Defy Trump, lose your seat: Indiana primary delivers a warning to GOP lawmakers
Indiana’s GOP primaries offer the clearest signal yet that President Donald Trump still commands the fear that built his hold on the party.
Indiana Republicans who defied Donald Trump’s gerrymandering push paid for it Tuesday, as primary voters ousted five of the seven state senators the president targeted with primary challenges after they voted against his redistricting push — a decisive show of force that suggests his hold on the GOP base remains firm even as his approval rating has hit a new low.
The contests, for state Senate seats in Indiana’s part-time legislature, would ordinarily draw little national attention. But after a December vote in which a bloc of Indiana Republicans resisted the White House’s pressure campaign and voted against gerrymandering the state’s two Democratic-held congressional districts out of existence, Trump set out to make examples of them — and largely succeeded.
The results carry implications well beyond Indianapolis. Republican lawmakers in other states facing similar redistricting pressure now have a fresh example of what defying the White House costs, and Trump’s allies are likely to read the night as proof that his endorsement still moves voters down to the most local rungs of GOP politics. For a president constitutionally barred from running again, Tuesday offered the strongest evidence yet that his power within the GOP is still strong.
On social media, Trump endorsed challengers against seven of the eight sitting GOP state senators who voted against the gerrymandering push: Jim Buck, Spencer Deery, Dan Dernulc, Greg Goode, Travis Holdman, Linda Rogers and Greg Walker.
“There are eight Great Patriots running against long seated RINOS — Let’s see how those RINOS do tonight!” Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday before polls closed, deploying a label — Republican In Name Only — that has become his standard brand for those who defy him regardless of their conservative bonafides.
For Trump, who has carried Indiana in each of his three presidential campaigns and faces no meaningful threat to his standing in the state, the primaries amount to a test of whether he can punish defectors inside his own party over an issue many voters have barely registered, in races usually decided by yard signs and county chairs rather than national politics.
Beneath that is a larger question, one that will only sharpen as his second term wears on: whether a president who is constitutionally barred from running again and whose approval ratings are the lowest of his tenure still commands the fear that built his hold on the GOP in the first place.
Trump has a track record of endorsing primary challengers in races around the country to enforce and reward loyalty — most prominently against the House Republicans who voted to impeach him after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Nearly all were driven from office.
Wading into something as relatively small scale as state Senate primaries, however — especially over an issue that may be more esoteric for many voters — has provided a clash between national politics and the kind of grassroots approach that typically looms large in these kinds of races. It is one thing for Trump to be furious about the December vote in Indianapolis; it is another for Republican primary voters in Terre Haute or West Lafayette to be.
1
Trevor De Vries
State Sen. Dan Dernulc
11
Brian Schmutzler
State Sen. Linda Rogers
19
Blake Fiechter
State Sen. Travis Holdman
21
Tracey Powell
State Sen. Jim Buck
23
Paula Copenhaver
State Sen. Spencer Deery
38
Vigo County Councilwoman Brenda Wilson
State Sen. Greg Goode
41
State Rep. Michelle Davis
State Sen. Greg Walker
Photos: Courtesy of the campaigns
Trump wants Hakeem Jeffries to be impeached, which is foolish for all sorts of reasons
The president has no idea that members of Congress can’t be impeached. It’s emblematic of the profound ignorance that continues to undermine his presidency.
Donald Trump has never had kind things to say about House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, but in recent days, the president has targeted the New York Democrat in new and unsubtle ways.
A week and a half ago, for example, the president posted an item to his social media platform in which he referred to the congressional leader as “a Low IQ individual” — a label Trump tends to reserve for Black people, for reasons the White House has never explained — who is “not smart enough to be ‘running’ the Democrat Party.” (For good measure, the president also mocked Jeffries’ name, describing “Hakeem” as “a fine American name.”)
In case Trump’s racism wasn’t quite obvious enough, he published a follow-up item last week, again arguing that the House minority leader has a “Low IQ” before adding that Jeffries “is nothing but a THUG, and he is a danger to our Country!”
On Sunday afternoon, the president went even further down the same unfortunate path, with another online missive that said:
Hakeem Jeffries, a Low IQ individual, said our Supreme Court is “illegitimate.” After saying such a thing, isn’t he subject to Impeachment? I got impeached for A PERFECT PHONE CALL. Where are you Republicans? Why not get it started? They’ll be doing this to me!
Let’s unpack this one, which stood out for a variety of reasons.
First, criticizing the Supreme Court is not an impeachable offense. Second, if criticizing the Supreme Court were an impeachable offense, Trump would have a real problem on his hands, given the severity of his recent condemnations of the court and its justices. (It was just last month when the president said “certain” conservative justices on the Supreme Court have “gone weak, stupid, and bad.”)
Third, Trump’s ongoing efforts to relitigate his first impeachment remain quite pitiful. Fourth, his “they’ll be doing this to me” comment seemed like an implicit acknowledgement that he expects Republicans to lose control of the House in the midterm elections.
But even if we put all of these relevant details aside, arguably the five most interesting words in Trump’s online statement were these: “Isn’t he subject to Impeachment?”
As it happens, there is an unambiguous answer: In this country, members of Congress cannot, in fact, be impeached.
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The thing is, a sitting American president really ought to know that. Trump no longer has any excuses for flunking Civics 101 tests, since he’s no longer the rookie who got elected despite never having served a day in any governmental capacity. Trump is now in the sixth year of his presidency, and he’s had time to familiarize himself with the basics of how Washington, D.C., works.
The fact that he has no idea that members of Congress can’t be impeached is emblematic of the profound ignorance that continues to undermine his presidency.
