Though nothing is set yet, the potential redrawing of Indiana’s congressional districts could result in confusing situations for Hoosiers, including Vigo Countians.
Indiana has been pulled into an unnecessary Etch A Sketch-style remapping of states’ congressional districts, six years ahead of the cycle outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
If state lawmakers don’t prevent this, America’s checks-and-balances system leaves one remaining outlet — voting. Disapproving Hoosiers would have to voice their objection at the polls in next year’s elections when state and federal offices are on the ballot.
“The check can happen at the ballot box,” Matthew Bergbower, Indiana State University political science professor, said Tuesday.
This turmoil was initiated by President Donald Trump pressuring Republican-dominated states — like Indiana — to strategically redraw U.S. House district boundaries to help assure more seats for his party in the 2026 midterm election. So far, Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri have granted Trump new maps. Voters in California, a Democratic-led state, then countered those moves by approving a temporary redraw of its districts to offset the Republican states’ changes.
Admirably, several Republican Indiana state senators have not embraced the Hoosier state joining the fray. Thus, “the votes aren’t there for redistricting,” Molly Swigart, spokeswoman for the Indiana Senate Republicans, said in a statement last month. Likewise, polls show a majority of Hoosiers don’t want it.
Nonetheless, Gov. Mike Braun appeased the president. As a result, the Indiana General Assembly will begin its 2026 session early by gathering from Dec. 1 through 12 to consider redrawing the state’s nine congressional district maps.
Despite that session being less than a month away, no official prospective maps have emerged. In the void, some speculative maps have circulated. To get the president’s desired result — giving Republicans all nine congressional seats, instead of their current 7-2 advantage — unusual configurations are expected. Some unofficial maps show Vigo County split, with its northern portion and the city of Terre Haute placed into a new 4th District, and the southern and southeastern portion in a new 6th District.
Vigo County is currently entirely in the 8th District, and represented by Congressman Mark Messmer, a
Jasper Republican. Such a bisection of Vigo into two congressional districts has never happened, according to research by UCLA political science professor Jeffrey B. Lewis. He led a project that developed a digital database detailing the boundaries of every U.S. congressional district dating back to 1789.
Vigo has shifted districts 10 times since 1815, most recently going from the 7th to the 8th in the traditional every-10-years redraw completed in 2003. But all of those changes kept all of Vigo County in the same district, according to the research by Lewis and three others. “Apparently, there was an at-large member in Indiana as well as districted members in 1873, so the county was represented by both,” Lewis said Tuesday via email. “But the maps suggest it has never been divided.”
The obvious political objective of a Republican Party-oriented redraw would be to displace the state’s only two Democratic members of Congress — two-term Rep. Frank Mrvan of the 1st District in northwest Indiana, and nine-term Rep. Andre Carson of the 7th District in Indianapolis. To do that, the dilution of those reliably Democratic areas would require reshaping districts elsewhere.
If one of the unofficial prospective maps came true, Terre Haute would go into a new 4th District, joining all or parts of two other college towns, Lafayette and Muncie, along with parts of Kokomo in Howard County, and Madison County north of Anderson. Southern Vigo — including Prairieton, Prairie Creek, Pimento and Riley — would go into a new 6th District sprawling into western Indianapolis and southward to New Albany. Indianapolis would be divided into three districts.
Again, that map is only speculative, at this point. But, if such an alignment happens, “Terre Haute would no longer be the anchor city to the north, and Evansville the anchor to the south in the 8th,” Bergbower said. The district’s traditional economic identity — farming and manufacturing — would change, too, he added.
And the priorities of candidates for those congressional seats could be different than in the past.
States such as Iowa have emphasized keeping whole communities and counties in their legislative districts, Bergbower explained. Besides the larger problem of this mid-decade redistricting push — scrapping the constitutionally defined process to help a president maintain political power — the splitting of counties and cities is a problem on its own.
“Communities of interest, which are really important in terms of fair representation, won’t even be considered,” Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, said Thursday. “
“As the largest city in west-central Indiana, Terre Haute is clearly a community of interest that would be best served in Congress if it remains whole inside a district with other communities in the same geographic region of the state,” Vaughn continued. “But when your only goal is to gain a partisan advantage, I suspect we’ll see maps that create a crazy quilt of districts that run roughshod over various communities; splitting them and making it more difficult for citizens to get the representation they need and deserve in Congress.”
The Indiana Black Legislative Caucus conducted a rally against redistricting on Monday. The group opposes any plans that would push out the state’s only two Democratic members of Congress. “That is disenfranchising voters,” Rep. Earl Harris said Wednesday by phone. Harris, a Democrat, represents East Chicago and portions of Gary and Hammond in the Indiana House. He noted that voters have reelected both Mrvan and Carson.
With the early General Assembly session nearing, Harris and the caucus want to see official prospective redistricting maps from the Republican Party.
“That’s a big issue for all of us,” Harris said. “We just know the target is the 1st and 7th districts to benefit Republicans. We’ll hopefully have time to do some study of the maps, if they come out soon.”
Until that happens, Terre Haute’s lawmakers in the state House and Senate — Rep. Tonya Pfaff, a Democrat, and Sen. Greg Goode, a Republican — declined to speculate on Vigo County being split into two congressional districts. Goode did hear plenty from dozens of voters, all opposing a redraw, in a “listening session” at City Hall on Saturday. Goode showed courage in conducting that two-hour event.
“As I mentioned at my listening session on Saturday, I have not seen any map produced by any official source,” Goode told the Tribune-Star on Thursday. “Therefore, I am reluctant to speculate on what the potential new districts might look like.”
The Legislature’s redistricting session starts in 25 days.
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