To redistrict or not redistrict.
That’s the question facing Indiana’s Republican lawmakers following a pressure campaign from President Donald Trump to redraw the state’s congressional map — a task normally undertaken every 10 years following the U.S. census.
The goal is to give Republicans a better shot at winning at least one of the two Indiana districts currently held by a Democrat to ensure the GOP maintains its narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives following next year’s midterm elections.
But creating a map to achieve that objective poses a problematic challenge with significant risks that could end with Republicans actually losing a congressional seat, according to political scientists and Indiana Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany, an outspoken opponent of mid-decade redistricting.
“I would say to them, be careful what you ask for,” Clere said. “ … There could be a number of unintended consequences. It may well backfire on Republicans in Indiana and elsewhere.”
FAIR OR UNFAIR?
Indiana’s Republican supermajority in 2021 crafted the current map delineating the state’s nine congressional districts. The new map passed strictly along party lines with no support from Democrats.
Pro-democracy groups like Common Cause Indiana criticized the maps, arguing the process lacked transparency and districts were gerrymandered to favor Republicans. However, no groups challenged the map in court.
Other groups such as Princeton’s University Gerrymandering Project gave the map an A grade for its partisan fairness and geographic compactness, but a C grade for its competitiveness. Rep. Clere voted in favor of the map and said “it did a relatively good job of achieving compactness and recognizing communities of interest.”
There are nearly an unlimited number of ways lawmakers could divide up the state to create nine congressional districts, explained Chad Kinsella, a political scientist who heads Ball State University’s Bowen Center for Public Affairs. He said the current maps are “pretty fairly drawn.”
“I don’t think that anyone would look at Indiana and be like, ‘Oh my gosh, this looks crazy,’” he said.
RISKY BUSINESS
But that could change if Republicans move forward with the unprecedented step to redraw the maps before the midterms.
The issue facing Republican lawmakers who want to now redistrict the map in their favor stems from the state’s two largest Democratic strongholds in Indianapolis (District 7) and The Region (District 1) in northwest Indiana. Those districts fence in and consolidate most of the state’s Democratic voters.
Moving lines in those districts will only add Democratic voters into districts that have long been Republican strongholds, making them more competitive and potentially putting a nearly guaranteed seat at risk, explained Kinsella.
That’s especially true in District 7 in Indianapolis, he said, which has around 300,000 Democratic voters. Breaking up that block through redistricting would push those voters into the solidly red districts surrounding Marion County.
“Which one of those congressmen do you want to go to and say, ‘Look, we’re going to make your new congressional district a little more competitive,’” Kinsella said.
A congressional map proposed by Common Cause Indiana in 2021 to compete with Republicans’ map did just that: moved Indianapolis’ Democratic voters into three districts instead of one.
That makes those districts more competitive and gives real weight to Hoosiers’ votes, argued Julie Vaughn, the nonprofit’s executive director.
As it stands now, the current maps already favor Republicans, argued James McCann, a political scientist at Purdue University. If lawmakers thought there was a way to gain even more advantage, they would have incorporated that into the map approved just four years ago, he said.
“They’re trying to reengineer districts that are thoroughly partisan to begin with,” he said. “It’s sort of like they’re trying to squeeze that last little juice out of a lemon right after it’s already been pretty well squeezed.”
Although Republican legislators in Texas and Missouri quickly approved new congressional maps following Trump’s pressure campaign, Indiana lawmakers have been less enthusiastic.
Even after a visit from Vice President J.D. Vance and a trip to the White House last month, the state’s GOP leaders haven’t said publicly whether they support mid-decade redistricting.
Gov. Mike Braun has insinuated lawmakers are moving toward redistricting, but has only floated the idea of calling a special session in November to vote on the proposal.
Vaughn said that reluctance stems in part from lawmakers’ awareness that redrawing the maps to turn two blue districts into red districts is a high-stakes undertaking with real political risks.
“They know very well in their attempt to flip those two districts, they could inadvertently make the adjacent districts more competitive and end up losing a seat that they considered safe,” she said.
AN UNPOPULAR PROPOSAL
Recent polling shows both Hoosiers and most Americans oppose mid-decade redistricting. In Indiana, a poll last month by Common Cause found 60% of voters didn’t support the effort.
Nationally, 64% of Republicans and independents said they want a ban on mid-decade redistricting, including 60% of Republicans who supported Trump in 2024, reported another Common Cause poll in September.
Still, like Texas and Missouri, some Republicans in Indiana and Florida are pursuing it despite its unpopularity.
Rep. Clere predicted that could lead for a renewed push in the state and the nation to implement independent commissions to redraw congressional maps instead of lawmakers.
The September poll found 74% of voters nationally support independent commiss ions made up of ordinary citizens to draw district lines instead of state lawmakers. Yet only seven states use an independent redistricting committee.
Clere has previously introduced or sponsored legislation to create a commission, but the bills never gained traction. Now, he’s hopeful public backlash at Trump’s redistricting campaign will spur lawmakers to seriously consider the proposal.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that what’s going on right now may have the unintended effect of bringing about significant redistricting reforms and ultimately making redistricting less high stakes and less partisan,” he said. “And that’s a good thing.”
But if Republicans end up maintaining control of the House after next year’s election due to mid-decade redistricting efforts, there’s a chance even more states could use the tactic in the future to gain power, argued McCann, the Purdue political scientist.
“If it turns out to be successful, then we can anticipate more of it going forward,” he said.
Still, even if Republicans pick up seats through redistricting, it’s still an uphill battle to keep control of the House, explained McCann. The party in power historically loses a significant number of seats in the midterms, making it likely Democrats will pick up enough wins to surpass any potential gain due to gerrymandering, he said. But Kinsella, the Ball State political scientist, argued large power swings following the midterms may be disappearing. In 2022, a predicted red wave didn’t happen during President Joe Biden’s term. In 2024, even with a commanding win by Trump, Republicans lost a house seat.
“It’s really weird,” he said. “Maybe we’re so maxed out and we are so entrenched that maybe there aren’t these big waves anymore.”
If that trend continues next year, Republicans picking up a handful of extra seats could be enough to keep control of the House, Kinsella speculated.
But whether mid-decade redistricting works to amass political power is beside the point, according to Vaughn with Common Cause Indiana. The unprecedented undertaking is inherently undemocratic because it blatantly strips Hoosiers of their voting power, she argued. That shouldn’t happen next year or at any other time that congressional maps are drawn, Vaughn said. “I can’t think of a clearer way to say to voters, ‘We don’t care what you think, you don’t matter to us and we’re going to draw the lines to silence your voices in congressional elections,’” she said.
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