The GOP-controlled Indiana House, meeting in the Statehouse — seen in a file photo from 2017 — on Friday passed along party lines a congressional redistricting plan pushed by President Donald Trump. (Michael Conroy/AP Photo)
The GOP supermajority in the Indiana House passed the redistricting bill 57-41, in a chamber where Republicans outnumber Democrats 70-30.
In debate ahead of the vote, state Rep. Matt Pierce, who is the Assistant Democratic Floor Leader, pointed to his Republican colleagues and argued "you really want to erase the Democratic Party when it comes to Congress."
And Pierce claimed that Trump, by pushing redistricting through red states across the country, is basically saying "I need to cheat to win."
Democratic Rep. Sue Errington also took aim at the redistricting bill, charging that the message from the measure is "voters don’t matter."
At the sole public hearing on the bill, held earlier this week, the author of the measure acknowledged the new map was "politically gerrymandered" and drawn "purely for political performance" of Republicans.
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But GOP state Rep. Ben Smaltz defended the new map from accusations of racial gerrymandering. Partisan gerrymandering is not prohibited under federal law, but racial gerrymandering is illegal.
All but two of the 43 of the members of the public who testified at the hearing spoke out against the bill.
The measure now moves to the legislature's upper chamber. Despite pressure from Trump and his political team, Indiana Senate Republican leader Rodric Bray has repeatedly said there wasn't enough support in the chamber to move forward with redistricting.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, seen speaking during a press conference on Oct. 30, 2025, supports President Donald Trump's push for congressional redistricting. (Michael Gard/Post-Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
But Braun, pointing to the president, has touted that he is "committed to standing with him on the critical issue of passing fair maps in Indiana to ensure the MAGA agenda is successful in Congress."
Meanwhile, the Trump-aligned conservative outside group the Club for Growth Action, has 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.
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 ahead of the midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.
"We must keep the Majority at all costs," the president wrote recently.
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 this week took the first steps towards passing a redistricting measure, and right-leaning Kansas is also mulling redrawing their 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 on Thursday 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 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.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during an election night press conference at a California Democratic Party office Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Sacramento, Calif. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)
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.
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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 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.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/red-state-moves-forward-trump-backed-push-new-congressional-map