For most of President Donald Trump’s second term, Republicans have followed his will. But in two Midwestern states, Trump’s plan to retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s elections has hit a snag as Republicans redraw congressional districts.
Despite weeks of campaigning by the White House, Republicans in Indiana and Kansas say their party doesn’t have enough votes to pass the new, more GOP-friendly maps. That has made the two states standout places in the rush for redistricting, where Republican-majority lawmakers are unwilling or unable to heed Trump’s call to help preserve the party’s control of Capitol Hill.
Legislators in both states can still be persuaded, and the White House’s efforts, which include a meeting of Indiana lawmakers in the Oval Office and two trips to Indianapolis by Vice President JD Vance, should continue. But so far, it’s a rare setback for the president and his efforts to maintain a compliant GOP-run Congress beyond 2026. mid term.
States typically redraw their congressional district boundaries every 10 years based on census data. But because midterm elections typically favor the party that isn’t in power, Trump is pushing Republicans to draw new maps that favor the GOP.
Democrats need just three seats to change control of the House, and the fight has become a back-and-forth.
With new maps of their own, several Democratic states are looking to counter any Republican gains. The newest, Virginia, is expected to take up the issue in a special session that begins Monday.
The Hoosier State is hesitant
Indiana, which has seven Republicans and two Democrats in its House delegation, was one of the first states the Trump administration focused its redistricting efforts on this summer.
But a spokesman for state Senate Leader Rodric Bray’s office said Thursday the chamber lacks the votes to pass redistricting. With only 10 Democrats in the 50-member Senate, that means more than a dozen of the 40 Republicans oppose the idea.
Bray’s office did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.
Detention can come from several schools of thought. If the new political lines are poorly implemented, solidly Republican districts could become more competitive. Others believe that stacking the deck is simply wrong.
“We’re being asked to create a new culture where it’s normal for a political party to recruit new voters once a decade, but at any time fear the consequences of an upcoming election,” state Sen. Spencer Deery, a Republican, said in August.
Deery’s office did not respond to a request for an interview and said the statement stood.
A common argument for the new maps is that Democratic-held states like Massachusetts have no Republican representatives, and Illinois used redistricting for partisan advantage, a process known as gerrymandering.
“Democratic states have been in the dark for decades,” Republican state Sen. Chris Garten said on social media. “We can no longer sit idly by as our country is stolen from us.”
Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, who would vote to end the state Senate tie if necessary, recently urged lawmakers to take action on redistricting and criticized them at the time for not being conservative enough.
“It has been accurately said for years that the Indiana Senate is where conservative ideas in the House go to die,” Beckwith said on social media.
Indiana is staunchly conservative, but its Republicans tend to cultivate a conscious moderation.
“Hoosiers, we’re very hard to predict, other than to say we’re very cautious,” said former GOP state lawmaker Mike Murphy. “We’re not interested in trends.”
The roughness reflects some independent success among voters in both states and a willingness by some to push back.
In an op-ed in The Washington Post last week, former Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, urged Indiana lawmakers to resist pressure to redistrict. “Someone has to lead the way out of the mud hole,” he said.
“Hoosiers, like most Americans, value honesty highly and react badly to its flagrant violation,” he wrote.
In Kansas, Republicans are also struggling to find votes
In Kansas, Republican legislative leaders are trying to bypass a Democratic governor and force a special session for only the second time in the state’s 164-year history. Gov. Laura Kelly opposes mid-decade redistricting and has suggested it could be unconstitutional.
The Kansas constitution allows GOP lawmakers to force a special session with a petition signed by two-thirds of both chambers — also requiring a supermajority to override Kelly’s veto of the new map. Republicans hold four more seats than two-thirds in both the state Senate and House of Representatives. Either way, the withdrawal of five Republicans would undermine the effort.
Weeks after state Senate President Ty Masterson announced his push for a special session, GOP leaders have been scrambling to get the final signatures needed.
Among those arrested is Rep. Mark Schreiber, who represents a district southwest of Topeka. He told The Associated Press that he “didn’t sign the petition to call for a special session, and I’m not going to sign it.” Schreiber said he believes redistricting should only be used to reflect population changes after the once-every-10-year census.
“No country should redistrict in the middle of a redistricting cycle,” he said.
Republicans are likely to target U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Democrat who represents Kansas’ largest 3rd Congressional District, which includes Johnson County, the state’s most populous. The suburban district has more than 85% of the vote and since 2016. turns to the left.
Kansas has a large moderate Republican population, and 29% of the state’s 2 million voters are registered as politically unaffiliated. Both groups are prominent in Johnson County.
Republican lawmakers previously tried to hurt Davids’ reelection chances by redrawing the district, but she won by more than 10 percentage points in 2022 and 2024.
“They tried to do it once and they couldn’t do it,” said Jack Shearer, 82, a registered Republican from suburban Kansas City.
But redistricting in the middle of the decade is keeping some Republicans in the county. State Sen. Doug Shane, whose district includes part of the county, said he believes his constituents could split it.
“Redistricting is unprecedented and is happening in many congressional districts across the country,” he said in an email.
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Volmert reported from Lansing, Mich., and Hanna from Topeka, Kan. Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth of Lenexa, Kan., contributed to this report.