Threats pile up as Indiana Republicans confront pressure from Trump on redistricting

Spencer Deery's son was getting ready for school when someone tried to provoke police into swarming his home by reporting a fake emergency.

Linda Rogers said there were threats at her home and the golf course that her family has run for generations.

Jean Leising faced a pipe bomb scare that was emailed to local law enforcement.

The three are among roughly a dozen Republicans in the Indiana Senate who have seen their lives turned upside down while President Donald Trump pushes to redraw the state's congressional map to expand the party's power in the 2026 midterm elections.

It's a bewildering and frightening experience for lawmakers who consider themselves loyal party members and never imagined they would be doing their jobs under the same shadow of violence that has darkened American political life in recent years. Leising described it as ''a very dangerous and intimidating process.''

Redistricting is normally done once a decade after a new national census. Trump wants to accelerate the process in hopes of protecting the Republicans' thin majority in the U.S. House next year. His allies in Texas, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina have already gone along with his plans for new political lines.

Now Trump's campaign faces its greatest test yet in a stubborn pocket of Midwestern conservatism. Although Indiana Gov. Mike Braun and the House of Representatives are on board, the proposal may fall short with senators who value their civic traditions and independence over what they fear would be short-term partisan gain.

On Friday, Trump posted a list of senators who ''need encouragement to make the right decision," and the conservative campaign organization Turning Point Action said it would spend heavily to unseat anyone who voted ''no.''

Senators are scheduled to convene Monday to consider the proposal after months of turmoil. Resistance could signal the limits of Trump's otherwise undisputed dominance of the Republican Party.

Threats shadow redistricting session

Deery considers himself lucky. The police in his hometown of West Lafayette knew the senator was a potential target for ''swatting,'' a dangerous type of hoax when someone reports a fake emergency to provoke an aggressive response from law enforcement.

So when Deery was targeted last month while his son and others were waiting for their daily bus ride to school, officers did not rush to the scene.

Deery was one of the first senators to publicly oppose the mid-decade redistricting, arguing it interferes with voters' right to hold lawmakers accountable through elections.

''The country would be an uglier place for it,'' he said just days after Vice President JD Vance visited the state in August, the first of two trips to talk with lawmakers about approving new maps.

Republican leaders in the Indiana Senate said in mid-November that they would not hold a vote on the matter because there was not enough support for it. Trump lashed out on social media, calling the senators weak and pathetic.

''Any Republican that votes against this important redistricting, potentially having an impact on America itself, should be PRIMARIED,'' he wrote.

The threats against senators began shortly after that.

Not even the plan's supporters are immune to threats.

Republican Sen. Andy Zay said his vehicle-leasing business was targeted with a pipe bomb scare on the same day he learned that he would face a primary challenger who accuses Zay of being insufficiently conservative.

Zay, who has spent a decade in the Senate, believes the threat was related to his criticism of Trump's effort to pressure lawmakers. But the White House has not heeded his suggestions to build public support for redistricting through a media campaign.

''When you push us around and into a corner, we're not going to change because you hound us and threaten us,'' Zay said. ''For those who have made a decision to stand up for history and tradition, the tactics of persuasion do not embolden them to change their viewpoint.''

The White House did not respond to messages seeking a reaction to Zay's comments.

Trump easily won Indiana in all his presidential campaigns, and its leaders are unquestionably conservative. For example, the state was the first to restrict abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

But Indiana's political culture never became saturated with the sensibilities of Trump's ''Make America Great Again'' movement. Some 21% of Republican voters backed Nikki Haley over Trump in last year's presidential primary, even though the former South Carolina governor had already suspended her campaign two months earlier.

Trump also holds a grudge against Indiana's Mike Pence, who served the state as a congressman and governor before becoming Trump's first vice president. A devout evangelical, Pence loyally accommodated Trump's indiscretions and scandals but refused to go along with Trump's attempt on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn Democrat Joe Biden's victory.

''Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what was necessary,'' Trump posted online after an angry crowd of his supporters breached the U.S. Capitol.

Pence has not taken a public stance on his home state's redistricting effort. But the governor before him, Republican Mitch Daniels, recently said it was ''clearly wrong.''

Rogers, the senator whose family owns the golf course, declined to discuss her feelings about the redistricting. A soft-spoken business leader from the suburbs of South Bend, she said she was ''very disappointed'' about the threats.

On Monday, Rogers will be front and center as a member of the Senate Elections Committee, the first one in that chamber to consider the redistricting bill.

''We need to do things in a civil manner and have polite discourse,'' she said.

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