Indiana Senate Rejects Trump-Backed Redistricting Plan, Imperiling GOP Midterm Gains
The Indiana State Senate dealt a major blow to President Donald Trump’s 2026 election strategy on Thursday, rejecting a Republican-backed redistricting proposal that aimed to flip two Democrat-held Congressional seats. Despite Trump’s vocal support and mounting pressure from national conservatives, the bill failed 19-31, with several GOP senators breaking ranks to oppose the plan.
The proposed map had already passed the Indiana House last week in a 57-41 vote. But resistance within the Republican-controlled Senate, led in part by Senate President Rodric Bray, doomed the effort and drew immediate fire from Trump and his allies.
“This is a betrayal,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post shortly after the vote. “If Republicans won’t fight to win, then the voters will replace them with those who will. Rod Bray and his friends are finished in politics.”
Trump had been pushing for Indiana to join other GOP-controlled states like Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina in aggressively redrawing Congressional boundaries to bolster Republican odds in the tight 2026 midterm cycle. Currently, Republicans hold 220 seats in the House to Democrats’ 213, with two vacancies. The Indiana map would have likely added two safe Republican seats, tightening Trump’s grip on the House majority.
Vice President JD Vance also blasted Bray ahead of the vote, accusing him of privately telling the White House he wouldn’t oppose redistricting, while quietly organizing GOP senators to vote it down. “Rod Bray cannot be trusted,” Vance said Wednesday. “He tried to play both sides and got caught.”
Bray dismissed the accusations, saying, “My style is to let senators vote their conscience. That’s what I did here.”
Despite the backlash, Bray reiterated there wasn’t enough support among Republican senators to reconvene and pass a new map, even after Indiana Governor Mike Braun called for a special session to salvage the effort.
“Senate Republicans have given very serious and thoughtful consideration to the concept of redrawing our state’s congressional maps. I’m announcing there are not enough votes to move that idea forward, and the Senate will not reconvene in December,” Bray said in a statement issued last month.
The failed Indiana redistricting push contrasts sharply with GOP victories elsewhere. The Supreme Court recently allowed Texas to implement a map that added five new Republican-favored districts. Meanwhile, California’s controversial Prop. 50 created five Democrat-leaning districts, sparking an ongoing lawsuit from the Justice Department. Other redistricting battles in Florida, Virginia, and Louisiana are still playing out.
According to Cook Political Report editor Dave Wasserman, the end result may leave the national map relatively balanced, but the Indiana vote marked a missed opportunity for Trump-aligned Republicans to secure a firmer House majority ahead of 2026.
With redistricting now off the table in Indiana, Trump allies have vowed primary challenges against the GOP senators who voted no. As Trump warned Wednesday, “They could be depriving Republicans of a majority in the House — A VERY BIG DEAL!”