Politics panel: Indiana senators likely to survive challenges over redistricting

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Two members of Indiana’s best political team on Friday said the Republican state senators who rejected new congressional maps are unlikely to lose their seats over the vote.

Twenty-one of the Senate’s 40 Republicans voted against the maps, which were designed to give their party control of all nine of Indiana’s U.S. House seats but divided up urban and rural communities in the process. Eleven of those 21 senators are not up for reelection until 2028. Of the remaining 10, three are retiring, two have launched reelection bids, and five have yet to make their 2026 plans known.

Donald Trump Jr. and Gov. Mike Braun both have vowed to support primary challengers against any Republican state lawmakers who voted against the maps. Whitley Yates, former director of diversity and engagement for the Indiana Republican Party, and Democratic strategist Lindsay Haake both said those lawmakers likely have little to fear. Yates and Yaake, both “All INdiana Politics” contributors, said those lawmakers are accustomed to fending off primary threats.

“When it comes to a lot of our Republican senators, they are deeply rooted and entrenched in their communities, which is probably why they voted the way that they did,” Yates said. “I don’t see them having as much dissension. And if that dissension does bubble up, I don’t see them losing the race after their years of service.”

Yates and...