President Donald Trump lashed out at an Indiana lawmaker after the state’s Republican-controlled legislature defied pressure from the White House to redraw the state’s congressional districts.
The White House has been pushing Indiana legislators since August to redraw their political maps to favor Republicans in all nine congressional districts, with the goal of helping the GOP pick up two additional House seats in next year’s midterm elections.
But Indiana Senate President pro tempore Rodric Bray announced on Friday that the state Senate wouldn’t convene next month to take up the plan because it lacked sufficient support to pass.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was working with Indiana Gov. Mike Braun to get the maps redrawn, and blamed Bray for the impasse.
“A RINO State Senator, Rodric Bray, who doesn’t care about keeping the Majority in the House in D.C., is the primary problem,” Trump raged. “Soon, he will have a Primary Problem, as will any other politician who supports him in this stupidity.”
Trump and his MAGA movement have long used RINO, or “Republican In Name Only,” as a slur to target old-school conservatives. Bray is not up for re-election until 2028.
In a statement, Bray said he and his caucus wanted to see a Republican-led House in 2026, but that he and other members did not think a mid-cycle redistrict was the best way to achieve that goal.
“We would rather support efforts to elect a Republican in the existing 1st Congressional District, which has been trending Republican for the last several years and would give President Trump another Republican in Congress,” the statement said.
Bray said he had spoken to Trump to express his support and explain why he thought pursuing Congressional District 1 was the best strategy.
Earlier this week Trump had accused Braun of “not working the way he should to get the necessary Votes.”
Braun called a special session in October to redraw the state maps like Trump asked, and Vice President JD Vance has flown repeatedly to Indiana, which Trump won by 36 points in 2024, to lobby Republican lawmakers.
Eight Indiana state Senate Republicans have nevertheless publicly refused to back the plan.
“The Governor, a good man, must produce on this, or he will be the only Governor, Republican or Democrat, who didn’t,” Trump warned on Tuesday.
So far, Indiana is the only Republican-led state that has refused to join a national redistricting war that Trump started in July, when he called for “just a simple redrawing” of Texas’ already heavily gerrymandered political maps to help the GOP gain five more House seats in 2026.
Earlier this month, California voters approved Prop 50, a measure led by Gov. Gavin Newsom that allows the state to redraw its congressional maps in a bid to offset the five Democratic seats now at risk in Texas.
Republican lawmakers in Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina are also trying to redraw their maps, while Democrats are eyeing Illinois, New York, and Maryland as places they could potentially try to make districting gains.
