Indiana Governor Mike Braun is pushing President Donald Trump’s gerrymandering scheme forward in the Hoosier State—but Republicans still aren’t getting on the bandwagon.
Braun announced Monday that he was calling a special legislative session to vote on new congressional districts, ensuring Republicans maintain control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.
“I am calling a special legislative session to protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair,” he wrote in a statement.
But Molly Sigart, spokesperson for Rodric Bray, the Indiana Senate’s president pro tempore, told The New Republic Monday that the votes “still aren’t there for redistricting.” The 50-member Senate has only 10 Democrat members, meaning that more than a dozen of the remaining members also opposed the plan.
Last week, Bray’s office said that the Republican plan lacked the necessary support, raising red flags for Braun’s redistricting efforts. Meanwhile, Braun’s spokesperson claimed the governor was “confident” that he could secure a majority of state Senate Republicans’ support.
Braun initially floated the idea last month of calling legislators back and warned that there would be “consequences” for not keeping pace with the White House’s requests for redistricting, which have already been passed in Texas, Missouri, and most recently, North Carolina. The special session Braun called Monday, which will occur before lawmakers are set to return in January, will likely cost taxpayers a pretty penny.
In Indiana, things have gotten heated. Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance have personally connected with state Republicans about supporting a new congressional map. Last month, Indiana state Senator Jim Banks suggested that podcaster Charlie Kirk’s death was reason enough to do it. “They killed Charlie Kirk—the least that we can do is go through a legal process and redistrict Indiana into a nine to zero map,” Banks said.
Indiana state Senator Liz Brown, an assistant majority floor leader, published a statement supporting the move Monday.
“Redistricting isn’t a technical exercise. It’s power drawn on a map. And Democrats have been wielding it for decades,” wrote Brown on X. “Conservative voices have been thwarted for far too long by liberal states like Massachusetts who refuse to create competitive congressional districts.”
“Gov. Braun’s decision to call our legislature into session to address redistricting is welcome news,” she wrote.
The post Republican Governor Tries to Force Party to Gerrymander for Trump appeared first on New Republic.
