Trump dealt major blow as Indiana Senate rejects redistricting map that would’ve added 2 GOP House seats

It's decision day in red state Indiana, as the state Senate votes on congressional redistricting championed by President Trump. The new map would create two more GOP-dominated U.S. House districts.

The Indiana Statehouse is seen in 2017. (Michael Conroy/AP Photo)

And for Trump, who recently emphasized "we must keep the majority at all costs," the vote was 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 were much higher in the state Senate, where the GOP also holds a super majority, as Republican leaders in the chamber had 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."

President Donald Trump, seen walking across the South Lawn of the White House, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025, in Washington, has repeatedly warned that Indiana state lawmakers who oppose his redistricting push will face GOP primary challenges. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a top Trump ally, 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 dished out big bucks to run ads in Indiana supporting redistricting, and along with Turning Point Action, pledged to target Republican state lawmakers opposed to the new map.

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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.

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during an election night press conference at a California Democratic Party office Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Sacramento. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)

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.

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.

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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.

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.

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast."

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