INDIANAPOLIS — As the redistricting battle began to pick up steam in Indiana last month, state Sen. Jean Leising’s grandchildren were receiving odd text messages.
Ads from little-known outside groups had spliced the longtime Republican lawmaker’s image next to prominent Democrats like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Some of the messaging was sloppy, referring to Leising as “him.”
A conservative and supporter of President Donald Trump, Leising, 76, was furious. Following months of conversations with her constituents, she felt they were generally opposed to redrawing Indiana’s congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections — even though such an effort would favor her party and was backed by her president. So in mid-November, she fired off a statement making it official: She wouldn’t support it.
“The negative campaigning just put me over the top,” she said in an interview with 13WTHR in Indianapolis, an NBC News affiliate, at the time. “He may wonder why Indiana is struggling to get on board. Well, it’s probably the antics they used.”
It was a sign of things to come. Ultimately, the months of pressure applied by Trump and his supporters from outside of Indiana to pass a redrawn map that would split up the state’s two Democratic districts backfired. On Thursday, Leising joined a majority of Republicans in the state Senate in voting to sink the map in the face of potential future primary challenges, a flurry of online attacks — and in some cases, violent threats.
The result was one of the biggest rejections that Trump, who has otherwise largely ruled over the GOP with an iron fist, has faced since returning to office, and it could cost the party in its bid to preserve its narrow House majority.
Interviews with a half-dozen elected officials and operatives directly involved in the redistricting fight in Indiana revealed how the brash approach from Trump and his allies and the outsized national attention that followed ultimately ran afoul of Hoosier sensibilities and fell flat.
“You have to know Hoosiers. We can’t be bullied, we don’t like it,” GOP state Sen. Sue Glick said after voting against the map.
‘This is not optional'
The White House’s initial push for Indiana to pursue redistricting this year — an unusually aggressive ask, given that the process typically occurs at the start of each decade with new census data — began in earnest four months ago.
Vice President JD Vance, a native of next-door Ohio, traveled to Indianapolis in early August to make his pitch. At that point, Republicans in Texas, who kicked off the national redistricting wars at Trump’s behest, were still in the process of passing a new map that could net the party five seats, and California Democrats were preparing to respond.
Soon after, Hoosiers started receiving robocalls pushing redistricting from a little-known group called Forward America, which led to complaints about their legality. Text messages also started to pepper voters’ phones urging them to call their lawmakers and push for a new map.
Indiana GOP Gov. Mike Braun said the future of redistricting would depend on the Legislature. By the end of August, state Senate President pro tempore Rodric Bray and state House Speaker Todd Huston were in the Oval Office discussing the issue with Trump.
One state representative told a friend the message from Washington was: “This is not optional.”
Meanwhile, a network of local Republicans — former elected officials, activists and other allies from years working together on campaigns and inside the Statehouse — started to come together to oppose the burgeoning redistricting campaign.
These Republicans and others felt that altering the current map, where the GOP controlled seven of nine districts, could negatively affect representation in the state and open the door to making previously safe red seats more vulnerable.
The network spent months making calls and facilitating conversations designed to push Indiana Republican lawmakers against redrawing the state’s map. The volunteer effort was described by one involved longtime Republican activist as people “just basically making phone calls to their friends who are senators.”
Those involved would compare notes and whip counts and worked with Indiana Conservation Voters, an environmental group that became the largest spender on either side on the airwaves, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. In addition to running ads, the group also mobilized grassroots volunteers on their advice.
“It’s the best lobbying I couldn’t buy,” said Megan Robertson, the group’s executive director.
One of the activists, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the group, said initially they urged lawmakers to wait for a firm map proposal before making a decision.
“That could be a trap. You know, they want you to say you’re for it, and then when the map comes and you go, whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re stuck,” the activist recalled telling lawmakers.
Ramping up the pressure
The pressure campaign from Washington only picked up in the fall. Vance paid a second visit to Indiana in October and, the following week, Trump placed a call into a state Senate Republican caucus meeting.
“The vice president was trying very hard to whip up some enthusiasm,” said Glick, adding that Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and other members of the Indiana GOP congressional delegation spoke with state lawmakers about it. “There’s been a lot of effort to sway votes within the caucus, and as you saw, it just didn’t do it.”
Some state lawmakers said they were given an energetic pitch about party loyalty and Republican priorities, but at least one lawmaker said he was voting for maps he felt were bad for the state because of the looming threat of federal funding cuts.
“I’ve had comments made to me from Washington that if I didn’t there’d be consequences in terms of my constituent funding, particularly Purdue University, particularly on the SNAP program, particularly on Medicaid funding,” state Sen. Ron Alting said.
The issue arose again the day of the final vote in the state Senate. The conservative group Heritage Action said on X that Trump had made clear that “all federal funding will be stripped from the state” if the map didn’t pass, and Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith appeared to confirm that pulling federal funding was discussed in a since-deleted post on X.
A White House official pushed back against Heritage's post. “This is not true that any of us know of and none of us are aware of anyone talking to Heritage, which is who said this first,” the official said.
At the end of October, Braun called for a special legislative session on redistricting, even as it was far from clear whether there was support for it in the state Senate.
As the debate intensified in Indiana, it was becoming clear that the nationwide redistricting fight was not playing out exactly as national Republicans had hoped.
