Greg Walker was ready to give up the Indiana Senate seat he’s held for two decades. Then came the congressional redistricting fight ordered up by President Donald Trump.
The Columbus senator became an early and outspoken Republican opponent of redrawing Indiana’s U.S. House district maps and jumped back into a new reelection campaign.
Walker is facing three-term state Rep. Michelle Davis in the May 5 GOP primary. Davis launched her campaign following Walker’s retirement decision last year and didn’t look back despite his reversal on seeking reelection.
Davis voted in favor of the redistricting bill last year, helping her gain Trump’s endorsement and at least several hundred thousand dollars of campaign advertising from pro-redistricting political groups.
The Republican primary winner will advance to November’s general election against Democrat Ross Thomas, who is unopposed in the primary. The winner will get a four-year term representing Senate District 41, which includes all of Bartholomew County and much of Johnson County in central Indiana.
Lawmakers receive a base salary of $33,000 annually but with per diem and leadership pay it can rise to $80,000 or more.
Davis trying run to the right against Walker
Walker, 62, built a reelection campaign from essentially scratch following his January decision to seek a fifth term having raised no campaign money at all during 2025.
He said his wife’s 2023 death had him reevaluating what to do, but that the primary fight has rejuvenated him.
“It’s been a blessing to me, because it’s awakened me to the spirit of service that I once had and I lost due to my grief,” Walker told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “I’m back. I feel fantastic these days.”
The Republican campaign would have seen Davis touting herself as the more conservative candidate even without the redistricting fight that ignited the wave of anti-Walker advertising in mailers and television and online commercials.
Walker has at times broken from other Republican senators on some prominent issues in recent years, such as voting against the 2022 bill that revoked Indiana’s handgun permit requirement and last year’s bill allowing partisan school board elections.
He also voted against a 2022 bill sponsored by Davis that banned transgender youths from competing in girls school sports.
Davis voted in favor of all those bills and said “key differences” in their voting records would be a campaign issue.
“We’re opposite a lot on some voting issues that are core Republican values,” she told the Capital Chronicle in January. “I will always vote for morals and for what the Hoosier families believe in.”
Walker defends his conservative credentials by pointing to his votes supporting the state’s near-total abortion ban and a prohibition on puberty blockers and surgeries for transgender minors.
“I know that my constituents are a lot smarter than some people give them credit for being, because they’re seeing through the distortions and they know me,” Walker said.
Davis’ campaign last week canceled a scheduled interview for this story and did not provide a new time despite repeated requests.
Both stand firm on redistricting stances
Davis, a Whiteland resident who is director of adult education at the Central Nine Career Center in Greenwood was first elected to the Indiana House in 2020.
She was among multiple Republicans to start campaigns last year to replace Walker in the Senate, but she was the only challenger who actually filed for the race after Walker jumped back in.
Davis is among seven primary candidates endorsed by Trump and Gov. Mike Braun who are looking to defeat current Republican senators who opposed the redistricting bill.
She is the only one of those challengers who has served in the Legislature — allowing her to vote in favor of the proposed new maps that sought a 9-0 GOP Indiana congressional delegation by carving up the two districts now held by Democrats.
That plan cleared the House before it was defeated in a 31-19 Senate vote.
Davis told the Daily Journal of Franklin this spring that “the Senate should have stepped up and done the right thing for Hoosiers.”
“The majority of the people in Indiana are conservative people, conservative Republicans,” Davis said. “I feel like, again, anytime that as a conservative Republican, we can remove a Democrat from an office and put a conservative person in there, I definitely think we should do it.”
Walker said the vast majority of voters he heard from before the redistricting vote were opposed to redrawing the congressional maps.
“They get it that Indiana didn’t need any help with our elections, because we could do it,” Walker said. “We can draw maps, and the Constitution says it’s our purview. It’s not that of the federal government. That was total government overreach and people get it. We need state sovereignty. That’s how we protect elections.”
Heavy outside spending against incumbent
Walker has represented most of the district’s population in the Legislature following his 2006 Republican primary upset of Senate President Pro Tem Robert Garton, who was the chamber’s leader for 26 years.
Davis, meanwhile, is trying to make the Senate jump from representing a House district in northern Johnson County that only shares the Whiteland area with the Senate district.
Walker’s home territory of Bartholomew County also accounted for about 62% of the votes cast in both the Republican primary and general elections for the Senate seat when it was last on the ballot in 2022.
Davis has benefited from advertisements promoting her candidacy from pro-redistricting political groups, including a dark-money group aligned with Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Banks and national organizations such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity.
Davis’ campaign has reported raising $115,000 for the Senate race, according to state campaign report filings.
Walker has countered by raising more than $350,000, with about two-thirds of that coming from the state Senate Republican campaign organization and fellow senators.
Walker said he’s been flabbergasted by the spending by national groups that has led to his daughter living about 100 miles away in Lafayette seeing TV ads against him.
When asked how much money had been spent against him, Walker said he could only guess it was approaching $1 million.
“I don’t know that anyone knows,” he said. “I would guess that almost none of that money, probably zero, was raised in District 41, or even Indiana, as far as that goes.”
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.
