Trump Tries to Strong-arm Indiana Into Midterm Redistricting
So far, 2025 has been the year when Donald Trump has gotten whatever he wanted. Like a small child turned loose in his very own candy store, he has indulged his hunger for power in more ways than we can count, disregarding laws, precedents, and the Constitution itself. And he’s had eager accomplices across the Republican Party, notably those serving in Congress, who have happily ceded their spending authority and oversight of the federal government as they passed legislation customized to his wishes.
So you can imagine the temper tantrum Trump probably pitched when informed that Indiana Republicans didn’t move when he said “jump.”
Trump has recently become enthusiastic about congressional redistricting. Aware that the odds of Democrats breaking his fragile trifecta hold on the federal government in the 2026 midterm elections are pretty high, he has taken to demanding that states where Republicans are firmly in charge redraw their U.S. House district maps (normally undertaken just once a decade after the decennial census) to give the GOP a cushion of extra seats next year. The most dramatic example has been in Texas, where Trump hijacked a special legislative session mostly devoted to flood relief and instructed Governor Greg Abbott and his lawmakers to steal five congressional seats through an entirely unnecessary gerrymander, leading to a partisan deadlock after Democratic legislators fled the state to deny the GOP a quorum. As this drama worked itself out and as Democrats prepared to retaliate in California with their own partisan gerrymander, Trump looked around for other red states to bully.
One immediate target was Indiana, where Republicans already control seven of nine U.S. House seats but could theoretically rub out Democratic congressman Frank Mrvan with a mid-decade remap. In fact, Trump dispatched his vice-president, J.D. Vance, to meet with Republican governor Mike Braun and legislative leaders and arrange the hit. Shockingly enough, Hoosier Republicans weren’t jazzed about it, as the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported:
The Indiana General Assembly has complete control in redrawing district lines. There’s no nonpartisan commission. A gubernatorial veto can be overturned with simple majority votes.
House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, who lead Republican supermajorities in the state’s House and Senate, haven’t yet made their stances clear. But members are.
Multiple have described themselves as a “hard no,” including Reps. Danny Lopez of Carmel and Jim Lucas of Seymour.
“Just a few years ago, our General Assembly undertook the complex redistricting process based on up-to-date census data, drawing fair maps that ensure every Hoosier vote counts,” Lopez, who took office last year, wrote on X. “We should stand by that work.”
Lucas called the possibility “highly unusual and politically optically horrible.”
One of Trump’s chief national enforcers, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, was stunned by these reports:
Are Indiana House Speaker @tmhuston and Senate President @bray_rodric going to ignore President Trump, the majority of their voters, and the GOP Grassroots across the country by REFUSING to redistrict Indiana’s Congressional Seats?
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 14, 2025
Let’s hope they are better than that!
????
But the president himself will no longer delegate the arm-twisting, as Punchbowl News reports:
Trump has invited all Republican state legislators from Indiana to the White House Aug. 26, according to sources familiar with the plans. The Trump administration has been trying to convince Hoosier State Republicans to redraw their congressional map to add an additional Republican seat …
Indiana lawmakers have been reluctant to bow to the Trump administration on their map so far.
It’s unclear whether Trump can crowd all 110 of these Indiana lawmakers into the Oval Office so he can glower at them from the seat of presidential power, but it is extremely unlikely that any will cite vacation plans or pressing household chores to skip the meeting. According to the IndyStar, the invitation suggests it will be “an opportunity for Indiana’s elected officials to hear directly from senior White House Officials and Cabinet Secretaries to learn how to partner with the Administration to implement President Trump’s Agenda at the state and local level.” So perhaps they will encounter Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem in her ICE outfit or Defense secretary Pete Hegseth in his warfighting mode, or Attorney General Pam Bondi with a complement of the D.C. police officers she now commands. If Indiana Republicans still resist all this pressure, it will be a first for the second Trump administration.