As the White House continues to push for redistricting, Vice President JD Vance is expected to be in Indiana on Friday for the second time in recent months, according to a notice from the Federal Aviation Administration.
While other Republican-led states like Texas and Missouri quickly answered the White House’s call to create new congressional district maps that are expected to favor the GOP in the 2026 election, Indiana lawmakers have been noticeably more hesitant. Indiana’s legislative leaders have said barely a word publicly about where they stand on the matter in the months since Vance first visited.
Vance’s visit is at least the third time he has talked to Indiana Republican lawmakers about the possibility. He met privately with Gov. Mike Braun and legislative leaders in Indianapolis on Aug. 7 to discuss the subject, and pressure mounted in the weeks following. Trump met privately with state House Speaker Todd Huston and state Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray in the Oval Office on Aug. 26. Vance also spoke to other rank-and-file lawmakers who were visiting Washington, D.C., that day.
Vance’s office did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Braun’s, Huston’s and Bray’s offices also did not respond to messages requesting comment.
Typically, states redo their congressional boundaries every 10 years with the census in a process called redistricting. Indiana finalized it’s own current map in 2021. But President Donald Trump has recruited Republican governors to draw up new congressional districts in an attempt to give the party an easier path to maintaining control of the House in the midterms next year.
Texas and Missouri have enacted new districts as Democrats in California are seeking voter approval to add as many as five Democrat-held seats in Congress.
The vice president’s visit comes three weeks after former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, rallied against redistricting in Indiana, a state Trump won by 19 percentage points in 2024.
Braun, a Republican and strong ally of Trump, has said that redistricting will likely happen. He hasn’t called a special session yet, though, saying he wants to be sure lawmakers are behind a new map. Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers.
The deadline to file to run for office in the 2026 general election in Indiana is Feb. 6, leaving about four months to call a special session, make a new map, approve it and finalize candidates to run in the newly drawn districts.
Republicans outnumber Democrats in Indiana’s congressional delegation 7-2. But many in the party have suggested they should aim for all nine.
The GOP would likely target Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, a longtime Democratic stronghold that encompasses Gary and other cities near Chicago in the state’s northwest corner. The seat held by third-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan has been seen by Republicans as a possible pickup in recent elections.
Lawmakers in Indiana redrew the borders of the district to be slightly more favorable toward Republicans in the 2022 election, but did not entirely split it up. Indiana’s Republican legislative leaders praised the districts’ existing boundaries after adopting them four years ago.
“I believe these maps reflect feedback from the public and will serve Hoosiers well for the next decade,” Bray said at the time.
The new maps were not challenged in court after they were approved in 2021, not even by Democrats and allies who had opposed the changes boosting GOP standing in the suburbs north of Indianapolis.
Mrvan still won reelection in 2022 and easily retained his seat in 2024.
Republicans could also zero in on Indiana’s 7th Congressional District, composed entirely of Marion County and the Democratic stronghold of Indianapolis. But that option would be more controversial, potentially slicing up the state’s largest city and diluting Black voters’ influence.
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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report. Volmert reported from Lansing, Michigan.
