President Donald Trump met privately with Indiana Republican leaders on Tuesday to discuss the state legislature’s appetite for a mid-decade redistricting battle with blue states.
The state lawmakers met with Trump and Vice President JD Vance at the White House after Indiana’s Republican-controlled legislature expressed hesitation about redrawing the state’s congressional map to boost the House GOP’s narrow majority ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Following the private meeting, some came out in full support of the GOP redistricting agenda.
“I spent the day at the White House because Hoosiers deserve to be fairly represented in DC,” state Sen. Liz Brown wrote on X. “President Trump knows what’s at stake if liberal strongholds like CA bend, break, and bust the rules to gerrymander their maps.”
Others softened their stance, weeks after decrying the Trump-backed plan to gain more House seats for Republicans.
“I’m not as opposed to it as I was,” state Rep. Jim Lucas told the Indianapolis Star after the meeting. There are “things that we can do to help President Trump after this midterm election so that he can enact a lot of his policies.”
Vance traveled to Indiana earlier this month to convince Gov. Mike Braun (R-IN), Republican House Speaker Todd Huston, and Republican Senate President Rodric Bray to back redistricting. State lawmakers strongly opposed the idea at the outset, even as all seven members of Indiana’s GOP congressional delegation supported redistricting.
Bray and Huston did not say whether Indiana will join other states in redrawing their congressional maps.
“My colleagues and I are grateful for the opportunity to meet with White House officials, and all in all, I would consider the event extremely productive,” Bray said in a Wednesday statement. “While redistricting did come up and members were able to ask questions, we spent the bulk of our afternoon discussing issues like energy, immigration, and preventing waste and fraud in government.”
Huston similarly said Indiana looks forward to collaborating with the Trump administration on various issues.
Leading the charge on the Republican front, Texas successfully passed a redistricting bill last week that creates five new GOP-leaning districts despite opposition from Democrats. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) still needs to sign the legislation for its approval.
In response to Texas, California approved a special election in which voters will decide whether the state’s congressional map is redrawn this November. The plan, spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), has been met with opposition from California Republicans, who proposed to split the state in two.
