redistricting

Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels — who faced personal attacks from President Donald Trump for opposing a mid-year gerrymander giving Trump two more Republican districts — ended the week celebrating Trump’s defeat in Indiana.

“My state’s Senate, not often the subject of national attention, earned some on Thursday by declining to enroll Indiana in the bipartisan national embarrassment of mid-decade gerrymandering,” Daniels told the Washington Post, adding that Trump-friendly Republican senators appeared to wage “an instinctual rebellion against being ordered around, especially by outsiders.”

“There has been no shortage of that, ranging from a White House-led arm-twisting campaign, including Oval Office wooing and social media name-calling by the president himself, to apocalyptic ads predicting national disaster if Indiana failed to steal one or two congressional seats for Republicans. Then came the now-common promises to launch and lavishly fund primary campaigns against any dissidents,” Daniels said.

The pressure also included so-called swatting of legislators’ homes, calling down police with bogus anonymous tips — and reports of death threats.

“This whole drama flowed from the confluence of two of the most unhealthy trends in today’s politics: The spread of one-party dominance at the state level, and the nationalization of everything,” said Daniels. “Indiana is one of the three-fourths of American states where one party controls the governorship and both legislative houses, and one of the near-half with supermajority control. Politicians accustomed to doing whatever they want in the absence of real competition often overreach.”

But had gerrymandering proponents succeeded, Daniels argues Trump might not have gotten what they wanted. Gerrymandering, he said, can be risky if voters are dead-set against a party.

“It’s not improbable that Republican majorities weakened to send voters into the two target districts, coupled with voter revulsion at the whole process, could have produced a result no better than the status quo,” Daniels said.

A fundamental reality, said Daniels, is that political or legislative majorities “must be earned, not engineered.”

“Many of my state’s senators stood firm for that principle this week, and through this small declaration of independence strengthened the case that their particular majority is one they deserve, and deserve to keep,” Daniels said.

Read Daniels' Washington Post column at this link.

In the United States' 2024 presidential election, Indiana was an even better state for Donald Trump than Texas. Trump defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by around 13.5 percent in Texas, but he carried Indiana by roughly 19 percent.

Given how much of a red state it is, Trump zeroed in on Indiana for an aggressive gerrymandering push. But MS NOW's Steve Benen, in his December 12 column, argues that Trump's Indiana "power grab" turned out to be a "humiliating failure" rather than the slam dunk he was expecting.

"When Donald Trump looked at the Republican advantage in Indiana's state legislature," Benen explains, "the president probably felt a degree of optimism about his mid-decade redistricting scheme. After all, in the 50-member state Senate, there are only 10 Democrats. Success surely seemed inevitable. Over the summer, as the partisan gambit faced some resistance, Trump started pulling out the stops. GOP legislators were welcomed to the White House. He deployed Vice President JD Vance to Indiana to give Republicans the hard sell, in person, twice."

Benen adds, "The president made repeated phone calls to specific legislators, hoping to persuade them to do his bidding. He published a seemingly endless stream of electoral threats and vituperative rants directed at GOP holdouts to his social media platform…. And yet, despite all of this, Trump's power grab flopped."

The MS NOW columnist and "Rachel Maddow Show" producer notes that Trump's "arm twisting" for his "gerrymandering plan mustered just 19 votes." And a "majority of the Republicans" in the Indiana State Senate voted "with the Democratic minority against it."

"It was one of the most brutal and humiliating failures of the president's second term," Benen observes. "Except, to hear Trump tell it, this fiasco wasn't that big of a deal. 'I wasn't working on it very hard,' the president said. 'I wasn't very much involved.' I wrote a book about Republicans trying to rewrite recent history, so I'm rather accustomed to this style of gaslighting. But even I couldn't help but laugh out loud watching Trump pretend he hadn't invested months of time, effort and resources into this debacle."

Steve Benen's full MS NOW column is available at this link.

President Donald Trump’s efforts to compel Indiana lawmakers to enact a mid-decade congressional map that could have wiped out all of the Hoosier State’s Democratic seats in the U.S. House of Representatives has failed.

