Trump Exacts Indiana Revenge: Five GOP State Senators Defeated for Blocking Redistricting Push

President Donald Trump's revenge campaign against Indiana Republicans who blocked his mid-decade redistricting push paid off Tuesday night, with Trump-endorsed primary challengers defeating at least five incumbent state senators who voted last December against carving up the state's congressional map. The Associated Press projected the wins late Tuesday in races that had drawn more than $13.5 million in broadcast advertising — a nearly 5,000% jump from the roughly $250,000 spent on Indiana state Senate races in 2024.

The defeated senators are Travis Holdman of Markle, Jim Buck of Kokomo, Linda Rogers of Granger, Dan Dernulc of Highland and Greg Walker of Columbus. A sixth incumbent, Rick Niemeyer of Lowell, was trailing his Trump-endorsed challenger Wednesday morning by a margin so narrow that the race had not been called. All seven Republican senators Trump publicly targeted had voted with 14 of their colleagues last December to kill a new congressional map the president personally lobbied for. The map would have collapsed the state's two Democratic-held seats and was expected to deliver Republicans two additional House seats heading into the November midterms.

The loss in December marked one of Trump's rare intraparty rebukes of his second term, and the president made clear from the day after the vote that he intended to extract a price. "Indiana Republicans who joined the Democrat WITCH HUNT against fair maps will be PRIMARIED out of office," Trump posted on Truth Social in late December. The president's super PAC, MAGA Inc., poured roughly $9 million into the primaries, with additional spending from the Republican State Leadership Committee and several Indiana-based donors aligned with House Speaker Mike Johnson.

The Indiana results are likely to chill resistance among Republican legislators in other states still considering Trump's redistricting demands. Republicans have already redrawn maps in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Missouri, locking in as many as eight new GOP-leaning seats in advance of November. Texas and Florida lawmakers are weighing follow-on changes. "Anybody who thought defying Donald Trump on redistricting was a free vote just got an answer," said Republican strategist Liam Donovan. "He spent the money. He took the scalps. The lesson is unmissable."

Democrats spent the day warning that Trump's strategy is likely to provoke retaliatory mid-decade redistricting in blue states. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said California, New York and Illinois are all under pressure from rank-and-file Democrats to redraw maps that currently feature independent commission boundaries. "You cannot unilaterally disarm against an opponent who is rewriting the rules in real time," Martin said in an MSNBC interview Wednesday morning. A federal court last month let stand the Louisiana map drawn after the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act ruling in Callais.

Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, who himself voted against the original Trump-backed map but did not face a primary, told the Indiana Capital Chronicle that the chamber would now "take a fresh look" at redistricting in a special session expected this summer. With the five incumbents gone and Niemeyer's seat in doubt, Trump now has the votes he needs. The new map, if approved, is expected to target Democratic Reps. Frank Mrvan in the 1st District and André Carson in the 7th, both of whom have already signaled they will sue.