Texas Republicans enacted their new district lines — which were upheld this month by the U.S. Supreme Court — but voters in California approved a Democratic-drawn map that could cancel out any GOP gains there. Republicans also passed redistricting efforts in North Carolina and in Missouri, where a potential ballot referendum could prevent the new map from going into place for the midterms.
Meanwhile, a new map in Ohio did not go as far in expanding Republicans’ advantage as some in the party wanted. A court-ordered map in Utah unexpectedly paved the way for Democrats to pick up a seat. And Virginia Democrats began taking steps to enter the fray.
It all increased the importance for the GOP of carving out two more seats in Indiana. But in mid-November, Trump and national Republicans were dealt another setback: Bray, the GOP leader of the Indiana Senate, said the chamber wouldn’t reconvene to consider redistricting because there wasn’t enough support for it.
Trump only turned up the heat from there, pledging to back primary challengers to Bray and other Indiana Republicans who stood in the way of a new map. For his part, Bray isn't up for re-election until 2028.
“In the entire United States of America, Republican or Democrat, only Indiana ‘Republican’ State Senator Rod Bray, a Complete and Total RINO, is opposed to redistricting for purposes of gaining additional Seats in Congress,” Trump wrote in one Truth Social post of the well-liked Republican leader in the Senate. “The Rod Brays of Politics are WEAK and PATHETIC.”
The biggest-spending group on the pro-redistricting side, Club for Growth, ran ads in October that pitched the effort as a response to Democratic-led states.
‘We are human beings'
The debate took a more dark and violent turn in mid-November, as Indiana Republican lawmakers received a surge of threats and swatting attempts, where someone makes a false report to law enforcement to trigger a police response.
State Sen. Greg Goode, who was publicly on the fence on redistricting and had been called out by Trump on social media, was the first to report a swatting incident. Goode said he had his front door broken down and weapons pointed at him, after a false police report that he’d murdered his wife and child was made.
In total, at least 14 elected Republicans in Indiana said they have faced such threats in recent weeks — including Leising, who said she was the target of a pipe bomb threat.
“We are human beings. That’s the element that people don’t realize. There’s a cost, it’s horrible,” said state Sen. Dan Dernulc, a Republican “no” vote who was repeatedly swatted.
Another senator, Majority Whip Michael Crider, showed NBC News an email he received from someone threatening to firebomb his house and kill him. Police foiled a swatting attempt against his residence, too.
“The thing that really scares me the most is if people apply pressure to you and then get what they want, then that teaches them that that’s what they have to do next,” Crider said the day before the final state Senate vote. “If somebody gets what they want by applying pressure in a circumstance like this, then you’ve taught them that works. Try it again, for any issue.”
As the pressure continued to mount, Bray agreed just before Thanksgiving to consider redistricting, and a proposed map was unveiled in the state House at the beginning of December.
The GOP-drawn map sought to split Indianapolis into four districts in an effort to dilute the Democratic vote. (Critics noted that the map proposed putting the Statehouse in a different district than a popular cafe across the street. )And the lakefront communities in northwestern Indiana would have been divided into two districts to dismantle another Democratic stronghold.
The map was drawn by the National Republican Redistricting Trust’s Adam Kincaid, who had also drawn Texas’ map, according to lawmakers. Pressed on who paid Kincaid’s group for the map, though, the map’s legislative sponsors had no answers. Kincaid did not respond to a request for comment.
“I don’t know what the cost was or who paid. I have no information,” said state Sen. Mike Gaskill, the Republican who sponsored the bill in the Senate.
Turning Point Action, part of the conservative advocacy group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, sent an out-of-state “strike team” to lobby lawmakers and hosted a rally in the Indiana Capitol last week.
Tyler Bowyer, the chief operating officer of the group, referred to the state’s residents as “Indianans,” rather than “Hoosiers,” in a since-deleted post on X in late November, drawing online mockery.
In an interview, Goode said he heard about a group saying “Indianans.”
“I think that was probably more offensive to most — we’re Hoosiers,” Goode later said. “And so if you’re going to engage in the politics of the state of Indiana, you better do your homework.”
In interviews, lawmakers described doing their homework, too. Goode held a listening session on redistricting with constituents, while Leising said the vast majority of people who reached out to her office opposed drawing a new map.
The map passed the state House last Friday by a 57-41 vote, with 12 Republicans voting against, setting up a high-profile clash in the state Senate.
Earlier this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and members of his leadership team called state lawmakers in support of the new map, according to a senior GOP leadership source familiar with the matter.
And in the 24 hours leading up to the state Senate vote, Trump, Vance and other MAGA-aligned voices continued to apply social media pressure to the skeptics of the map.
But ultimately, as Bray had warned a month earlier, the votes were not there. The map overwhelmingly failed 19-31, with 21 Republicans voting against it.
“Whether we accept it or not, the forces that define this vitriolic political affairs in places outside of Indiana have been gradually and now very blatantly infiltrated the political affairs in Indiana,” Goode said. “Misinformation, cruel social media posts over the top, pressure from within the statehouse and outside threats of primaries, threats of violence, acts of violence. Friends were better than this. Are we not?”
Trump’s allies continued to attack the state senators who opposed them after the vote.
“No surprise. The Never Trumpers making their last stand — partnering with Democrats to screw Republicans and Americans all because they have TDS,” said one Republican strategist close to the president, referring to “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” “The enemy within is always the most dangerous.”
As for Trump himself, he reiterated his criticism of Bray, but otherwise brushed off the defeat.
“I wasn’t very much involved,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday night.