“Republicans hold a 40-10 advantage in the state Senate but still rejected Trump’s pressure,” The Washington Post reported. HuffPost called it a “a furious pressure campaign by Trump.”

“Indiana’s proposed congressional map goes down in flames in the state Senate, 31-19,” Votebeat managing editor Nathaniel Rakich observed. 26 votes were needed for the new maps to have been adopted.

Politico reported that the “failed vote is the culmination of a brass-knuckled four-month pressure campaign from the White House on recalcitrant Indiana Republicans that included private meetings and public shaming from Trump, multiple visits from Vice President JD Vance, whip calls from Speaker Mike Johnson and veiled threats of withheld federal funds.

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“Not even close to being close,” noted Bloomberg Government’s Jonathan Tamari. “I certainly did not predict the Indiana state Senate as a hotbed of Trump resistance.”

“Trump’s such a lame duck that he is getting his a– kicked by the Indiana State Senate,” remarked former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer.

Journalist Todd Zwillich called it a “Wholesale rejection” of a “threat” from the conservative Heritage Action.

Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), noted that Trump “didn’t just lose that vote, he got blown out.”

“Lesson for national Republicans,” wrote Jessica Riedel of the Brookings Institution. “You don’t have to sell out every principle and publicly worship Trump. Really, you can just do things. And you should ask why it took some state legislators in Indiana to finally stand up for common sense governance.”

“You do, unironically and in earnest, have to hand it to the Indiana GOP for not giving in to the threats on their lives etc.,” declared Everytown Senior Director of Communications Max Steele. “Trump is a duck getting lamer by the day. Hopefully this emboldens others to do what’s right.”

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Republican state senators in Indiana have declined to pass a heavily gerrymandered redistricting map despite consistent pressure from President Donald Trump and top Republicans.

Hoosier State senators rejected the new maps on a vote of 19 in favor and 31 opposed on Thursday, with Republicans failing to get the 26 votes necessary to send the mid-decade redistricting plan to Gov. Mike Braun's (R) desk. The result is particularly noteworthy given that Republicans control 40 of 50 seats in the Indiana Senate, and that Republicans have been attempting to get the new maps signed into law since October. Sen. Mike Gaskill (R), who is the key sponsor of the maps, said "the second U.S. Civil War has already started" in his closing remarks.

"Big defeat for President Trump with 21 Republicans voting no," New York Sun correspondent Matt Rice wrote.

It remains unclear whether Trump will try again to push for the proposed new maps, which would change Indiana's U.S. House of Representatives delegation from a 7-2 Republican advantage to a 9-0 unanimous Republican map. Indiana's House of Representatives previously approved of the new maps by a 57-41 margin.

One of the senators who voted no was Michael Bohacek, who said in late November that he would not grant Trump's wishes for new maps in the Hoosier State due to Trump using a slur against developmentally disabled people to describe one of his political opponents. Bohacek mentioned in his announcement that he made the decision out of respect for his daughter, who has Down Syndrome.

Trump has pledged to fund primary challenges against every Hoosier State Republican senator who voted against the new district boundaries. Turning Point Action (the organizing arm of slain MAGA activist Charlie Kirk's group) promised to spend $10 million on Republican primary campaigns against senators who bucked Trump on redistricting.

Indiana Senate president pro tempore Rodric Bray has become a key target of Trump's ire, after saying in November that there were not enough Republican supporters to get the new GOP-friendly district maps across the finish line. The president assailed Bray in a post to his Truth Social platform on Wednesday night, accusing him of teaming up with "Radical Left Democrats" to vote down the new maps.

"One of my favorite States, Indiana, will be the only State in the Union to turn the Republican Party down!" Trump wrote.

Heritage Action and President Donald Trump are coming under fire after the conservative advocacy organization made a claim that the president threatened to defund the state of Indiana should lawmakers not pass legislation to redraw its congressional district maps.

“President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders: if the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state,” Heritage Action wrote on social media on Thursday. “Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to blame.”

