What’s happening with redistricting and what it might mean
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in the November 14, 2025 issue of Indiana Legislative Insight.
As we head to press with this issue Friday, Senate Republicans were reportedly preparing to caucus and take what would be their first in-person tally of where members stand on voting on new congressional maps (with the caveat that there is still no formal “official” map (or maps) to be reviewed . . . or even a decision as to whether to eviscerate one or both districts currently held by Democrats.
The “vote” comes amidst an environment in which there is surprising salience among constituents and intense public and private pressure from the White House and pro-Republican party and interest groups.
What has been fascinating to watch is that the issue on which some lawmakers – and at least one legislative leader – might be staking their respective political careers isn’t one that they sought out, nor one that was of any concern to any Hoosiers (including party leaders), until it was literally foisted upon them by the White House at the end of summer. This is also an entirely political and partisan issue, and not one that lawmakers would typically look to tackle, much less be summoned to Indianapolis for a special session with this as the only effective agenda item (the tax conformance issue was such an afterthought that legislation wasn’t even drafted as of last week – and maybe not yet, and could certainly wait until January, as it has in the past).
Nevertheless, this is potentially career-changing for many, and while Democrats are completely united against mid-decade redistricting, the issue has divided Republicans, and even placed Governor Mike Braun (R) in an uncomfortable position, unenthusiastically doing the White House’s bidding seemingly only to protect the State of Indiana from the whim of presidential wrath while recognizing that he’s in a no-win situation of his own Back Home, already taking arrows from Republicans who thought he should have stood up to the Trump Administration as well as lawmakers who simply don’t want to be forced into making a distasteful vote that would have been unimaginable to envision just six months ago.
Yet we’re here, and while there is still the prospect that the inability to wrangle 26 Republican votes in the Senate could simply mean that leaders gavel in in early December and immediately adjourn, allowing new maps to die and allowing the regular session to begin as scheduled in early January and not be constrained by burning eight or 10 session days up front as a means to avoid the bad optics of six-figure special session expenses (and who doesn’t want a late February or early March regular session sine die?!).
Yes, if you weren’t here for the 1988 50-50 session fun or the early property tax reform hearings and global fiscal crisis machinations during the Daniels days agenda, this is an unusual amount of drama preceding Organization Day, particularly in a non-election year.
Pressure
Let’s take a quick look at the recent pressure lawmakers have been facing.
Some senators who have (or had) not committed to new maps were the subject of intense efforts from the White House political team, with lots of calls as October was winding down an explicit promises that the White House, national GOP, and friendly interest groups and political action committees would actively fund and support a primary challenger who would have the full-throated endorsement of the White House. That was particularly sobering.
This week, activity kicked up in the form of phone banking, digital and text ads, television spots, and targeted direct mail that is largely focused on just about a dozen GOP senators. That’s a lot of money, time, and attention for so few votes – especially when those being targeted are known.
Marty Obst’s White House-affiliated Fair Maps Indiana 501(c)(4) entity is planning to spend well into the six-figures asking Hoosiers to “Stand with President Trump” in the battle against “the left’s plan to flip the House.” Ironically, one of the top officers in Obst’s MO Strategies day job is Sen. Kyle Walker (R), who has not yet publicly committed on the maps, and whose Geist-area district is one of those purple ones with educated and engaged voters who are not likely predisposed to the mid-cycle remap.
Also a major player: Club for Growth, run by former Rep. David McIntosh (R). As a congressman, he represented a fairly compact and contiguous district focused on the old-line industrial counties that constituted a true community of interest (Delaware County, Henry County, Madison County, and Wayne County) that became a much more sprawling latitudinal district less easy to characterize after he left to run for governor in 2000. When McIntosh returned to run for an open House seat in 2012, it was in a district centered on Hamilton County and northern Marion County, and also including Madison County, which had been split from the other former auto belt counties.
Club for Growth began running a significant flight of television spots across broadcast networks and Fox News in Indianapolis this week for what at least initially, is just a one week buy. “Our message is, to the Republicans, man up and get in the game,” says CFG’s McIntosh, a California native who grew up in Kendallville.
CFG is airing a pair of television spots and has also engaged in phone campaigns urging constituents to contact their representatives to support redistricting efforts. One spot urges Indiana legislators to stand with President Trump and redraw the state’s congressional map, while the other calls for lawmakers to counteract California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and his redistricting effort in the Golden State, and prevent Democrats from rigging the midterm elections.
