Utopia Talk / Politics / Indiana primaries today

Rugian rank	Tue May 05 12:51:41 These Indiana Republicans dared to buck Trump. Will they survive? Indiana's Tuesday primaries are the first big test for whether the president still has an iron grip over his party. Toggle menu These Indiana Republicans dared to buck Trump. Will they survive? Indiana's Tuesday primaries are the first big test for whether the president still has an iron grip over his party. Indiana state Sen. Spencer Deery canvasses a neighborhood. Indiana state Sen. Spencer Deery, who represents District 23, canvasses a neighborhood on April 11, 2026, in West Lafayette, Ind. | Doug McSchoolerAP By Adam Wren 05/05/2026 05:55 AM EDT INDIANAPOLIS — In May of 2016, on the eve of using Indiana’s primary to knock out his presidential rivals and claim control of the GOP nomination, then-candidate Donald Trump called the state “Importantville.” A decade later, Trump enters the Hoosier State’s primaries not on the ballot himself but looming over the crucial first stop along his monthlong retribution tour. Last December, nearly a dozen GOP state senators withstood intense political pressure and death threats to block a redraw of Indiana’s congressional maps, delivering the president his most embarrassing political setback since he returned to the White House. Now, eight of those lawmakers are Trump targets, fighting for their political lives as his allies have spent nearly $10 million combined against them. Trump’s allies need to win a majority of the eight seats to be able to claim victory, if not sweep them. Both sides would likely declare victory if they split the seats. If Trump’s side wins three seats or fewer, many will see it as a disaster and a red-state harbinger that Trump’s grip on his party is starting to slip as he heads toward lame-duck status. Much is riding on the result for Trump, who’s no longer an insurgent on the verge of a hostile takeover of the GOP, but the incumbent leader of a party he gutted and remade from the studs up. What happens in Indiana will be the first major test of his midterm-year grip on his base and the strength of his coalition in the solidly Republican state. The man who the movie Rudy is based on is in Trump’s corner in the contest. But the president’s GOP foes see themselves in the mold of another famous Indiana sports movie: a rag-tag group of scrappy Hoosiers facing daunting odds while trying to defend their honor. “In any other time, in any other place, where these DC guys come in with their own agenda, we tell them to go pound sand, and we’re Hoosiers, and we do our own thing, and we do it the right way, and we’re proud of it, and we should be,” said Indiana Republican strategist Mike O’Brien, who hasn’t worked on these primaries. ‘We’re just allowing these guys to come in and go, ‘you got it wrong,’ and believe it, and it pisses me off.” By almost any measure, Trump and his allies should romp Tuesday: The full weight and fury of the MAGA political machine has whirred to life against the eight lawmakers. Turning Point USA has unleashed its door-to-door turnout effort and papered the state with print campaign material. Gov. Mike Braun has endorsed the Trump-chosen challengers and uncorked half a million dollars against the incumbents. The pro-Trump Club for Growth, along with Sen. Jim Banks’ political nonprofit, has carpet bombed districts with millions of dollars in broadcast and other ads. Trump-aligned Rep. Marlin Stutzman has predicted MAGA will claim seven seats. “At this stage, we want all of them,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh has said of the seats at play. The Senate GOP campaign arm that protects the incumbents is essentially playing with their B-team, having to rebuild their campaign operation and finding a new polling firm after the longtime Trump pollster John McLaughlin cut them off out of loyalty to the president. “We would have been doing more polling work but if the incumbent voted against redistricting, we could no longer poll for them,” McLaughlin, who has worked for the Indiana Senate Majority Campaign Committee since 2010, told POLITICO. But it’s not at all clear the effort will work. Even Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, a staunch MAGA ally, said they would notch a win by flipping just three seats. It’s been telling that few, if any, of the Trump-backed challengers have made redistricting itself a focal point of their messaging. And some Republicans are viewing Tuesday’s election as a test of something larger than just Trump: federalism. “That’s Washington D.C. influence trying to tell Indiana what to do, or maybe even retribution for what it didn’t do,” Rodric Bray, Indiana’s Senate President Pro Tempore who led the charge against Trump’s redistricting push, told POLITICO in a rare interview. “Federalism is important to me. It’s how our system is set up, how our Constitution has been set up, and states have and should have control to govern themselves for almost every issue.” Toggle menu These Indiana Republicans dared to buck Trump. Will they survive? Indiana's Tuesday primaries are the first big test for whether the president still has an iron grip over his party. Indiana state Sen. Spencer Deery canvasses a neighborhood. Indiana state Sen. Spencer Deery, who represents District 23, canvasses a neighborhood on April 11, 2026, in West Lafayette, Ind. | Doug McSchoolerAP By Adam Wren 05/05/2026 05:55 AM EDT INDIANAPOLIS — In May of 2016, on the eve of using Indiana’s primary to knock out his presidential rivals and claim control of the GOP nomination, then-candidate Donald Trump called the state “Importantville.” A decade later, Trump enters the Hoosier State’s primaries not on the ballot himself but looming over the crucial first stop along his monthlong retribution tour. Last December, nearly a dozen GOP state senators withstood intense political pressure and death threats to block a redraw of Indiana’s congressional maps, delivering the president his most embarrassing political setback since he returned to the White