For most of President Donald Trump‘s second term, Republicans have bowed to his will. But in two Midwestern states, Trump’s plan to maintain control of the House of Representatives in next year’s elections by having Republicans redraw congressional districts has hit a roadblock.
Despite weeks of campaigning by the White House, Republicans in Indiana and Kansas say their party does not have enough votes to approve new, more GOP-friendly maps. This has made the two states exceptions in the rush to redraw districts, places where Republican-majority legislatures are unwilling or unable to heed Trump’s call and help preserve the party’s control of the Capitol.
Lawmakers in the two states can still be persuaded, and the White House push, which has included an Oval Office meeting for Indiana lawmakers and two trips to Indianapolis by Vice President JD Vance, is expected to continue. But for now, it’s a rare setback for the president and his efforts to control Congress after the 2026 midterm elections.
Typically, states redraw their congressional districts every 10 years, based on census data. But because midterm elections tend to favor the party not in power, Trump is pressuring Republicans to draw new maps that favor his party.
Democrats only need to gain three seats to flip control of the House, and the fight has become an intense tug-of-war.
With new maps of their own, multiple Democratic states are moving to counter any gains made by Republicans. The latest, Virginia, plans to address the issue in a special session starting Monday.
Doubts in Indiana
Indiana, whose House delegation has seven Republicans and two Democrats, 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 that the chamber does not have the votes to redraw the districts. 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 interview requests.
The objections lie in different arguments. New policy lines, if executed poorly, could make solidly Republican districts more competitive. Others believe it is simply wrong to manipulate the system.
“We are being asked to create a new culture in which it would be normal for a political party to select new voters, not once a decade, but every time it fears the consequences of an election,” state Sen. Spencer Deery, a Republican, said in a statement in August.
Deery’s office did not respond to an interview request and said the statement stands.
A common argument in favor of new maps is that Democratic-run states like Massachusetts have no Republican representatives, while Illinois has used redistricting for partisan advantage, a process known as gerrymandering.
“For decades, Democratic states have gerrymandered districts in the dead of night,” Republican state Sen. Chris Garten noted on social media. “We cannot continue sitting and doing nothing while our country is stolen.”
Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, who would vote to break a tie in the state Senate if necessary, recently called on lawmakers to move forward with redistricting and criticized them for not being conservative enough.
“For years, it has been correctly said 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 encourage deliberate temperance.
“It’s hard to predict what the people of Indiana will do other than to say we’re very cautious,” said former Republican state legislator Mike Murphy. “We don’t follow trends.”
The apprehension reflects a certain independence maintained by voters in both states and a willingness by some to resist.
Writing in The Washington Post last week, former Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, urged Indiana lawmakers to resist the urge to redraw districts. “Someone has to lead the movement to get out of the quagmire,” he said.
“The people of Indiana, like most Americans, highly value fairness and react poorly to its blatant violation,” he wrote.
In Kansas, Republicans also struggle to find votes
In Kansas, Republican legislative leaders are trying to bypass the 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 Republican lawmakers to force a special session with a petition signed by two-thirds of both chambers, also the supermajorities needed to override Kelly’s expected veto of a new map. Republicans have four more seats than a two-thirds majority in both the state Senate and the House. In any of them, a defection of five Republicans would sink the effort.
Weeks after state Senate President Ty Masterson announced the push for a special session, Republican leaders were scrambling to get the last necessary signatures.
Among those holding out is Rep. Mark Schreiber, who represents a district southwest of Topeka. He told The Associated Press that “I did not sign any petition to call a special session, and I have no plans to sign one.” He added that he believes redistricting should only be used to reflect changes in the population after the census, which is conducted every 10 years.
“Redistricting by either party mid-term should not be done,” he said.
Republicans would likely target U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, the Democrat who represents the largely Kansas City-area 3rd Congressional District, which includes Johnson County, the state’s most populous. The suburban county accounts for more than 85% of the vote and has trended left since 2016.
Kansas has a sizable number of moderate Republicans, and 29% of the state’s two 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 in 2022 and 2024 by more than 10 percentage points.
“They tried it once and couldn’t make it,” said Jack Shearer, an 82-year-old registered Republican from suburban Kansas City.
But a mid-decade redistricting has support among some Republicans in the county. State Sen. Doug Shane, whose district includes part of the county, noted that his constituents would be willing to split it.
“Dividing counties is not unprecedented and occurs in several congressional districts around the country,” he noted in an email.
Republicans in Indiana and Kansas resist Trump’s plans to change electoral maps
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Volmert reported from Lansing, Michigan, and Hanna from Topeka, Kansas. Correspondent Heather Hollingsworth in Lenexa, Kansas, contributed to this story.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor using a generative artificial intelligence tool.
