Gov. Mike Braun addresses reporters on Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, at the Indiana Statehouse. (Niki Kelly/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
Gov. Mike Braun suggested Monday that Indiana lawmakers could return for a special session in November to redraw congressional boundaries — his clearest signal yet in support of mid-cycle redistricting.
Speaking on Fort Wayne’s WOWO radio, Braun said the state is “in the process where we will evolve in that direction,” and continued to emphasize — as he has in recent weeks — that he wants Hoosier legislative leaders to take the lead on the issue.
“I want it to be where it wasn’t forced upon our legislature, have our leaders talk to their own caucus members,” Braun said. “Some have already changed their point of view when they look at what good comes from it.
“You’re going to find that, probably, the legislators will come around to it,” he continued. “I’m going to give them time. I think eventually we’ll get there.”
Possible ‘consequences’
He pointed to Ohio and Florida as examples. Ohio is already preparing for a map redraw, while Florida’s Supreme Court recently upheld a GOP-favored congressional map.
Braun also tied Indiana’s timeline to national GOP politics.
“If we try to drag our feet as a state on it, probably, we’ll have consequences of not working with the Trump administration as tightly as we should,” Braun said.
Vice President JD Vance visited the Indiana Statehouse in early August to meet with GOP leaders about redistricting, and later that month, a group of Republican lawmakers traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with Vance and other federal officials about the same issue.
You’re going to find that, probably, the legislators will come around to it.
– Gov. Mike Braun
Some Hoosier legislators said those conversations played a role in their decision to change their stance.
Trump is pushing GOP-led states like Indiana to redraw maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections to ensure a Republican majority in the U.S. House for the rest of his second term. Redistricting is typically only done after the decennial census.
The Republican governor raised the possibility of lawmakers returning before the end of the year.
“We’ll have to do that either at the very beginning of the next (legislative) session we have in ‘26, or probably more ideally sometime in November,” he said in the radio interview. The next regularly scheduled legislative session, for 2026, begins in January.
Waiting until 2026 would be complicated by the filing period for congressional primaries starting in January.
The governor is the only one empowered to call a special session. A two-week special session in Indiana in 2022 cost about $240,000.
Lawmakers still divided, leadership quiet
Braun’s comments come amid ongoing deliberations among Indiana’s Republican supermajorities. GOP senators held a closed-door caucus last week to discuss redistricting, but did not comment publicly afterward. House Republicans also caucused virtually on Friday and have met previously in person.
Legislative leadership has largely remained silent on the issue.
Still, some rank-and-file lawmakers have started to shift. Among them, Seymour Rep. Jim Lucas recently flipped from opposing to supporting a map redraw, saying he went from a “hard no to a hell yes.”
Others — like Sen. Spencer Deery, of West Lafayette — said as recently as last week that they remain against making changes before the next census.
Outside the Statehouse, opposition is also mounting. A coalition of advocacy groups delivered nearly 9,000 signatures last week urging lawmakers not to pursue early redistricting.
Braun on Monday specifically dismissed Democratic criticisms of the idea, pointing to the state’s maps from two decades ago.
“I think more and more legislators are understanding that the real gerrymandering — you ought to look at the map that the Dems did from the year 2000, where they were in charge of the new jurisdictions,” he said. “That looked like the tentacles of an octopus, would be the best way to describe it. So you’re going to find, I think, that … (Democrats) are raising most of the chorus against it — because they cannot gerrymander any further.”
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