Republican rift puts spotlight on high-stakes showdown over Trump-driven red state redistricting

President Donald Trump and allied groups are turning up the heat on Indiana Republican state senators who are resisting the president's push for the red state to pass congressional redistricting.

The Indiana Senate reconvenes Thursday afternoon to vote on a new map championed by Trump that would create two more right-leaning congressional districts in the solidly red Midwestern state, where the GOP currently controls seven of Indiana's nine U.S. House seats. The districts of Democratic Reps. Frank Mrvan and Andre Carson would be eliminated.

The showdown in Indiana comes a week after the Supreme Court cleared the way for Republican-dominated Texas to use its newly redrawn map, which creates five more right-leaning House seats.

Indiana is the latest battleground in Trump’s aggressive national campaign to reshape congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterms, when Republicans, as the party in power, will likely face traditional political headwinds as they defend their razor-thin House majority.

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And for Trump, who recently emphasized "we must keep the majority at all costs," the vote is viewed as a key test of his immense clout over the GOP.

The redistricting bill passed the Indiana House 57-41, with a dozen GOP lawmakers voting against the measure. But the stakes are much higher this week in the state Senate, where the GOP also holds a super majority. That's because Republican leaders in the chamber have resisted Trump's efforts to draw new congressional maps.

Indiana Senate Republican leader Rodric Bray had repeatedly said there wasn't enough support in the chamber to move forward with redistricting. The state Senate split 19-19 last month in a proxy vote.

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Trump repeatedly blasted Bray, warning in a recent social media post, "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."

Changing course, Bray announced last week that the state Senate would reconvene to vote on redistricting, adding "the issue of redrawing Indiana's congressional maps mid-cycle has received a lot of attention and is causing strife here in our state."

Trump has kept up the pressure on Bray and others on the fence, highlighting in a social media post this past weekend the nine state Senate Republicans who have yet to announce their position on the new map, saying they "need encouragement to make the right decision."

And on the eve of the vote in the state Senate, the president, in a lengthy post, once again blasted Bray as "either a bad guy, or a very stupid one!" He also vowed to "do everything within my power" to oust Bray and others who vote against the redistricting bill in GOP primaries next year.

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The latest attacks are part of a months-long effort by Trump to twist 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 twice earlier this autumn to discuss redistricting.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a top Trump ally, has also called Indiana lawmakers as part of the full-court press.

Meanwhile, the Trump-aligned conservative outside political organization the Club for Growth Action and other groups have dished out big bucks to run ads in Indiana supporting redistricting, and along with Turning Point Action, will target Republican state lawmakers opposed to the new map.

Club for Growth President David McIntosh last week sent out a "FINAL WARNING" to Bray, warning that "failure to get this done means you and any other opposition will be defeated and removed from office in your next election."

And Turning Point Action, the political wing of the influential political group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, last week held a rally at the state Capitol.

"This is a super high priority, and we’re going to be working with the local, grassroots to make sure their voices heard, and their priorities are not steamrolled by an out-of-touch elected class," Turning Point Spokesman Andrew Kolvet told Fox News Digital.

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Trump, by championing rare but not unheard of mid-decade redistricting, 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. State lawmakers in GOP-dominated Florida recently took the first steps towards passing a redistricting measure, and right-leaning Kansas is also mulling redrawing its map.

Two federal judges in Texas last month delivered a blow to Trump and Republicans, by ruling that the state couldn't use the newly drawn map in next year's elections. But the Supreme Court last week gave a big thumbs up to the Lone Star State's new congressional map.

Democrats are fighting back.

California voters a month ago overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that 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. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is considered a likely 2028 Democratic presidential contender, steered his state's push for redistricting.

Illinois and Maryland, two blue states, and Virginia, where Democrats control the legislature, are also taking steps or seriously considering redistricting.

Meanwhile, opponents of redistricting in Missouri submitted thousands of petition signatures calling for a statewide referendum vote on the new maps.

And in another blow to Republicans, a Utah district judge last month 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.