The vote was overwhelmingly against the proposed redistricting, with more Republicans opposing than supporting the measure.
President Trump has been urging Republicans nationwide to redraw their congressional maps in an effort to help the party maintain its thin majority in the House of Representatives. Although Texas,Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina went along, Indiana did not.
“The federal government should not dictate by threat or other means what should happen in our states,” said Spencer Deery, one of the Republican senators who voted no on Thursday.
When the proposal failed 31-19, cheers could be heard inside the chamber as well as shouts of “thank you!” The debate had been shadowed by the possibility of violence, and some lawmakers have received threats.
Trump tried to brush off the defeat, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he “wasn’t working on it very hard" despite his personal involvement in the pressure campaign.
Republicans could have erased two Democratic districts
The proposed map was designed to give Republicans control of all nine of Indiana’s congressional seats, up from the seven they currently hold. It would have effectively erased Indiana’s two Democrat-held districts by splitting Indianapolis among four districts that extend into rural areas, reshaping U.S. Rep. André Carson’s safe district in the city. It would have also eliminated the northwest Indiana district held by U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan.
District boundaries are usually adjusted once a decade after a new census. But Trump has described redistricting as an existential issue for the party as Democrats push to regain power in Washington.
“If Republicans will not do what is necessary to save our Country, they will eventually lose everything to the Democrats,” Trump wrote on social media the night before the vote.
The president said anyone who voted against the plan should lose their seats. Half of Indiana senators are up for reelection next year, and the conservative organization Turning Point Action had pledged to fund campaigns against them.
David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth, which had backed redistricting, said the vote allowed disloyal Republicans to “stick their finger in the eye of the president of the United States.”
Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels praised senators for “courageous principled leadership" in rejecting the new map.
A Republican who has vocally criticized Trump, Daniels said the outcome was “a major black eye for him and all the Washington groups that piled in, spent money, blustered and threatened.” He added that “this thing rubbed our state the wrong way and Republicans in our state very wrong from the jump.”