House. Now, eight of those lawmakers are Trump targets, fighting for their political lives as his allies have spent nearly $10 million combined against them. Trump’s allies need to win a majority of the eight seats to be able to claim victory, if not sweep them. Both sides would likely declare victory if they split the seats. If Trump’s side wins three seats or fewer, many will see it as a disaster and a red-state harbinger that Trump’s grip on his party is starting to slip as he heads toward lame-duck status. Much is riding on the result for Trump, who’s no longer an insurgent on the verge of a hostile takeover of the GOP, but the incumbent leader of a party he gutted and remade from the studs up. What happens in Indiana will be the first major test of his midterm-year grip on his base and the strength of his coalition in the solidly Republican state. The man who the movie Rudy is based on is in Trump’s corner in the contest. But the president’s GOP foes see themselves in the mold of another famous Indiana sports movie: a rag-tag group of scrappy Hoosiers facing daunting odds while trying to defend their honor. “In any other time, in any other place, where these DC guys come in with their own agenda, we tell them to go pound sand, and we’re Hoosiers, and we do our own thing, and we do it the right way, and we’re proud of it, and we should be,” said Indiana Republican strategist Mike O’Brien, who hasn’t worked on these primaries. ‘We’re just allowing these guys to come in and go, ‘you got it wrong,’ and believe it, and it pisses me off.” By almost any measure, Trump and his allies should romp Tuesday: The full weight and fury of the MAGA political machine has whirred to life against the eight lawmakers. Turning Point USA has unleashed its door-to-door turnout effort and papered the state with print campaign material. Gov. Mike Braun has endorsed the Trump-chosen challengers and uncorked half a million dollars against the incumbents. The pro-Trump Club for Growth, along with Sen. Jim Banks’ political nonprofit, has carpet bombed districts with millions of dollars in broadcast and other ads. Trump-aligned Rep. Marlin Stutzman has predicted MAGA will claim seven seats. “At this stage, we want all of them,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh has said of the seats at play. The Senate GOP campaign arm that protects the incumbents is essentially playing with their B-team, having to rebuild their campaign operation and finding a new polling firm after the longtime Trump pollster John McLaughlin cut them off out of loyalty to the president. “We would have been doing more polling work but if the incumbent voted against redistricting, we could no longer poll for them,” McLaughlin, who has worked for the Indiana Senate Majority Campaign Committee since 2010, told POLITICO. But it’s not at all clear the effort will work. Even Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, a staunch MAGA ally, said they would notch a win by flipping just three seats. It’s been telling that few, if any, of the Trump-backed challengers have made redistricting itself a focal point of their messaging. And some Republicans are viewing Tuesday’s election as a test of something larger than just Trump: federalism. Watch: The Conversation SharePlay Video41:39 Can America trust AI? David Sacks makes the case. “That’s Washington D.C. influence trying to tell Indiana what to do, or maybe even retribution for what it didn’t do,” Rodric Bray, Indiana’s Senate President Pro Tempore who led the charge against Trump’s redistricting push, told POLITICO in a rare interview. “Federalism is important to me. It’s how our system is set up, how our Constitution has been set up, and states have and should have control to govern themselves for almost every issue.” The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. Bray, who is not up for reelection until 2028, could face a White House-instigated leadership challenge if enough Trump-backed candidates win Tuesday. “We’re after you Bray,” Trump posted to Truth Social earlier this year, “like no one has ever come after you before!”” Bray declined to characterize what number of seats retained would constitute a victory for the president. “I hate that question,” he said, adding that the composition of the Senate “changes all the time.” Still, his campaign arm has broadcast in private conversations with allies that they expect a mixed result Tuesday: “It’s a process issue that’s not really that important to [voters] in a lot of ways, and it’s not on their radar screen,” said Bray of redistricting. Bray, a small-town lawyer and former Sunday school teacher whose father preceded him in the state Senate, has started a dark-money group — Indiana First Coalition Inc — to help level the playing field. Senate Republicans have spent roughly $3 million defending their incumbents so far. “We’ve tried to be helpful, as we always are, with our colleagues that are incumbents right now and will continue to be,” Bray said. “The challenge, of course, is that money matters in politics. When [more than] $9 million is spent that has a huge impact, and we’ll see what the result is.” Even if Trump’s candidates prevail, spending that much on a retribution campaign in a safe-red state — money that could have been spent playing defense or offense in battlegrounds — may mean something of a pyrrhic victory for MAGA in a crucial midterm year. “It’s political malpractice to divert that money away from what should be the focus of electing Republicans,” said state Sen. Spencer Deery, one of the Trump-targeted incumbents, who has had $2 million spent against him. “Instead, not only is that money that’s coming from out of state not being used to elect Republicans in Congress, I and my colleagues are raising money at unprecedented rates in order to be able to compete — and that is money that also cannot be directed towards maintaining Congress.” https://ww...tivitypub&utm_source=flipboard
Rugian rank	Tue May 05 12:52:21 Oh ffs. Mods please delete.
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