INDIANAPOLIS — In 44 years in Indiana’s legislature, Vaneta Becker had never before had a call with the White House.
President Donald Trump was on the line that day in October, urging her and her GOP colleagues to redraw the state’s congressional map to help Republicans in next year’s midterm elections. She told the White House she opposed the idea, and a week or so later got a voice message from an aide asking for a follow-up conversation. Becker called back to leave a message of her own.
“I’m not going to change my position,” Becker, 76, recalled saying. “You’re wasting your time on me, so just focus on somebody else.”
Indiana, a state Trump won by 19 percentage points last year, is serving up an unusual amount of resistance to his plan to carve up congressional districts around the country. Since this summer, Republicans in four other states have rejiggered their maps to give their party as many as nine more seats — part of a larger plan aimed at retaining power in Congress after next year’s elections.
But in Indiana, a contingent of GOP state senators has politely but persistently said no. The GOP opponents told Trump and Gov. Mike Braun (R) they weren’t on board and last month 19 of them voted with Democrats to end a legislative session without acting on redistricting. Trump and his allies kept pressing, and the state House passed a plan last week that would likely give Republicans all nine of the state’s congressional districts, two more than they have now.
The leader of the state Senate, Rodric Bray, agreed to bring the senators back to the state capitol to take up the issue even though he was among those who had voted to end the session. They are expecting to vote Thursday.
Opponents include longtime Republican lawmakers like Becker who got involved in politics years before the rise of Trump and his Make America Great Again movement. Hoosiers bristle at meddling from Washington, even when it comes from allies, the opponents say.
The state senators have been increasingly on edge in recent weeks as they endured intimidation — political and physical — and a stream of hoax police reports that seemed designed to draw large law enforcement responses to their homes.
States draw their congressional districts after the census, and lawmakers from both parties often try to maximize their advantage. Years of litigation sometimes follow, but state lawmakers typically don’t redraw their lines in the middle of the decade unless a court orders it. Trump has rejected the usual way of doing business, demanding Republican-led states make immediate changes.
So far, Republicans have not netted as many seats as they’d hoped because Democrats have counteracted them by adopting a new map in California and are trying to do the same in Virginia and other states. Opponents of a new GOP-friendly map in Missouri submitted more than 300,000 signatures to the state to try to block it from going into effect until a referendum on it can be held.
But the GOP resistance in Indiana stands apart, in large part because Republicans across the country have readily acquiesced to Trump’s demands and threats on a range of issues.
Trump may yet prevail. But the rare instance of pushback here could offer warning signs to Trump that his grip on the party may be loosening amid slides in his public approval rating. A vote against a new map in Indiana would add to his woes as Republicans fret over their ability to hold onto the House next year.
What happens in Indiana will have effects elsewhere. If Republicans reject the map here, Trump may put more pressure on officials in other states. If they go along with the plan, Democrats in Illinois and Maryland who have resisted redistricting may feel they need now to jump into the fight.
Time is running short because election officials, candidates and voters need to know where the lines are well ahead of next year’s primaries. But the fight over maps will continue for months. Republicans in Florida are poised to draw a new map and GOP lawmakers in Utah are trying to reverse a court decision that is expected to give Democrats one of the state’s districts.
In Indiana, lawmakers have been debating whether to redraw the lines since August, but they didn’t see the proposed map until the House unveiled it last week. The map would break Marion County, the home to Indianapolis and the state’s largest African American population, into four districts, diluting Democratic votes. It would likely doom the reelection chances of Democratic Reps. Frank J. Mrvan and André Carson, the only Black member of Indiana’s congressional delegation.
Trump has hosted Indiana officials at the White House. He’s dispatched Vice President JD Vance to the state twice. In October, he and his aides held their conference call with Indiana state senators to talk up redistricting. At the end of the call, the senators were told to press a number on their phone to indicate whether they supported redrawing the map, even though they were yet to see how the lines would change.
On Wednesday night, Trump lashed out at the state Senate leader on Truth Social, calling Bray “the only person in the United States of America who is against Republicans picking up extra seats” and warning that lawmakers who oppose the changes were at risk of losing their seats.
