By Eric Bradner

Indianapolis (CNN) — Republicans in Indiana have for months been hearing conflicting messages: Demands to join the nationwide redistricting arms race from President Donald Trump’s administration and his allies – and nearly unanimous opposition to the idea from their constituents, even in deep-red districts that back the president.

Groups pushing for redistricting funded TV ads, texts, videos and robocalls demanding that state senators redraw US House maps to create one or two more Republican-friendly seats. One state senator reported “extremely negative” messages going out across her district, including to her 14-year-old grandson.

That push hit a wall on Friday.

Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray announced there weren’t enough votes in his chamber, even with a GOP supermajority, to return in December for a special session to consider redistricting.

What became clear in the lead-up to Bray’s announcement was that the pressure campaign launched by Trump’s allies — including the Club for Growth and Fair Maps Indiana, a newly formed group staffed by former Trump aides and led by veteran Indiana Republican operative Marty Obst — hadn’t helped and might even have backfired.

Republicans pushing for Indiana to redistrict didn’t back down after Bray’s announcement. Alex Bruesewitz, the Trump podcast guru and adviser to Trump’s political action committee, wrote on X: “A MONUMENTAL BETRAYAL IS UNFOLDING IN INDIANA RIGHT NOW.” He vowed that the entire “Make America Great Again” movement would mobilize to primary Indiana state senators who refused to go along.

But Rob Kendall, an influential conservative talk radio host on WIBC in Indianapolis, said that “all these social media influencers barking” weren’t going to instill fear in lawmakers who hadn’t seen a groundswell of support for redistricting.

“What’s the case? You’re going to knock on the door and say, ‘You should vote this senator out because he did what his constituents wanted?’” Kendall said.

He said part of why voters in the deep-red state didn’t rally behind redistricting is that they’d watched Indiana lawmakers fail to sufficiently address rising property taxes earlier this year.

“But they’ll move heaven and earth to help Republicans pick up two seats in Congress,” Kendall said. “And people are saying, wait a second — you won’t do anything to help me, but you’ll do all this to help your party. I think that rubbed people the wrong way.”

Redistricting supporters aren’t backing down

The drama over whether Indiana would join the growing list of states to redraw their congressional maps offered a window into the pressure Republicans face to follow Trump’s wishes.

Vice President JD Vance visited the state twice to make the case to Gov. Mike Braun and legislative leaders and met with lawmakers who had been invited to the White House. National Republicans took to social media to threaten primary challenges to Republicans who failed to support redistricting.

Braun, who had called the special session, said in a statement that he wasn’t backing down.

“I called for our legislators to convene to ensure Hoosiers’ voices in Washington, DC, are not diluted by the democrats’ gerrymandering,” Braun said in a statement. “Our state senators need to do the right thing and show up to vote for fair maps. Hoosiers deserve to know where their elected officials stand on important issues.”

Supporters and opponents of redistricting agreed before Bray’s announcement on where things stood. The House would vote to approve new maps intended to turn the state’s 7-to-2, Republican-to-Democrat congressional delegation into one that is 8-to-1 or 9-to-0. But the fate of a new congressional map was much less clear in the Senate.

Braun, the Indiana Republican Party and the state’s entire GOP congressional delegation have endorsed redistricting. But they’ve also made clear it wasn’t their idea and haven’t sought to force individual legislators’ hands. It’s a stark contrast with Kansas, another state Trump-world is eyeing for redistricting, where the Republican House speaker has stripped three Republicans of their committee chairmanships for refusing to back new congressional lines there.

Longtime Republican Sen. Jean Leising, who represents a deep-red, rural swath of southeastern Indiana, said in an earlier statement she was opposed to redistricting because her constituents were “overwhelmingly opposed” to redistricting. But Leising was also incensed by the campaign to pressure her.

“Some have even been sent via cell phone to students in my district, including my 14-year-old grandson,” she said. “These groups do not have the best interest of my rural area or the state of Indiana at heart, and their methods are completely unacceptable.”

Leising said only 6% of her constituents supported redistricting. Other senators shared similar numbers, based on the contacts their offices had received. Republican Sen. Kyle Walker — who is also the executive vice president of Obst’s political consulting firm and a member of the Indiana Republican Party State Committee — said in a statement Thursday he would vote against redistricting because 93% of his constituents opposed it.

In a town hall earlier this month, Sen. Greg Goode, a Republican who has not taken a public position on the issue, heard from 71 attendees who opposed redistricting and none who supported it, The Indianapolis Star reported.

A debate with huge midterm consequences

Democrats need to gain just three seats in the US House after next year’s midterms to take control of the chamber and potentially block parts of Trump’s agenda during the final two years of his White House term.

Trump’s political operation instigated the mid-decade redistricting arms race this year when they persuaded Texas to create five additional GOP-friendly seats. So far, GOP-led mapmaking efforts have redrawn seats in four states – Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio – to add a total of nine potential seats to the Republican column.

Last week, Californians voted by a large margin to approve five additional Democratic-friendly districts, which represents the largest tranche of seats Democrats can secure through a map change in a single state. The Justice Department has since gone to court to try to invalidate the California referendum.

With Virginia Democrats also moving to consider redistricting and produce two or three Democratic-leaning seats, Republicans could end up with a wash nationally unless other GOP-led states act to create more friendly seats.

Hours before Bray issued his statement, Club for Growth President David McIntosh told CNN that his group was “working with the leadership in the Senate” to try to persuade undecided senators to back redistricting.

McIntosh said Bray and Senate leaders are “being careful and cautious, as they should be,” as they try to get the votes necessary to pass new maps.

“I think what they’ll do is bring it up, have more discussion among the Republican senators, and I’m confident in the end they’ll convince people of the view that I have: that really, Republicans need to step up and do this,” he said. “They shouldn’t be afraid of the bad press they might get or their Democratic colleagues getting mad at them.”

Obst, who launched Fair Maps Indiana, said the group he is leading also includes Trump 2024 senior adviser Chris LaCivita, as well as political consultant Chip Englander and Trump ad man John Brabender.

“It’s a shame Sen. Bray blocked the special session,” Obst said Friday. “It’s clear he does not support President Trump’s agenda. Senators should show up and do their jobs and vote on redistricting.”

He added: “Like elections, decisions have consequences. I anticipate those consequences to be severe.”

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