WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana – The only thing standing between President Donald Trump and his revenge on Indiana state senators are people like Julie Wise.
She’s 48 years old, works at a hospital, describes herself as a conservative and voted for Trump in the last election. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to vote out her Republican state senator just because he defied the president’s demand to redraw Indiana’s congressional map.
“I’m not going to say that ‘because this is what the president wants, this is how I’m going to vote,'” Wise said from her front step on a sunny, springtime afternoon.
Indiana’s primary on May 5 has become an unlikely test of Trump’s grip on the Republican Party. After state senators defied White House pressure by opposing redistricting, Trump has endorsed seven primary challengers in races that rarely attract any attention from Washington.
The campaign, backed by national organisations such as Turning Point Action and pro-Trump groups that have spent more than US$4.2 million (S$5.3 million) on advertising, has no precedent in recent memory. Governor Mike Braun and US Senator Jim Banks, both Republicans, are also working against incumbent state senators in a display of deference to Trump.
One of their targets is Spencer Deery, a first-term state senator who knocked on Wise’s door while canvassing her West Lafayette neighbourhood via electric scooter.
“This is about one thing only,” he told The Associated Press. “And that’s control.”
An avalanche of campaign spending
Deery represents the 23rd Senate District, a seven-county swath of farmland that borders Illinois to the west, runs north to West Lafayette and touches the outskirts of Terre Haute to the south.
Four years ago, Deery’s campaign spent US$142,000 to win his seat in a race where fewer than 11,000 people voted. One of the primary candidates he defeated was Paula Copenhaver, a veteran Republican activist and local party chair.
Now Trump has endorsed Copenhaver, an aide to Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith, and Deery is facing a nearly US$1 million avalanche of spending. One television advertisement declared that “State Senator Spencer Deary voted against President Trump’s agenda.”
“It’s about sending a message that any state that does not get in line or any lawmakers that do not get in line with the political forces in D.C. should be on the lookout,” Deery said. “That should concern you in a constitutional democracy.”
Deery has spent US$167,000 so far, and he hasn’t had any help from outside groups.
A Trump-backed opponent
Copenhaver declined to respond to telephone calls and text messages from The Associated Press after originally saying she was willing to discuss the campaign. Trump endorsed her in January by calling her a “MAGA Warrior” – a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement – and “a terrific Candidate for Indiana’s 23rd State Senate District.”
He wrote on social media that Copenhaver was “running against an incompetent and ineffective RINO incumbent named Spencer Deery who, for whatever reason, betrayed his voters by voting against Redistricting in Indiana.” RINO means “Republican in name only.”
The White House leaned heavily on Indiana lawmakers last year to break with precedent and adopt a new congressional map, part of an unusual nationwide cascade of redistricting that Trump hopes will help Republicans protect their thin US House majority in November’s elections. Vice President JD Vance met with Indiana politicians in Washington and Indianapolis, and Trump weighed in by conference call.
Some opponents of the proposal faced threats. Deery was targeted by a false police report intended to provoke a dangerous situation by sending a SWAT team racing to his home.
But the Republican-controlled state Senate voted against redistricting in December, a defeat for the president.
Trump tried to brush it off afterward, telling reporters in the Oval Office that “I wasn’t working on it very hard.”
Making the rounds on the campaign trail
As Deery moved from door to door in the neatly manicured suburb at the edge of a clover field in northwest West Lafayette, a pair of motorcyclists out on a Saturday ride stopped to encourage him.
“I wanted to thank you for having the courage to vote against the redistricting,” one of them said.
Annette and Curtis Williams politely chatted with Deery at their door. Curtis said Trump’s threat to unseat Deery is “inappropriate.” Neither he nor his wife would say how they planned to vote.
Beckie Eikenberg, a quality assurance associate at an Indiana pharmaceutical company, has seen the advertisements targeting Deery, but she does not trust them. The 47-year-old who calls herself “libertarian on the conservative side,” spoke with the state senator at the end of her cul-de-sac.
She voted for Trump but wrinkled her brow when asked if the president should have a say in Indiana’s congressional map.
“He doesn’t necessarily know what’s going on within our state. He’s not here. He doesn’t see the day to day,” she said.
Governor stays allied with Trump
The campaign to oust incumbents is also intended to dislodge Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodrick Bray, who helped block redistricting and has faced criticism from Trump.
Bray is not up for reelection this year, but Braun wanted primary challengers to commit to opposing him as Senate leader, according to three people familiar with the demand. The people were not authorised to publicly discuss private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Trump political aides said they were monitoring the campaigns. Representatives for Banks, the US senator allied with the White House, did not return messages seeking comment.
Braun, the Republican governor, said he is backing the primary challengers not because of redistricting but because he needs help to advance his agenda. For example, he was at odds with Bray over property taxes earlier in his term.
Braun is putting US$500,000 from his political action committee into state Senate races.
“Whether you supported this or that, my goal is to get enterprising senators and representatives,” Braun said Monday. “So when it comes to what you do to either support or not support certain legislators, for me, it’s going to mostly be based on, ‘Are you willing to help me take Indiana into places that all states would want to be?'”
One of Braun’s predecessors is working against him in the primary. Former Governor Mitch Daniels, a Republican who stepped away from politics after leaving office in 2015, has been quietly working to protect incumbents targeted by Trump.
Daniels recorded a video and helped raise money for Deery, who was chief of staff to the former governor when he became president of Purdue University.
Deery said his vote against redistricting was not about defying Trump or the president’s allies.
“I don’t work for them,” Deery said. “I work for my voters, my constituents.”
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