Seven Indiana Republican State Senators Lose May 5 Primaries After Opposing Trump-Backed Redistricting

A record seven incumbent Republican Indiana state senators lost their primaries on May 5, a striking setback driven largely by one issue: opposition to a Trump-backed mid-decade redistricting plan.

According to Ballotpedia, it was the most incumbent Republican state senators from Indiana to lose primaries in its tracking era since 2010. Ballotpedia also said it was the first year since 2010 that more than one incumbent Republican state senator in Indiana lost a primary, underscoring how unusual the outcome was in a chamber where Republicans began 2026 with a 40-10 majority.

The defeats followed a bitter intraparty fight over a proposed congressional map redraw that the Indiana Senate rejected on Dec. 11, 2025, by a 31-19 vote. Twenty-one Republicans joined all 10 Democrats in opposing the plan, making that vote the central fault line in this year’s primaries. President Donald Trump publicly threatened Republicans who opposed the map, writing in a Truth Social post quoted by Ballotpedia: “Anybody that votes against Redistricting, and the SUCCESS of the Republican Party in D.C., will be, I am sure, met with a MAGA Primary in the Spring.” Trump later endorsed a slate of challengers, while Indiana Gov. Mike Braun and Sen. Jim Banks also backed many pro-redistricting candidates. National conservative groups and PACs, including Turning Point Action and affiliated groups, Club for Growth Action, and Banks-aligned Hoosier Leadership for America, spent heavily in the contests.

Six of the seven defeated incumbents had voted against the redistricting plan. They were Dan Dernulc in District 1, who lost to Trevor De Vries; Rick Niemeyer in District 6, defeated by Jay Starkey; Linda Rogers in District 11, defeated by Brian Schmutzler; Nick McKinley in District 17, defeated by Chris Parker; Travis Holdman in District 19, defeated by Blake Fiechter; Jim Buck in District 21, defeated by Tracey Powell; and Greg Walker in District 41, defeated by Michelle Davis. Holdman stood out as the most prominent loss because he was a high-ranking Republican senator and majority caucus chair.

The results were not uniform. Greg Goode, another Republican who had opposed the redistricting proposal, survived in District 38, defeating two challengers, including Trump-endorsed Brenda Wilson. His win showed that the pressure campaign was potent but not absolute.

The redistricting fight carried unusual weight because congressional maps are typically redrawn once a decade after the census, not in the middle of the decade. That made Indiana’s 2025 push politically contentious from the start. It also turned a normally local set of state legislative primaries into a nationalized battle, with a former and current president-backed political movement, high-profile endorsements and outside spending used to punish lawmakers who broke with party strategy on a key vote.

That dynamic was especially visible in Indiana because the conflict was so clearly defined. The Senate had already voted down the plan months earlier, and many of the lawmakers who helped sink it then found themselves facing well-supported challengers in Republican primaries. The election became less a referendum on district-specific issues than a test of whether state lawmakers could defy national party pressure on a major strategic issue without political consequence.

Ballotpedia’s record framing captured the scale of the upheaval: seven incumbent Republican state senators defeated, the most in Indiana in its tracking era and the first time since 2010 that more than one incumbent Republican state senator in the state lost a primary. Ballotpedia also said two other Republican state Senate primaries remained uncalled as of May 6, though those races were separate from the seven incumbent defeats already decided.