In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s failed push to get Indiana Republicans to pass an extreme mid-decade gerrymander deleting all Democratic congressional seats in the state, GOP officials there who supported the effort are admitting defeat — and facing recriminations from within their own party.
Trump threw everything he could at getting Indiana to pass the new map, sending Vice President JD Vance to the state multiple times, and Gov. Mike Braun and the congressional GOP delegation endorsed the plan. But after a bitterly divisive session that involved GOP holdouts being targeted with violent threats, Braun has acknowledged it’s not going to happen anytime soon.
“I don’t intend to call another special session to push early redistricting. I think that ship has sailed,” said Braun, according to State Affairs.
Meanwhile, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, bad blood is still simmering within the state GOP from how officials turned on each other over the proposal.
Sen. Jean Leising of Oldenburg, a 25-year lawmaker who voted against redistricting, said in no uncertain terms that Braun should make nice with Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, who came under heavy MAGA fire as the voice of the majority of the GOP caucus who opposed the plan. “If he were asking me, ‘What should I do next?’ I’d say, ‘You need to apologize to Senator Bray, our pro tem.’ Because he actually said that he wanted to work against him,” she said.
Meanwhile, another redistricting opponent, Sen. Sue Glick of LaGrange, said of the current atmosphere, “I don’t think anybody wants to have a lasting impact. There will be some hard feelings. But I thought that we kept it under control. There didn’t seem to be the acrimony on the floor that you might have anticipated. Most of that was coming from outside.”
Some external GOP groups, like Turning Point USA, campaigned hard for redistricting and have threatened to commit time and money to primary challenges against those who voted it down. Trump himself has echoed these threats.
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