CFG had jumped into the fray earlier in the process with digital ads.
Building a Better Economy, a dark money group based in Michigan, is also playing in their backyard, messaging Hoosiers to tell their individual lawmakers to back new maps.
Indiana Conservation Voters has also been running television spots opposing mid-decade redistricting.
At least one lawmaker at mid-week suggested that the pro-map push may have been too pushy. In revealing her decision Wednesday to oppose new maps, Sen. Jean Leising (R) laments that “Washington, D.C.-funded organizations in favor of redistricting are using extremely negative texts, videos and phone calls to try to win support for their cause. Some have even been sent via cell phone to students in my district, including my 14-year-old grandson. These groups do not have the best interest of my rural area or the state of Indiana at heart, and their methods are completely unacceptable. I have never supported negative campaigning,” she adds.
There is zero pressure on lawmakers by the Governor, who perhaps understandably looked lost on the issue in the opening weeks of the discussions, declining to get ahead of (and on) the issue until the White House made it clear that the state would suffer unless he became more aggressive. He understands that he has no personal chits nor political capital to spend on redistricting, having been rolled by lawmakers on property taxes in the spring, and regularly polling in the 25% to 30% “favorable” or “approve” range on credible polls and few who strongly approve, even among Republican voters . . . including some internal GOP polling for members who might be in trouble for their vote on maps. They figure they don’t have to worry about the Governor even if he chooses to get involved because his numbers are so anemic.
While the presidential pressure and paid campaigns have been what most people have noticed, there is important and subtle activity below the surface taking place in each district.
With the decision on maps seeming to be a personal decision that will not result in repercussions at the state political level, many undecided solons are looking Back Home for cues . . . and the district-only crowd that attended the “listening session” in Terre Haute hosted by Sen. Greg Goode (R) may be viewed in retrospect as the pivot point if Sen. Goode votes against new maps and pro-map forces fail to achieve their objective. We’ve heard from lawmakers who (after looking in both directions first!) tacitly acknowledge that they put some serious stock into what respectfully transpired there.
What we’ve been picking up is that most of those constituents in the ears of lawmakers are urging them – earnestly and sincerely – to resist the pressure to redistrict. In at least two overwhelmingly Republican counties, we’ve overheard conversations at GOP party functions between senators (and at least one House member) with Republican constituents and party officials in which they have been universally asked to hold the line against redistricting.
We’ve also listened in as Republican county party chairs have quietly and privately spoken out against new maps, and have lamented to us the thought of having to quickly elect new district-level party leaders in an uncertain environment should new maps be drawn. While most of us are preoccupied by the bigger picture and who might be running for Congress, we lose sight of the fact that new maps would mean change for local party officers as well, and they’re not happy about the jockeying that has already begun without even knowing what district lines might look like if new maps pass.
Indiana Republican Party Chair Lana Keesling – who, as we told you last month, went rogue, effectively issuing a pro-map statement against state committee wishes – continues to be all-in, telling party faithful Wednesday that “Between Democrat manipulation of the last census, years of Democrat map rigging, and their party’s insistence that the millions of illegal aliens their ‘sanctuary’ policies attract be counted for Congressional representation, the fight has been brought to Indiana’s doorstep!”
Keesling frames the battle in the context of supporting the President’s agenda over the next two years. “Thankfully, Governor Braun and our Republican legislators are working hard to push back against this leftist gerrymandering, ensuring Hoosiers don’t lose our voice in D.C. But they can’t do it alone!,” she adds, imploring grassroots Republicans to weigh in for new districts.
The politics of the situation is such that lawmakers who are up for reelection in 2026 (all House members and half of the senators, with just a few Democrats among the latter cadre) may have a different perspective than those who are retiring or senators who will not be facing voters until 2028. And there are some nested districts where a House member may be in a much more purple district than the senator who also represents that district, such as is the case with Rep. Danny Lopez (R) – who opposes redistricting – and Sen. Scott Baldwin (R), whose bigger district is safe, and who has announced he will support new congressional districts.
