Red state moves forward on Trump-backed push for new congressional map

By Fox News · Fox News

The Republican-controlled Indiana House on Friday pushed through congressional redistricting championed by President Donald Trump . The new map, drawn by a national Republican-aligned group, would create two more right-leaning congressional districts in the solidly red Midwestern state, where the GOP currently controls 7 of Indiana's 9 U.S. House seats. The vote — coming less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court cleared the way for GOP-dominated Texas to use its newly redrawn map, which creates five more right-leaning House seats — marks the latest front in Trump’s aggressive national campaign to reshape congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterms, when Republicans will defend their razor-thin House majority. The real drama in Indiana will come next week, when the GOP-dominated state Senate, which has resisted Trump's efforts to draw new congressional maps, meets to vote on the redistricting bill passed by the state House. BIG WIN FOR TRUMP AS SUPREME COURT GREENLIGHTS TEXAS' NEW CONGRESSIONAL MAP The GOP supermajority in the Indiana House passed the redistricting bill 57-41, in a chamber where Republicans outnumber Democrats 70-30. In debate ahead of the vote, state Rep. Matt Pierce, who is the Assistant Democratic Floor Leader, pointed to his Republican colleagues and argued "you really want to erase the Democratic Party when it comes to Congress." And Pierce claimed that Trump, by pushing redistricting through red states across the country, is basically saying "I need to cheat to win." Democratic Rep. Sue Errington also took aim at the redistricting bill, charging that the message from the measure is "voters don’t matter." At the sole public hearing on the bill, held earlier this week, the author of the measure acknowledged the new map was "politically gerrymandered" and drawn "purely for political performance" of Republicans. DEEP-POCKETED CONSERVATIVE GROUP ‘ALL IN’ ON HELPING TRUMP REDISTRICTING PUSH But GOP state Rep. Ben Smaltz defended the new map…