Indiana Governor Mike Braun wants state legislators to get moving on approving a new congressional district map, to spare them from President Donald Trump’s wrath.
Speaking on Fort Wayne’s WOWO radio Monday, Braun floated the idea of lawmakers returning for a special session in November, to scrounge up extra GOP seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
“If we try to drag our feet as a state on it, probably, we’ll have consequences of not working with the Trump administration as tightly as we should,” he said.
Braun is the only lawmaker in Indiana with the authority to call a special session in November. Special sessions are historically pretty expensive for taxpayers. If Braun doesn’t call a special session, Republicans’ redistricting efforts would have to wait until the next session begins in January 2026.
Braun said Tuesday that he preferred to start working “earlier rather than later,” or “anytime from early November through the very earliest part” of the next legislative session.
“All I’m telling you is that we’re going to look at [the current maps], we’re going to poll our legislators, and if it’s there, we’re going to do it,” he continued. “My feeling is it probably will happen,” he said.
The Trump administration has previously urged Indiana to follow the lead of other states’ redistricting efforts, and deliver Trump one or two additional Republican House seats. In August, Vice President JD Vance visited with more than 55 Republicans at the Indiana state House, pressing them to approve a new map, and Trump met privately with the Republican heads of the Indiana House and Senate in the Oval Office.
In Texas, Republican state legislators passed a new congressional map that could help the GOP gain five more seats in the House of Representatives—launching a mirrored initiative in California for the Democrats. Earlier this month, Trump personally bullied Missouri lawmakers to approve a freshly gerrymandered map that would erase the Democratic seat in Kansas City. Republican lawmakers in Kansas, Ohio, and Florida are also considering taking up redistricting efforts in their states, as well as Democrats in Illinois and Maryland.
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