What Indiana’s primary results reveal about Trump’s grip on the GOP

State senate primaries don’t usually attract as much attention as the ones Indiana held on Tuesday did. But President Donald Trump was on a mission of revenge. He deployed all the vindictiveness he could muster against a group of Republican state senators who had the temerity to vote against redistricting Indiana’s congressional map to give the GOP more than the seven of nine seats they already control. 

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He mostly achieved his goal: Of the seven apostate incumbents facing a Trump-approved challenger, five were defeated. Just one held on, and one race is still too close to call. But while Trump largely “won” these contests, did replacing conservative Republicans with other conservative Republicans really help him or the GOP? How these elections played out was evidence of the rot within the party — and the lengths it will go to in satisfying every one of Trump’s whims, no matter how self-destructive. 

This all started last year when Trump ordered Republicans in a number of states to perform a mid-decade redistricting to eliminate Democratic House seats ahead of this year’s midterms. Several state legislatures complied, including those in Texas, North Carolina and Missouri. But many Republicans in the Indiana Senate believed that their map — which already gave the GOP a 7-2 advantage — was good enough, and they didn’t like the idea of obeying orders from Washington. 

This infuriated Trump, and even before the final vote, he began attacking these largely unknown legislators by name. Inevitably, bomb threats and swatting attempts soon followed. Vice President JD Vance made two trips to Indiana to pressure the Republican senators into voting for new maps, the White House political operation joined in, and Trump’s allies in multiple conservative groups including the political arms of the Heritage Foundation, Turning Point USA and the Club for Growth issued warnings to anyone who would dare say no to this president. 

In the end, the redistricting bill failed by a vote of 31-19, with 21 Republicans joining 10 Democrats to reject it. The battle was over for purposes of the 2026 election — but not for Trump, who demanded primary challenges to the GOP senators up for re-election this year.

All of those targeted were, to be clear, Republicans who support a conservative agenda. But Trump wanted their heads, so his will had to be done, whatever the cost. Money poured in to defeat the incumbents: Primary spending on TV ads for state senate went from just $280,000 in 2024 to $13.5 million this year, an increase of more than 4,700%, according to AdImpact. It worked — even if in the process, Republicans only reinforced the perception that they care more about holding on to power and kowtowing to Trump than doing much of anything to improve people’s lives.