitution say we, the people of the United States, are the only ones who should ever decide an election. It's time to say no to pressure from Washington D.C." he said.

A few Republican state senators who spoke during the session encouraged their colleagues to pass the map, focusing in large part on what gaining two seats in the U.S. House could mean for Republican control and legislation.

"I don't want to wake up the morning after the election in November and find out we lost the House of Representatives by one vote. If I knew that I did that, I would feel horrible," Republican state Sen. Michael Young said.

Republican state senators in Indiana have also faced political pressure from conservative groups such as Turning Point Action, which said it will spend in primaries against state senators if they don't support mid-decade redistricting. Another conservative group, Club for Growth, said it sponsored ads encouraging legislators to redistrict and invested in phone campaigns.

David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth and a former member of Congress from Indiana, told ABC News on Wednesday that he understood why some GOP senators in the Hoosier state opposed redistricting. 

"It's a conservative state, both philosophically, but also in approach. And so it's like, 'You got to show me why we're doing this, why we should make a change,'" he said.

The map bill passed through committee and procedural votes earlier this week.