Standing up to pressure from the Trump administration to approve new mid-cycle congressional maps, several Republicans in the Indiana state Senate voted on Tuesday to adjourn until 2026, instead of convening in December for a special session on redistricting as previously expected.
It’s the latest in a series of significant setbacks in red states across the country for Trump’s ongoing gerrymandering pressure campaign as he tries to predetermine the results of the 2026 midterms.
The vote in Indiana comes just days after Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray announced that Indiana lawmakers would not convene for a special session on redistricting in December, despite mounting pressure from Trump and Indiana’s GOP Gov. Mike Braun to do so. In his announcement late last week, Bray said there were not enough votes in his conference to approve new maps that would flip the state’s only two U.S. House seats held by Democrats for Republicans.
Tuesday night, nineteen Republican senators and all 10 Democratic senators voted against convening for a special session next month.
In response, Braun, following in Trump’s footsteps, explicitly threatened state Senators who have not succumbed to the administration’s pressure to approve new maps. It’s worth noting that Braun’s threats come only days after Trump called Braun out directly and blamed him for the lack of support for redistricting in the state legislature.
“Unfortunately, Sen. Rod Bray was forced to partner with DEMOCRATS to block an effort by the growing number of America First Senators who wanted to have a vote on passing fair maps. Now I am left with no choice other than to explore all options at my disposal to compel the State Senate to show up and vote,” Braun wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.
“I will support President Trump’s efforts to recruit, endorse, and finance primary challengers for Indiana’s senators who refuse to support fair maps,” he added.
In recent days, Trump has also threatened Indiana’s state Senators who have refused to get in line. Most recently, he took to Truth Social to again single out Bray.
“I won Indiana in a landslide, the most votes ever gotten in the State – Such an HONOR! A RINO State Senator, Rodric Bray, who doesn’t care about keeping the Majority in the House in D.C., is the primary problem. Soon, he will have a Primary Problem, as will any other politician who supports him in this stupidity,” Trump posted on Tuesday.
Despite early Republican gerrymandering wins in North Carolina and Missouri, Trump’s larger campaign is falling apart.
Also on Tuesday, a federal court enjoined the use of Texas’ new congressional map, calling the map racially gerrymandered and therefore unconstitutional. Additionally, earlier this month, a Utah judge rejected a new Republican-favoring map. And in Kansas, Republicans did not have sufficient votes to approve a new map.
Another day, another embarrassing story about my home state. You know Drumpf’s coalition is collapsing when the idiot Braun is calling very Republican Indiana politicians RINO’s. And what is it about folks like Braun and Drumpf always crowing about their vote counts as though that makes them always right and all powerful?
This is al fabulous news. Perhaps that 7+million No Kings day stirred some backbone. That and the Epstein affair as well as the economy.
As in ‘ We got 51 percent of the vote for President, therefore we get 100% of the Representatives ‘?
And while Indiana is failing, and Texas is blocked by courts ruling that their redistricting was clearly race-based, California has done it right, at least by the “rules” of the corrupt SC.
But additionally, in order to redraw these districts, they have to thin their own voters in heavily red districts. This could bite them in a wave election. It would be delicious if TMF’s attempts to stack the House with Fascists, turns into a solid Blue majority.
Never thought it would be Indiana Republicans that would draw a line, but here we are!