Indiana Senate Says It Won’t Vote on Redistricting That Trump Sought

The pushback from Senate Republicans follows the governor’s call for a special session to consider a new congressional map that President Trump wanted.

The Indiana Senate will not meet next month to vote on the redrawn congressional map that President Trump sought, a top Republican in the chamber said on Friday. The decision is likely to leave in place two Democratic-leaning congressional districts in Indiana for next year’s midterm elections.

The announcement in Indiana is the second time in two weeks that a Republican-led legislature bucked the president’s agenda on redistricting. Kansas Republicans announced last week that they did not have enough support to meet in a special session and vote on a new map.

“Over the last several months, Senate Republicans have given very serious and thoughtful consideration to the concept of redrawing our state’s congressional maps,” Rodric Bray, the president pro tem of the Indiana Senate, said in a statement. “Today, I’m announcing there are not enough votes to move that idea forward, and the Senate will not reconvene in December.”

His decision brought immediate criticism from Mr. Trump’s allies and from Indiana’s Republican governor, Mike Braun, who called a special session last month to consider redistricting. That session was supposed to start in early November, but lawmakers did not immediately return to Indianapolis and indicated that they would gather in December instead.

“Our state senators need to do the right thing and show up to vote for fair maps,” Mr. Braun said in a statement on Friday. “Hoosiers deserve to know where their elected officials stand on important issues.”

The governor argued that a new map in Indiana was needed to counter gerrymandering by Democrats in other states. White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Redistricting, which usually happens once a decade after the census, began to sweep across the country this summer after Texas Republicans passed a new map at Mr. Trump’s urging. California Democrats responded with a new map of their own, which voters approved this month. Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina forged ahead, too.

But some lawmakers in both parties have become skeptical about redrawing district boundaries outside the usual schedule. Maryland Democrats are divided over the issue, and the Republicans in Kansas and Indiana who pushed back against redistricting expressed both practical and philosophical concerns.

Republicans in Florida also appear to be split: The speaker of the House told Politico that “we’re not there yet” on redistricting, but Gov. Ron DeSantis chimed in on social media with a cryptic message saying, “Stay Tuned.”

The remapping project remains alive in other states, including Virginia, where Democrats may advance a map that would allow them to pick up as many as three more congressional seats when they reconvene in January.

But time is starting to run short, with filing deadlines for primary elections fast approaching in many states.

The White House spent considerable political effort pushing a new Indiana map, with Vice President JD Vance visiting the state twice to pitch lawmakers on the idea and Mr. Trump speaking to legislators on conference calls. A new map could position Republicans to sweep the state’s nine U.S. House races by unseating Representative André Carson in Indianapolis and Representative Frank Mrvan in the state’s northwestern corner. Mr. Trump carried Indiana in the 2024 presidential election by 19 percentage points.

Some legislative Republicans expressed immediate distaste for redistricting this summer. But with a Republican governor and supermajorities in both chambers, it was unclear whether that would be enough to block new boundaries from passing.

Opponents of the effort kept up pressure on lawmakers. When one Republican senator, who said he was undecided on redistricting, held a listening session in his district this month, none of the more than 60 people who spoke expressed support for a new map.

Many Democrats had feared for months that a new map was likely. On Friday, they celebrated the news that the Senate did not have the votes.

“Just because our legislature is a supermajority, it does not mean every outcome is predetermined,” State Senator Andrea Hunley, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Though the odds are often stacked against us, good is always worth fighting for, and we must continue that work.”

The political pressure on Indiana Republicans could still intensify as they prepare for their regular session in January. The same goes for Kansas, where legislative leaders indicated that they would try again to pass a map in January.

In Indiana, allies of Mr. Trump, including Chris LaCivita, his former campaign manager, created an outside group called Fair Maps Indiana in support of redrawing the map. On Friday, following Mr. Bray’s announcement, Mr. LaCivita posted a barbed message on social media. “BREAKING: Sen Rodric Bray announces retirement,” he wrote.

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