And there’s something else at play here that works against new maps. GOP lawmakers, local officials, and party leaders tell us that they (and their constituents) are not at all concerned about the Governor’s request to speed up state tax compliance with provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act . . . but what they really want are clarifications of, and procedural tweaks and major changes to, the property tax reform measure passed in April. Property taxes seem to be uppermost on the minds of all classes as the second 2025 installment was due November 10, amidst the federal shutdown (more on that below).
Process
The maps themselves will be far more important to final votes than you might assume today, given how many solons have already committed to voting for the abstract concept without seeing any actual maps, including Sen. Eric Koch (R) this week; he was the 2021 Senate architect of the current map that were so roundly lauded by those in charge of the process four years ago (although Sen. Leising announced her opposition to redistricting on Wednesday, noting that she “would never vote YES on a bill that I did not know the contents of”; Sen. Leising has been through four redistricting processes as a lawmaker and ran for Congress herself).
Indeed, we’re even picking up signals that there remains a significant amount of debate over whether the maps should target both seats currently held by Democrats or spare the Indianapolis district held by U.S. Rep. André Carson (D).
Originally, talk was about an 8-1 map, then D.C. Republicans got greedy and went all in on a 9-0 scheme.
U.S. Sen. Jim Banks (R), a member of the Indiana Senate during the 2011 redistricting process, tells Hoosier Marc Lotter on the Newsmax Wake Up America show Wednesday morning, “Indiana is a very Republican and very pro-Trump state, and we’ve been way too nice all along. I mean, the maps in Indiana should already be a 9-0 map instead of a 7-2 map.” Speaking live from Fort Wayne, he adds that “The votes are there in the state House, and I think they’re getting closer in the Senate, to redraw the lines. And the case for this, I think, is all about the census. The Democrats manipulated the census data when Joe Biden came into office. They used a shady algorithm – or formula – to count and shield illegals in the census and in different states they miscounted. There should already be seven or eight more Republican House seats, but the Democrats stole a lot of those seats with the census data,” Sen. Banks claims.
More recently, however, as some state lawmakers on the fence expressed concern about a 9-0 map, talk grew again about scaling it back to make it more palatable. That coincided with concern among members of the Republican congressional delegation as to what their potential new districts would look like, and how much input they would have . . . but also out of some concern that there was no obvious Republican challenger to U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan (D), regardless of whether the district were pushed down south or stretched to the east.
What started out as a White House ask for the delegation to sign on to a single statement for redistricting quickly disintegrated, and each went his or her own way on social media, although the bottom line was that each favored new maps.
We’ll be watching to see how long that premature approval holds when they find their respective district stretching from Michigan to Kentucky, or from Illinois to Ohio, populated by a retinue of unfamiliar communities (and not traditional communities of interest). In prior cycles, we’ve watched districts being tweaked on the basis of Republicans and Democrats doing deals (such as Baron Hill (D) and Mike Pence (R) agreeing to exchange some counties, and Joe Donnelly (D) and Dan Burton (R) engaged in the same cartography).
Recall as well that we told you some members of the General Assembly may be eyeing congressional bids of their own (note that seven of the nine members of the current congressional delegation either served in the state legislature or had a parent or grandparent who did), and might predicate their votes on what the new district lines look like – or where they think the lines should be drawn.
You also shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that we’re effectively just about six or seven weeks away from the opening of filing for office . . . and local election officials will also have to work through reprecincting and the other issues related to new district lines in advance of a May primary (and county clerks are up for election in this cycle as well).
We’re also hearing from party officials outside Indianapolis adamant about not having Indianapolis in their new district, fearing that (even if the Circle City is carved up into a small slice of four different districts) an Indianapolis candidate and mentality would likely dominate the new district, casting aside the concerns and special needs of smaller, more rural counties and communities.
Another key process issue, as we told you before: just which chamber would initiate the maps. House leaders are not likely to want to force their members on record if the maps would fail in the Senate . . . and there is also a question as to whether the maps could make it through the Senate Committee on Elections and Reapportionment, or, in its stead, the Committee on Rules. The latter is chaired by Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray (R), who has not been willing to force the issue on his members, much less add himself to the must-map column. If the votes aren’t there on the floor, and we find ourselves beyond a simple gavel-in, gavel-out decision, he may use Rules to kill the bill and avoid having to force his members on record.
Lots of moving parts and uncertainty. Listen closely Friday to hear if leader Bray emerges from his caucus and says definitively whether the votes are – or still are not – there. Then brace for the fallout – either way.