Indiana Capital Chronicle
For The Republic
INDIANAPOLIS — Redistricting supporters on Friday renewed promises to use their wealth against Indiana Senate Republicans who flout President Donald Trump’s demands for an all-GOP congressional map.
The polarizing proposal would likely eliminate the state’s two Democratic-held congressional districts to create a 9-0 Republican map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The Indiana House approved the legislation Friday. The Senate will begin deliberations on Monday, but the chamber’s Republican leader has warned for months there aren’t enough votes.
“If this thing passes (the Senate) … then, we sent that final exclamation point that we needed to send,” said Brett Galaszewski, an enterprise director at Turning Point Action, the political arm of the Phoenix, Arizona organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk.
“But if it doesn’t — and I hope these senators hear me right now when I say these words — if it does not pass, Turning Point Action is willing to throw more money and resources into these primary races than some congressional races,” Galaszewski said, as cheers rang out.
“We will throw so much money and resources into this state that no amount of money coming from a leadership (political action committee) will be able to offset it,” he emphasized.
Galaszewski spoke to Hoosiers gathered in the Statehouse for a Turning Point Action rally targeting reluctant Republican senators, calling Indiana “the last line of defense for us conservatives.”
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, who headlined the event, doubled down on his own threats.
Failure in the Senate, he said, “means you’re gonna have to clean house to get real conservatives in.”
Braun later told reporters that the Senate is “the place where things die for any good idea,” and described the chamber’s members as “out of sync with most Republicans and conservatives” in Indiana.
Some are already planning to challenge anti-redistricting incumbents. At the rally was Paula Copenhaver, a top aide to Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith who has launched a campaign against GOP Sen. Spencer Deery of West Lafayette.
Beckwith argued most Hoosiers support new maps. Several polls have found a majority do not.
“When you have the corrupt Indianapolis media telling you that the Indiana people don’t want it, they’re lying to you!” he exclaimed. “Hoosiers, overwhelmingly, … want this to happen!”
Speakers repeatedly pointed to “manipulated” maps in other Democratic states, primarily citing California and Massachusetts, as why Indiana should redistrict mid-census.
“They’ve been playing this game a long time,” said U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman, a Republican representing Indiana’s 3rd District. “President Trump was nearly assassinated. Charlie Kirk … was assassinated in front of the entire world. They’re using bullets, my friend. We’re going to use the ballot box!”
Indiana’s seven-member Republican congressional delegation pledged support for redistricting in August, in the early days of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign. That included trips in August and October by Vice President JD Vance to meet with state leaders.
A few hundred supporters attended Friday’s event, where counter-protesters standing at the balconies overhead jeered, chanting, “Cheaters, cheaters, cheaters!”
Attendees were encouraged to contact their senators — including at stations upstairs by the Senate’s Republican and Democratic entrances, where constituents could leave handwritten messages.
— The Indiana Capital Chronicle covers state government and the state legislature. For more, visit indianacapitalchronicle.com.
