President Trump’s campaign to punish Indiana Republicans who opposed his preferred congressional map largely succeeded in Tuesday’s primary elections. Five state senators who voted against last year’s redistricting plan were defeated by Trump-endorsed challengers, The Associated Press projected. A sixth Trump-backed candidate won a GOP primary in an open seat where an opponent of the map did not run. One incumbent survived a Trump-backed challenge, and another race remained too close to call late Tuesday.
The contests were an unusual test of Trump’s reach into low-profile state legislative races and underscored his drive to influence congressional maps across the country. In Indiana, Gov. Mike Braun had endorsed a map designed to favor Republicans in all nine U.S. House districts. The plan cleared the state House but stalled in the state Senate after 21 Republicans — including Senate President Rodric Bray — voted against it despite the GOP supermajority.
Senators who opposed the proposal said their objections were both ethical and practical: they warned the plan would set a harmful precedent and cautioned that it might not deliver nine Republican seats in a potentially difficult election year. Ball State University professor Chad Kinsella said voters in Indiana are generally averse to gerrymandering and lawmakers were mindful of constituent reaction. Bray described the caucus as “fairly evenly split” and said the proposal “wasn’t the right way for Indiana to move forward.”
After the vote, Trump publicly singled out the defecting senators on his social media platform, calling them “pathetic,” “incompetent” and RINOs, and promising consequences. He made endorsements in eight contested state Senate races tied to the dispute, declined to weigh in on one seat where the incumbent supported the map, and also backed 11 incumbents who had voted for the plan.
Allied outside groups and out-of-state donors funneled significant resources into the primaries; Bray estimated roughly $9 million originated outside Indiana. Ad tracking firm AdImpact recorded about $13.5 million in ad spending on these state Senate primaries this cycle, compared with roughly $300,000 in the 2024 cycle.
Some senators who opposed the map reported online doxxing and harassment in the run-up to the vote. Trump named Bray in a January message that warned, “We’re after you Bray, like no one has ever come after you before!” Bray, who is not up for reelection until 2028 because of staggered terms, said after the primaries he had “no regrets” and insisted Indiana would chart its own course.
Indiana Republicans aligned with Trump hailed the results. Gov. Braun called the night “historic for Indiana,” and U.S. Sen. Jim Banks said he was proud to have helped elect more conservative state senators.
One notable defeat came in the loss of longtime Senate Republican Travis Holdman, the majority caucus chair, who was unseated by Trump-endorsed challenger Blake Fiechter. Fiechter thanked Holdman for 18 years of service and said he was ready to “turn the page” and represent the district. Holdman, who defended his vote against the map, said he was not bitter and noted that “revenge and retribution is not a Christian value.”