President Donald Trump has endorsed primary challengers to seven Republican state senators in Indiana who voted against a mid-decade congressional redistricting plan backed by the White House, setting up a test of his clout in the party as millions of dollars flow into the races.
Knocking on doors in West Lafayette, Ind., Republican state Sen. Spencer Deery has been trying to rebut a wave of attack ads branding him a “RINO” — Republican in name only — ahead of Indiana’s Tuesday primary.
Deery is one of seven incumbent Republican state senators who late last year voted against President Donald Trump’s push for mid-decade redistricting of Indiana’s congressional map. After the plan failed, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the Republicans who opposed it “should be ashamed of themselves” and that “every one of these people should be primaried.”
Outside money has since poured into the contests. A Trump-aligned dark-money group funneled $1.5 million to an organization running TV ads against the incumbents, and AdImpact has tallied nearly $7 million spent on TV advertising in Indiana state Senate races this year, most of it aimed at defeating the senators who voted against the redistricting effort.
The Club for Growth is also spending in the state, with its president, David McIntosh, saying the group is putting roughly $2 million into the races, mostly through mailers that back the challengers.
In Deery’s district, challenger Paula Copenhaver has Trump’s endorsement. Copenhaver told WFYI that she received a call from one of Trump’s political advisers in January and later visited the White House in early March with other candidates. She described meeting Trump and shaking his hand as “truly humbling,” and said she believes failing to redraw the lines when Republicans had the chance was a “grave concern.”
Deery said the barrage of ads has come to define the race. “It’s really going to come down to one issue, and that is how many people just believe the ads,” he said.
Another of the targeted incumbents, state Sen. Jim Buck, said the outside involvement has been unlike anything he has seen in his 18 years in office. “We’ve never had Washington meddle into our elections like they have this time,” Buck said, adding: “Now I’ve got over $1,000,000 against me in one race.” Buck said he was warned by members of Indiana’s congressional delegation that outside groups would try to damage his reputation if he opposed the redistricting effort.
Marty Obst, a longtime Indiana Republican consultant who led the state’s redistricting push, said the effort to defeat the incumbents has been coordinated with groups aligned with Trump. He said those groups worked with Trump’s political team to recruit challengers and build what he called a “robust political operation.”
Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who opposed the redistricting plan, criticized the spending. “Let’s leave right and wrong out of it for a minute,” Daniels said. “I just think it’s dumb.”
The results on Tuesday are expected to provide an early measure of Trump’s ability to enforce party discipline — and of how Republican primary voters respond when national political organizations and the White House target incumbent lawmakers over a single high-profile vote.
