JD Vance heading to Indiana, expected to push for redistricting ahead of midterms
As some Texas Democratic lawmakers seek refuge in the Chicago suburbs to block the Texas Legislature from voting on a mid-decade redistricting plan, Indiana could be facing one of its own.
Vice President JD Vance will visit Indianapolis Thursday to meet with Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, and is expected to push state lawmakers to redistrict the only two Congressional seats that are occupied by Democrats, the 1st and the 7th districts.
It's part of a nationwide effort led by Republicans and backed by President Donald Trump to redraw the congressional map ahead of next year's mid-term elections.
U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan holds the 1st District seat, which includes the industrial cities of Gary, Hammond, East Chicago and Portage, all with sizable Black and Latino populations. He said redistricting would go against Indiana's state constitution to redistrict midterm. The state's last redistricting happened in 2021.
“The Trump Administration has recognized that their harmful policies to benefit wealthy elites at the expense of working families are wildly unpopular,” Mrvan said in a statement. “They know that their only hope to maintain control is to pressure the Indiana General Assembly to violate the Indiana Constitution and redistrict U.S. House of Representative seats mid-decade.”
Though the 1st district has been held by Democrats for nearly a century, President Trump is very popular in certain areas. Mrvan defeated his Republican opponents by slim margins in each of his two elections to Congress.
Still, the Cook Political Report lists the district as “likely Democrat.”
Indiana Gov. Braun told Indiana Public Broadcasting that any redistricting conversation is “exploratory” and that Indiana’s maps were drawn fairly in 2021.
"We tried to adhere to township lines," Braun told IPBS.
Braun did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Indiana state Rep. Matt Pierce, a Democrat from downstate Bloomington, said in a statement that the proposal to redraw the lines shows that President Trump is “running scared.”
“He fears the voters who are rejecting his unpopular policies: raising prices for American families with his import taxes, taking health care away from millions of Americans and increasing the number of hungry children, all to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans," Pierce said.