A return of the congressional redistricting debate. A potential shakeup of Indiana Senate leadership and a greater willingness to push through a right-wing agenda.

Those are all possible repercussions from the wave of Republican primary victories by President Donald Trump-endorsed candidates over incumbent senators who defied his redistricting demands.

The ouster of six senators with nearly a century of General Assembly experience will usher in a group of new lawmakers whom Gov. Mike Braun and other supporters expect will bolster more aggressive action.

Redistricting rewind on tap

The Senate’s vote in December to defeat the proposed redrawing of the Indiana’s U.S. House districts to further favor GOP candidates was a unique rejection of Trump’s directives by a Republican-led state.

That vote saw 21 Republican senators oppose redistricting and 19 vote in favor. With at least six GOP senators who voted against those maps being defeated in Tuesday’s primary and two others not seeking reelection this year, November election wins could give redistricting supporters the 26 votes they need to start from scratch.

Braun said Wednesday that it was too late for action on redistricting this year.

But redistricting supporters clearly want new maps approved ahead of the 2028 elections — and the approval of a Virginia referendum in support of a Democratic gerrymander in that state might have boosted the Indiana Senate challengers.

Bluffton City Councilman Blake Fiechter, who defeated longtime Sen. Travis Holdman, said the redistricting topic came up frequently while he was talking with voters.

“Seeing what a lot of those Democrat states were doing right there towards the end of the campaign, I think it really amped up, ‘Well, this is why we should have redistricted,’” Fiechter told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “So I felt pretty confident that it was a strong motivator for the voters.”

The redistricting dispute prompted $10 million-plus in campaign spending by national groups to defeat the recalcitrant senators. The Senate Majority Campaign Committee spent upwards of $3 million to try to combat that.

Club for Growth President David McIntosh said the Washington-based organization spent more than $2 million in the pro-redistricting effort that also aimed to weaken support among Republican lawmakers for Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray.

McIntosh, who was an Indiana congressman in the 1990s, said he believed primary voters showed they want legislators who will “be part of the team all the way up to Washington and President Trump.”

“Senator Bray is still the leader of the Senate, and hopefully, he sees the message the voters sent,” McIntosh said in an interview Wednesday. “He and the rest of the senators who were elected can come together and say, ‘OK, let’s get this done. Indiana should redistrict.’ It won’t help in ’26 but it will help in ’28.”

Republican senators on both sides of the redistricting debate said they expect it will return for the 2027 session.

But even Tuesday’s primary results aren’t changing the minds of all the Republican senators who opposed the proposed gerrymander.

“I would expect that many of us that were a ‘no’ before will still be a ‘no,’” said Sen. Jean Leising, R-Oldenburg. “Now, will that be enough ‘no’s’ to kill it again? I can’t imagine any of us that dug our heels in and have been swatted and pipe bombed and everything you can think of — why would we change our mind now?”

Senate leadership question looms

Republican senators, who now hold a 40-10 Senate majority, likely won’t formally decide on their chamber leadership pick until after the November election.

Bray told the Capital Chronicle that he would seek to remain in the president pro tem position that he’s held for the past eight years. He said he anticipates leadership challengers when the selection is made every two years.

“This year will be no different,” Bray said. “Maybe there’s a little different flavor to it, but I would expect that to be the case.”

The governor, meanwhile, renewed his stance wanting a change in Senate leadership and his criticism of the chamber’s priorities.

Braun told reporters at the Statehouse Wednesday that the Senate had been a “roadblock” on some issues and said the primary results give senators “the option of having new leadership.”

Braun went even further Wednesday in an interview with radio station WIBC about the primary results in which he said “I’m calling for leadership change there after this, in terms of Senator Bray.”

“I think with this statement that was so crystal clear, I think that if he doesn’t, it probably will happen within their own caucus,” Braun said of Senate Republicans.

“The Senate has been the place where a lot of good, conservative, entrepreneurial legislation seems to die,” Braun said. “If we’re going to be a state that is going to do things above and beyond the normal, you can’t have, as your default, a wet blanket.”

Senate Majority Floor Leader Chris Garten of Charlestown, the chamber’s No. 2 leader and an outspoken redistricting supporter, is considered a possible challenger to Bray for the top spot.

Garten, via a Senate office spokesman, declined an interview request Wednesday.

Some Republican senators said that they believed Bray has enough support within the caucus to remain in place.

Sen. Ron Alting of Lafayette, who voted in favor of redistricting and won his primary on Tuesday, said he doubted any challenge to Bray would be successful and that Bray was wrongly blamed for the defeat of the new maps.

“We may not agree with the vote, but (senators) had their own reasons and, you know, that’s democracy,” Alting said. “You respect that, and you move on to another day.”

State Attorney General Todd Rokita, who joined Trump and Braun in endorsing many of the victorious primary challengers, said Republican voters “took care of business” and “showed that Trump was the head of the party.”

Rokita said new Republicans joining the Senate would not have political obligations to Bray or other longtime legislative leaders, freeing them to focus on “an America First agenda.”

“None of these people that were elected (Tuesday) … owe anything, they’re not beholden to the bankers and that special interest group, the Chamber of Commerce, the utilities, that special interest group,” Rokita said. “That’s three of 300, or at least three of 30, and they don’t owe anything to those groups.”

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.