Spencer Deery\u2019s son was getting ready for school when someone tried to provoke police into swarming his home by reporting a fake emergency. <\/p>\n
Linda Rogers said there were threats at her home and the golf course that her family has run for generations. <\/p>\n
Jean Leising faced a pipe bomb scare that was emailed to local law enforcement. <\/p>\n
The three are among roughly a dozen Republicans in the Indiana Senate who have seen their lives turned upside down while President Donald Trump<\/a> pushes to redraw the state\u2019s congressional map to expand the party\u2019s power<\/a> in the 2026 midterm elections. <\/p>\n It\u2019s 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 \u201ca very dangerous and intimidating process.\u201d<\/p>\n Redistricting is normally done once a decade after a new national census. Trump wants to accelerate the process<\/a> in hopes of protecting the Republicans\u2019 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. <\/p>\n Now Trump\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen you have the president of the United States and your governor sending signals, you want to listen to them,\u201d said Rogers, who has not declared her position on the redistricting push. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ll compromise your values.\u201d<\/p>\n On Friday, Trump posted a list of senators who \u201cneed encouragement to make the right decision,\u201d and he took to social media Saturday to say that if legislators \u201cstupidly say no, vote them out of Office – They are not worthy – And I will be there to help!\u201d Meanwhile, the conservative campaign organization Turning Point Action said it would spend heavily to unseat anyone who voted \u201cno.\u201d <\/p>\n Senators are scheduled to convene Monday to consider the proposal after months of turmoil. Resistance could signal the limits of Trump\u2019s otherwise undisputed dominance of the Republican Party. <\/p>\n Threats shadow redistricting session<\/p>\n Deery considers himself lucky. The police in his hometown of West Lafayette knew the senator was a potential target for \u201cswatting,\u201d a dangerous type of hoax when someone reports a fake emergency to provoke an aggressive response from law enforcement. <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n \u201cYou could have had SWAT teams driving in with guns out while there were kids in the area,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Deery was one of the first senators to publicly oppose the mid-decade redistricting, arguing it interferes with voters\u2019 right to hold lawmakers accountable through elections. <\/p>\n \u201cThe country would be an uglier place for it,\u201d he said just days after Vice President JD Vance<\/a> visited the state in August, the first of two trips to talk with lawmakers about approving new maps. <\/p>\n 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<\/a> for it. Trump lashed out on social media, calling the senators weak and pathetic. <\/p>\n \u201cAny Republican that votes against this important redistricting, potentially having an impact on America itself, should be PRIMARIED,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n The threats against senators began shortly after that<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sen. Sue Glick, a Republican who was first elected in 2010 and previously served as a local prosecutor, said she has never seen \u201cthis kind of rancor\u201d in politics in her lifetime. She opposes redistricting, saying \u201cit has the taint of cheating.\u201d<\/p>\n Not even the plan\u2019s supporters are immune to threats. <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n Zay, who has spent a decade in the Senate, believes the threat was related to his criticism of Trump\u2019s effort to pressure lawmakers. But the White House has not heeded his suggestions to build public support for redistricting through a media campaign. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen you push us around and into a corner, we\u2019re not going to change because you hound us and threaten us,\u201d Zay said. \u201cFor 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.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House did not respond to messages seeking a reaction to Zay\u2019s comments. <\/p>\n Trump sees mixed support from Indiana<\/p>\n 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<\/a> after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. <\/p>\n But Indiana\u2019s political culture never became saturated with the sensibilities of Trump\u2019s \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d movement. Some 21% of Republican voters backed Nikki Haley over Trump<\/a> in last year\u2019s presidential primary, even though the former South Carolina governor had already suspended her campaign two months earlier. <\/p>\n Trump also holds a grudge against Indiana\u2019s Mike Pence, who served the state as a congressman and governor before becoming Trump\u2019s first vice president. A devout evangelical, Pence loyally accommodated Trump\u2019s indiscretions and scandals but refused to go along with Trump\u2019s attempt on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn Democrat Joe Biden\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n \u201cMike Pence didn\u2019t have the courage to do what was necessary,\u201d Trump posted online after an angry crowd of his supporters breached the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n Pence has not taken a public stance on his home state\u2019s redistricting effort. But the governor before him, Republican Mitch Daniels, recently said it was \u201cclearly wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n The proposed map<\/a>, which was released Monday and approved by the state House<\/a> on Friday, attempts to dilute the influence of Democratic voters in Indianapolis by splitting up the city. Parts of the capital would be grafted onto four different Republican-leaning districts, one of which would stretch all the way south to the border with Kentucky. <\/p>\n 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 \u201cvery disappointed\u201d about the threats. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to do things in a civil manner and have polite discourse,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n __<\/p>\n Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa, and Volmert from Lansing, Mich. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spencer Deery\u2019s son was getting ready for school when someone tried to provoke police into swarming his home…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":427729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[199753,3881,69,90,57,6323,2862,2066,199756,82,199757,181121,168300,199752,50,161844,80,22204,199754,199755,61,322,67,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-429735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-andy-zay","10":"tag-ap-top-news","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-in-state-wire","15":"tag-indiana","16":"tag-jd-vance","17":"tag-jean-leising","18":"tag-joe-biden","19":"tag-linda-rogers","20":"tag-local-news-for-apple","21":"tag-michael-pence","22":"tag-mitch-daniels","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-nikki-haley","25":"tag-politics","26":"tag-redistricting","27":"tag-spencer-deery","28":"tag-sue-glick","29":"tag-u-s-news","30":"tag-u-s-republican-party","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115675091770723550","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}