President Trump and his allies vowed to oust the Indiana Republicans who opposed the president’s proposed redistricting efforts last year — and on Tuesday evening, they largely made good on that promise.
Indiana voters headed to the polls on Tuesday for the state’s primary elections, with Trump-backed challengers handily defeating at least five of the seven state senators who opposed the president’s effort to eliminate Democratic congressional representation in the Hoosier State late last year as part of a mid-decade redistricting tit-for-tat between the parties.
“Good luck to those Great Indiana Senate Candidates who are running against people who couldn’t care less about our Country, or about keeping the Majority in Congress,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social earlier on Tuesday. “Let’s see how those RINOS do tonight!
While Indiana’s Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray is not up for reelection until 2028, MAGA-aligned groups are hoping to push Bray out of his leadership role by ousting his state senate allies. Trump allies spent nearly $10 million on their efforts.
“We’re after you Bray, like no one has ever come after you before!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in January. The president called Bray “weak and pathetic” and “a total RINO who betrayed the Republican Party, the President of the United States, and everyone else who wants to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Among those ousted by Trump’s retribution campaign were State Senator Travis Holdman, the third-most-powerful Republican in the chamber who had served in the legislative body for nearly 20 years. He was defeated by real estate agent Blake Fiechter.
State Senator Jim Buck’s 31-year career in the state legislature will also come to an end, after the 80-year-old incumbent suffered a loss to Tipton County commission member Tracey Powell. Buck had received support from former Vice President Mike Pence, an Indiana native.
State Senator Greg Walker, a 20-year veteran of the chamber who had been eyeing retirement but chose to run for another term after the redistricting fight, lost his reelection bid to State Representative Michelle Davis.
Trump-backed anesthesiologist Brian Schmutzler defeated incumbent State Senator Linda Rogers, while insurance broker Trevor De Vries bested State Senator Dan Dernulc.
Just one anti-redistricting state senator, Greg Goode, prevailed in the primary, defeating two challengers: Vigo County council member Brenda Wilson, who was backed by Trump, and Alexandra Wilson.
One race still remained too close to call on Tuesday evening, that of incumbent State Senator Spencer Deery and Trump-backed challenger Paula Copenhaver.
The intraparty tensions first kicked off in December, when the GOP-controlled state senate voted down the Trump-backed map, 31–19. The new map would have created two more safe red seats in the Hoosier State. The Republicans who opposed the effort did so despite a four-month pressure campaign from the White House. They also experienced pipe bomb threats, unsolicited pizza deliveries to their personal addresses, and swattings of their homes, as Politico reported.
That Trump would launch an intraparty retribution campaign, particularly against Bray — an Indiana Republican who has served in the state senate since 2012, and whose father and grandfather served in the state legislature and Congress, respectively — has shocked some Hoosier Republicans.
“It is completely irrational if the goal is to maintain a congressional majority, because these funds are a direct distraction from that goal,” State Senator Spencer Deery, who voted against the Trump-backed 9–0 map last year, told National Review last month. “Not only is it the millions that they’re diverting from that goal, it’s also the money that I and my colleagues are raising to compete with that that also then drains funds that are available for a congressional majority.”
But former senior Trump White House official and Republican operative Alex Pfeiffer previously told NR, “The president drew a line, and people crossed it. He’s going to enforce that line.”
The president did so with help from GOP groups — including Turning Point Action, the Club for Growth, and spending groups affiliated with the state’s junior U.S. Senator Jim Banks and Governor Mike Braun — that have poured millions of dollars into efforts to oust as many anti-redistricting state legislators as possible through attack ads, primary challengers, and grassroots get-out-the-vote efforts, as NR previously reported.
Spending against anti-redistricting Republicans in this case is “money well spent,” Pfeiffer added. “If you vote against the president to help Democrats retain power, you should get punished.”
A back-and-forth between the parties began when Texas advanced a map favoring Republicans last year. Both parties are looking to gain an edge in the November midterms to keep or gain control of the closely divided House.
Eight states have approved new maps, including Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, Ohio, Utah, California, Florida, and Virginia.
However, in Maryland, Democratic state lawmakers also declined to approve a new map that would have effectively eliminated Republicans’ only congressional seat.
Trump, for his part, has also vowed retribution in a number of other elections in the weeks to come, including the May 16 Republican primary in Louisiana, where Trump hopes to oust Senator Bill Cassidy, and the May 19 primary in Kentucky, where Trump is looking to defeat Representative Thomas Massie.