A White House official said earlier that Trump’s team is “not arm twisting. Just outlining the stakes and reminding them western civilization stands in the balance of their decision.”
About 800 of Becker’s constituents in southwestern Indiana have told her they are against the plan and about 100 have told her they’re for it, she said. Sitting in her wood-paneled cubicle Tuesday in the state capitol, she slid a constituent’s letter out of its envelope.
“Mid-decade redistricting at the request of President Trump will unnecessarily intensify the already deep partisan divisions in our country,” the man wrote. “Even bringing this topic up in the Indiana legislature will ratchet up the antagonism.”
Voters know the push is coming from Trump, and many are not afraid to criticize him for it, even if they otherwise support the president, she said. Becker declined to say whether she’d voted for Trump but said she’s “not crazy about him,” especially after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump is not letting up on his push. Last month the president called out state Sen. Greg Goode (R) in a post on Truth Social, saying he was “very disappointed” that he opposed redistricting even though Goode had not taken a position. Later that day, Goode said, someone falsely told police he had murdered his wife and barricaded himself in his house. Police kicked in the door just after Goode got out of the shower, while his wife and son were getting Christmas decorations in the basement, and officers pointed their guns at Goode’s chest, he said.
Goode, who serves as the state director for U.S. Sen. Todd Young (R-Indiana), said he didn’t blame Trump for the incident. He got a call from Trump the next day, which he described as polite. Trump called Goode again on Monday, as the state senator was listening to the redistricting debate in committee.
“It was not a pressured call at all,” Goode said. “The overarching message really from day one is the importance for the Republican Party to maintain control of the United States House of Representatives.”
Goode said he won’t decide how he’s voting until he hears the final debate among the senators. He’s voted for Trump three times and takes his opinion seriously, but also is listening closely to his constituents, who have overwhelmingly told him they oppose redistricting, he said.
On Friday, hours after the state House passed the map, Trump named Goode and eight other state senators in a social media post as needing “encouragement to make the right decision.” The conservative group Turning Point Action has claimed it will team up with other Trump-aligned organizations to spend $10 million or more on primaries in 2026 and 2028 against GOP state senators in Indiana who vote against the map. Several Republicans, including Becker, said they’re skeptical the groups would spend so much against members of their own party.
State Sen. Travis Holdman (R) got a call from the White House a couple of weeks ago asking if he would come to Washington to talk about redistricting, but he declined because he couldn’t miss work as a banking consultant. Adopting a new map now would be unfair, he said, and he doesn’t think the president’s team could change his mind.
“I voted for Donald Trump in every election,” he said. “I really agree with his policies. We just disagree on this issue.”
Republicans control the state Senate 40-10, and at least 16 of them would need to vote with Democrats to sideline the map.
Supporters of the altered map said they want to ensure Republicans hold onto Congress and are responding to districts Democrats drew favoring their party years ago in states they control. Indiana state Sen. R. Michael Young told his colleagues on Monday that the Supreme Court had blessed letting states draw districts for partisan advantage, holding up a recent decision that upheld a new map in Texas.
“For all those people who think they’re lawyers in Indiana, who think it’s against the law or wrong, the Supreme Court of the United States says different,” he said.
Others have made their opposition clear, with some saying they’re pushing back on what they call bullying. State Sen. Mike Bohacek (R) grew incensed last month when Trump called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) “seriously retarded” in a social media post. Bohacek, who has a daughter with Down syndrome, said in a social media post that Trump’s “choice of words have consequences.”
“I will be voting NO on redistricting, perhaps he can use the next 10 months to convince voters that his policies and behavior deserve a congressional majority,” Bohacek wrote in his post.
In the state House, Rep. Ed Clere was among 12 Republicans to vote against the map. He believes Trump’s MAGA movement is starting to crack, but doesn’t think that’s what’s behind the GOP resistance to redistricting in Indiana. It stems from a sense of independence that is, he said, “part of Indiana’s DNA.”
Becker agrees.
“Hoosiers are very independent,” she said. “And they’re not used to Washington trying to tell us what to do.”
Isaac Arnsdorf in Washington contributed to this report.
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