Trump congratulates Indiana House for redrawing congressional boundaries, pressures Senate to do same

President Donald Trump complimented the Indiana House over the weekend for passing a new congressional map aimed at flipping the state’s two Democratic seats for Republicans.

Lawmakers in the House have spent the past week debating the new map, which dilutes Democratic voters to give Republicans a political advantage. After a week of debate, lawmakers finally passed the map on Friday on a 57-41 vote, with 12 Republicans voting against.

The passage of the map came after months of pressure from the Trump administration to redraw boundaries ahead of next year’s midterm election. Indiana Senators had initially rejected calls to come in at all.

In his post, Trump congratulated the “GREAT” House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) and bill sponsor Ben Smaltz (R-Auburn) for passing their “new, much fairer, and improved, Congressional Map.”

Trump also called on the Indiana Senate to quickly pass the map “AS IS” to deliver “a gigantic Victory for Republicans in the 'Hoosier State’, and across the country.”

Trump’s effort, aimed at holding the narrow Republican control of the U.S. House, prompted Texas lawmakers to draw a new map that could help the party win five seats there. Republicans in North Carolina and Missouri followed with a seat in each state. Democrats countered by redistricting aimed at winning five seats in California. And Democrats in Virginia are looking to redistrict there.

But the Indiana Senate has been more divided on the issue of redistricting, with many Republicans coming out against the map. Some have worried that normalized gerrymandering would be bad for the country, while others have supported running good candidates in the state’s Democratic-leaning districts.

In his social media post, Trump also directly called out lawmakers who may “need encouragement to make the right decision,” underlining that many of them were up for reelection in 2026 and 2028.

Trump has previously threatened primary challenges against lawmakers who do not support the new map, even calling out some Senators by name.

Trump did so again in his latest post, naming Sen. Dan Dernulc (R-Highland), Sen. Greg Goode (R-Terre Haute) and Sen. Rick Niemeyer (R-Lowell). All three were victims of swatting incidents last month.

Goode was the first Indiana lawmaker to become the victim of a swatting attempt, just hours after he was the subject of a Truth Social post from Trump.

Since then, many lawmakers say they and their families have faced anonymous threats, including bomb threats, although the motives behind those incidents aren't confirmed.

The Senate is scheduled to come in on Monday to discuss the new map.

Contact WFYI health reporter Benjamin Thorp at bthorp@wfyi.org.
Contact WFYI digital producer and reporter Zach Bundy at zbundy@wfyi.org.