U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as he meets South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 21, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
President Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the GOP doesn’t appear to extend to Indiana, if Thursday’s events are any indication, writes CNN’s Aaron Black in a Friday column.
That evening, the Indiana Senate, where Republicans hold a dominant majority, rejected Trump’s push to force a mid-decade redrawing of the state’s congressional map that would have eliminated its two Democratic-held seats.
Trump seems to recognize the looming danger of the 2026 midterm elections for Republicans. Rather than promoting policies that appeal to most voters, he has leaned on GOP-led states to engineer maps that disenfranchise Democratic voters. However, Indiana Republicans refused to go along with the plan, despite an intense pressure campaign and threats of primary challenges from Trump allies.
Blake wrote that Trump “chose very wrongly” and that his effort to reassert his “dominance over his party” backfired.
"In the end, the situation in Indiana demonstrated quite the opposite of what Trump intended. Indeed, the state Senate’s rejection of his redistricting push wound up being one of the most significant GOP rebukes of Trump to date, and at a particularly inauspicious time for him," Blake said.
The good part, Blake wrote, is that Trump's hold over the GOP "appears weaker than at virtually any other point in his two presidencies. Not weak, period, but weaker."
Blake said it wasn’t just that Trump lost; the vote “didn’t wind up even being close.” Indeed, the measure failed 31–19. Trump couldn’t even win over a majority of Republican senators, with 21 GOP members voting against him.
This came despite an all-out effort: the vice president made two trips to Indiana, Trump’s son visited, and House Speaker Mike Johnson weighed in, but none of it moved enough votes.
"Perhaps most significantly, all this pressure manifested itself in a very ugly series of threats – threats that touched around one-fourth of state Senate Republicans, that we know of. (Law enforcement officials have not linked the threats to any group or campaign)," Blake added.
The vote ended with Republican state Sen. Michael Young, who supported the redistricting measure, saying he expects most of his colleagues would no longer be in office in the future.
“And that takes courage to give up your seat," he said.
"And for Trump, it’s merely the latest signal that his grip on his party is softening," Blake closed.