WABASH VALLEY, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — State leaders are speaking out on the push to redraw congressional districts.
State Representative Bruce Borders said this call to action is a response to the way Democratic-led states have redrawn their maps in the past.
“The President, at the very least, what he has done is call attention to the unfairness of the gerrymandering of the past”, Borders said.
Dr. Carly Schmitt is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Indiana State University. She agrees that this strategy happens on both sides of the political aisle, but said this time it’s different.
“Depending on who gets to control the redistricting process, we will always see that, but this is blatant redistricting that is happening for a political partisan endgame”, Schmitt said. “That very much goes against Democratic principles of free, open, and fair election processes.”
Indiana currently sits at a 7-2 Republican-majority congressional delegation, so the most likely focus is on district 1 in the northwest portion of the state. In the Wabash Valley, we already have Republican leadership.
“We wouldn’t see any partisan changes, but we might see a difference in what district we are in”, Schmitt said. “Instead, of us being in the same district of folks in Evansville, perhaps we are in the same district as people more northern.”
Borders said Indiana districts were recently graded as one of the fairest in the country and he doesn’t want to see that change.
“Even though I’m disgusted by the unfairness of other states, I’m an Indiana State Representative, not an Illinois State Representative, and I feel our maps were drawn very fairly”, Borders said.
The filing deadline in Indiana for candidates participating in the 2026 election is in early February, forcing action on this issue to be completed in the next few months.
President Trump has invited members of the Indiana Republican Legislature to Washington D.C. to dicuss the issue later this week.
