Trump turns up heat on fellow Republicans in push to redraw congressional maps ahead of midterms
President Donald Trump is amplifying his political targeting of Indiana Republicans who have been resisting calls from the president to move forward with congressional redistricting.
Trump on Tuesday, for a third straight day, vowed to back primary challenges against state Republican lawmakers in the solidly red Midwestern state who didn’t support his push to draw new maps in Indiana, which would create another GOP-leaning congressional district.
“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 warned in a social media post.
Despite pressure from Trump and his political team, Bray, the Republican leader in the state Senate, announced last week that there wasn’t enough support in the chamber to move forward with redistricting. Indiana is the latest battlefield in the high-stakes redistricting showdown pitting Trump and Republicans versus Democrats to shape the 2026 midterm landscape in the fight for the House majority.
INDIANA REPUBLICANS REJECT TRUMP-BACKED REDISTRICTING PUSH
Republicans currently control seven of Indiana’s nine congressional districts, and any new map passed by the GOP supermajority in the legislature would likely shift the state’s 1st Congressional District from blue-leaning to a red-leaning seat.
Trump on Sunday lambasted Bray and another Republican state senator, calling for their ouster.
The president returned to social media a day later, charging, “Because of these two politically correct type ‘gentlemen,’ and a few others, they could be depriving Republicans of a Majority in the House, A VERY BIG DEAL!”
RULING BY RED STATE JUDGE REDISTRICTING SETBACK FOR REPUBLICANS
Trump is twisting elbows in his attempt to make Indiana the latest Republican-controlled state to change their congressional maps. The president has called state lawmakers and Vice President JD Vance visited the state earlier this autumn to discuss redistricting.
And Fox News has confirmed that Trump has invited some of the Indiana Republicans who are holding out against redistricting to White House meetings in the coming days. The news was first reported by Politico.
Trump, in his Sunday post, also took a jab at Republican Gov. Mike Braun of Indiana, arguing that the governor “perhaps, is not working the way he should to get the necessary Votes.”
Braun on Monday wrote on social media that “I just had a great call with President Trump! I told him I remain committed to standing with him on the critical issue of passing fair maps in Indiana to ensure the MAGA agenda is successful in Congress.”
And the governor claimed that “the Indiana State Senate is hiding behind closed doors and refusing to even bring redistricting to a vote. Hoosiers deserve to know where their legislators stand and expect them to show up for work, not walk out and hide in the dark.”
Trump on Tuesday called Braun “a good man,” but warned he “must produce on this, or he will be the only Governor, Republican or Democrat, who didn’t.”
NEWSOM TAKES VICTORY LAP AFTER LANDSLIDE REDISTRICTING VICTORY IN CALIFORNIA
The push by the president in Indiana is part of a broad effort by Trump’s political team and the GOP to pad the party’s razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in next year’s midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.
Trump is aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections.
Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio have drawn new maps as part of the president’s push. And Florida and Kansas are also mulling redrawing their maps.
“We must keep the Majority at all costs,” Trump wrote Monday.
But on Tuesday, a three-judge federal panel delivered a blow to Trump and Republicans, by ruling that the state can’t use the newly drawn map in next year’s elections. Texas Republicans say they’ll appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Democrats are fighting back.
California voters two weeks ago overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative which will temporarily sidetrack the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and return the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democrat-dominated legislature.
That is expected to result in five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, which would counter the passage earlier this year in Texas of a new map that aims to create up to five right-leaning House seats.
Illinois and Maryland, two blue states, and Virginia, where Democrats control the legislature, are also taking steps or seriously considering redistricting.
And in a blow to Republicans, a Utah district judge last week rejected a congressional district map drawn up by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternate that will create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
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