A majority of Indiana voters oppose mid-decade redistricting in their state, a new poll shows, as White House officials host Hoosier Republicans in Washington Tuesday amid President Donald Trump’s redistricting pressure campaign.
The survey from left-leaning firm Change Research — which was commissioned by Count US IN, an Indiana-based nonprofit focused on increasing voter turnout and was obtained by POLITICO — shows several vulnerabilities for Republicans as Trump’s push to protect the GOP’s House majority sparks a nationwide redistricting arms race.
Fifty-two percent of registered voters in Indiana — which Trump won by 19 points last year — said they are against Republicans revising their maps, with 43 percent “strongly” opposing the effort.
That opposition rises to 60 percent after voters are informed of arguments for and against redistricting. The memo summarizing the survey breaks down some responses by party affiliation, but not all. The poll of 1,662 registered voters was conducted online between Aug. 18 to 21 and has a margin of sampling error of 2.6 percent.
The unfavorable views of redistricting come as some four dozen of Indiana’s GOP lawmakers visit the White House on Tuesday for what’s being billed as a state leadership conference to coach legislators on how to sell the president’s agenda back home. The lawmakers are slated to meet with the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, per a person familiar with the planning. The group is expected to include Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston, whose daughter, Liz Huston, is one of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s assistants.
The visit was put on the books before Vice President JD Vance and administration officials traveled to Indiana to prod Gov. Mike Braun and top state lawmakers into redistricting. But it falls against the backdrop of the White House ratcheting up pressure on red states to redistrict.
Meanwhile, the Indiana poll gives Democrats some potential messaging guidance as they race to counter Texas’ new map and the potential for more GOP pickups across Indiana, Missouri, Ohio and Florida — even thought Republicans hold a supermajority in Indiana's Legislature. GOP lawmakers outnumber Democrats there four-to-one in the Senate, and hold 70 seats in the House to Democrats’ 30.
Nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents said gerrymandering should be illegal. And a full two-thirds expressed opposition to Washington politicians meddling in their state’s politics. While Indiana is considered ruby-red, registered independents make up a larger share of the electorate than Republicans or Democrats.
Meanwhile, an overwhelming 81 percent of respondents agreed with a Democratic argument in the survey that redistricting “should be conducted in a balanced way to ensure fairness and that our communities are not disenfranchised for political gain” — versus the Republican argument provided to respondents that because Indiana is a mostly Republican state, “the majority should be able to draw our districts in a way that benefits Republicans whenever they want.” That included 68 percent of Republicans, and more than 90 percent of independents and Democrats.
And 45 percent of respondents said they’d be “somewhat” or “much” less likely to vote for their state representative for reelection if they elect to pass a redrawn congressional map.
That’s higher among Democrats — a whopping 88 percent — versus 55 percent of independents and just 12 percent of Republicans. Conversely, 40 percent of GOP respondents said they were somewhat or much more likely to vote for someone who voted for redistricting, while 34 percent said it would not change their vote and 14 percent were unsure.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The potential for backlash comes as Trump’s push drives a rift among Indiana’s Republican officials. Some, like the state’s lieutenant governor, Micah Beckwith, have embraced Trump’s effort. All nine of Indiana’s GOP members of Congress have backed it. But several Republican state lawmakers have openly opposed it, with one hard-right representative panning it as “politically optically horrible.” Former Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said a mid-decade redistricting effort would "just be wrong."
Meanwhile, Braun, the state’s current governor, has remained noncommittal on calling a special legislative session to consider a new map.
The White House isn’t letting up on its pressure campaign. Along with outreach from top administration officials, Trump’s political operation and MAGA influencers like Charlie Kirk have threatened to support primary challenges of GOP state lawmakers who don’t fall in line.
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