The post ended with, “#PassTheMap.”

While President Trump has publicly threatened to support primary challengers against lawmakers who oppose his redistricting push, NCRM has not found any news reports confirming Heritage Action’s assertion. It is possible the group is relying on information that has not been reported or made public.

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Should Indiana pass legislation to redistrict, it reportedly could pick up only two more GOP-held seats.

Critics blasted Heritage Action, a sister group to the Heritage Foundation, for appearing to support Trump’s alleged threat, and blasted the president as well.

“The president and one of the most influential conservative groups in the country are threatening to deprive all Indiana residents of paved roads, guard bases, and major projects if they don’t pass an extremely gerrymandered map to deprive voters of choice,” noted Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle News. “Awesome stuff.”

“Heritage sure loves authoritarianism,” remarked Media Matters researcher Zachary Pleat.

Calling it “nonsense,” Joel Griffith, a senior fellow at the conservative group Advancing American Freedom wrote: “Appalling to see @Heritage_Action endorse this unconstitutional threat by @realDonaldTrump. The President does not have power to coerce state legislators to redraw congressional maps.”

Others appeared to aim their ire directly at the president.

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“This is the behavior of a madman,” declared Tim Carney, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

“This isn’t conservative. This is fascist,” commented former Republican U.S. Congressman Joe Walsh.

Mother Jones’ D.C. bureau chief David Corn declared the move “dictatorial.”

“This does not sound like an appropriate or legal use of federal authority or presidential discretion,” observed Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias.

“Nothing about this shakedown is conservative,” noted CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Jacob Stewart, the deputy opinion editor for the IndyStar called the move “illegal.”

Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the conservative online magazine The Dispatch, wrote: “I remember when Heritage cared about federalism, the rule of law, separation of powers, and all that stuff. Now it’s all ‘We love Trump’s musk, do what he says (or what Tucker says).'”

“This is called extortion,” wrote former White House correspondent Sam Youngman, also deeming it “illegal.”

“If this comes to pass,” wrote IndyStar columnist James Briggs, “then the story will be that Trump is punishing Indiana citizens for reasons that have nothing to do with them and so-called Indianans will see the punitive measures for what they are.”

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President Donald Trump's attempt to redraw U.S. House districts in a deep-red state just hit another roadblock, after one Republican state senator announced that Trump's use of a slur cost him his vote on the plan.

Politico reporter Adam Wren tweeted Friday that Indiana state senator Michael Bohacek (R) announced he would not be supporting Trump's mid-decade redistricting plan in the Hoosier State after he called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) "seriously retarded." The Republican lawmaker made the announcement on his official Facebook page, and said that as a parent of a child with Down Syndrome, he couldn't endorse Trump's plan due to his use of the word (which the Special Olympics considers a slur).

"I have been an unapologetic advocate for people with intellectual disabilities since the birth of my second daughter. Those of you that don’t know me or my family might not know that my daughter has Down Syndrome," Bohacek wrote. "This is not the first time our president has used these insulting and derogatory references and his choices 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."

One of the senator's constituents commented on his post, writing: "No disrespect, I see where you’re coming from but it takes a semi personal attack on your family to make you stand up for what’s right? This feels more like it’s about your ego than doing the right thing."

"[N]o this is just the final straw," Bohacek responded.

Trump's call to redraw Indiana's maps to be more favorable to Republicans has consistently run aground, even with Republicans controlling 40 of 50 seats in the Indiana senate. Rodric Bray (R), who is president pro tempore of the Indiana Senate, said earlier this month that he didn't have the votes to get the new GOP-friendly maps across the finish line. This prompted Trump to attack Bray and pledge to endorse primary challengers against all Indiana Republicans who opposed his new maps.

The president's push to make U.S. House district maps more favorable to his party began in Texas, where Republicans have redrawn maps to give themselves an advantage in five previously Democratic districts. This led to California redrawing maps to be more favorable to Democrats in five districts across the Golden State, which voters approved earlier this month by overwhelmingly passing Prop 50.