The Indiana Senate on Thursday saw 21 of the state’s 40 Republican senators join with 10 Democrats to shellack a redistricting proposal that would have gerrymandered two additional GOP U.S. House seats in the midterm elections.
A landslide!
The vote rebuked the demands from the White House, and stood up to threats from allies that included primary oppositions, swatting, and other forms of violence.
Womp-womp.
The Heritage Foundation posted a reminder on Thursday that if Republicans didn’t play along, Indiana would be punished by Trump who would strip funding.
For many Indiana Senators, it was the pressure campaign and threats that caused them to rebuke Trump’s redistricting demands. Total failure, complete backfire.
Sen. Mike Bohacek has a daughter with Down syndrome. He was offended by Trump’s use of a slur for people with disabilities, saying that Trump’s “choices of words have consequences.”
Sen. Jean Leising spoke of her 8th grade grandson’s friends all receiving automated texts about her “that were all bad” regarding redistricting. She was angry. She wanted Trump to change his tone. “You wouldn’t change minds by being mean. And the efforts were mean-spirited from the get-go,” she said. “If you were wanting to change votes, you would probably try to explain why we should be doing this, in a positive way. That never happened, so, you know, I think they get what they get.”
Sen. Sue Glick echoed Leising’s comments, saying, “Hoosiers are a hardy lot, and they don’t like to be threatened. They don’t like to be intimidated. They don’t like to be bullied in any fashion. And I think a lot of them responded with, ‘That isn’t going to work,’” Glick said. “And it didn’t.”
Sen. Greg Walker, who represents Mike Pence’s hometown of Columbus, said he was among those targeted with swatting attempts. Walker said he felt voting yes would reward wrongdoing and set a dangerous precedent.
Sen. Greg Goode, whose town hall in Terre Haute this fall revealed massive public opposition to mid-decade redistricting, said the new maps would splinter communities with similar interests. He also criticized over-the-top pressure from inside and outside the Statehouse, along with threats and acts of violence.
The MAGA Reaction
Steve Bannon: “We have a huge problem…If we don’t get a net 10 pickup in the redistricting wars, it’s going to be enormously hard, if not impossible, to hold the House.”
Chris LaCivita, Trump’s 2024 campaign manager: “You have a state full of MAGA Republicans run by Republican MAGA haters…If you don’t defend a political movement from those that stand in the way — then it’s not a movement at all — a handful of politicians in Indiana will now know what standing in the way really means.”
Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk’s group: TPUSA has vowed to worked with pro-Trump PACS to spend tens of millions of dollars to primary the opposers, but the group could only turn out a couple hundred protestors recently ahead of the vote.