Trump and Vance Hit Unexpected Snag in Indiana -

Former Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels penned an op-ed in The Washington Post on Wednesday evening encouraging Republicans in his home state’s Senate who are currently opposed to mid-cycle redistricting to stand firm and not cave to pressure from the White House.

In the piece, Daniels, who has rarely made political statements since leaving office, argued that the only reason to re-draw congressional district lines mid-cycle would be to correct some sort of “obvious injustice.”

“Republicans drew this map and have no unfairness to complain about; with about 60 percent of the state’s total congressional votes cast, they won seven out of nine House seats,” he wrote, before arguing that there was no possible way to re-form lines around Indianapolis, one area that the Trump administration is pressuring Indiana Republicans to target with a new map, that could reliably flip the area saturated with Democratic voters for Republicans. He warned about the consequences of attempting to redraw lines in the northwest corner of the state as well.

“No amount of line-drawing artistry can turn that area into a Republican seat, so that leaves the state’s northwest corner, where the Democratic margin has been in the mid-50s,” he wrote. “Conceivably some computer could carve out a winnable GOP district. The attempt, which might not even work, would, I’m convinced, come at the expense of public disgust; Hoosiers, like most Americans, place a high value on fairness and react badly to its naked violation.”

As TPM reported today, many of President Trump’s loyalists in the Indiana legislature are taking the pressure campaign, which the White House has been orchestrating for months, into their hands. Some have been publicly threatening their Republican colleagues in the state Senate who oppose Trump’s mid-decade gerrymandering effort to get in line with the national party and help Republicans keep the U.S. House in 2026. (As TPM has often noted, the whole scramble to steal the House does not suggest Republicans have much confidence in how the 2026 midterms will go.)

The problem with the bullying approach: the White House has been actively courting Republicans in the state legislature since August in an attempt to force them to redraw district lines for the two seats that Indiana Democrats hold in the U.S. House. Vice President JD Vance has visited the state twice to make the administration’s case. And, yet, they still don’t have the votes to pass new maps. The governor’s office announced that earlier this week.

Daniels is the only high-profile Republican politician I’ve seen, thus far, who is publicly offering support to Republican members of the state Senate who don’t want to participate in Trump’s efforts to rig the midterms by redrawing congressional boundaries in a way that predetermines the results.

“I don’t underestimate the pressure Indiana’s leaders are under, and I empathize with them in the predicament they face, but I hope they’ll quietly and respectfully pass on this idea. Their duty is to the citizens and the future of our state, not to a national political organization or a temporary occupant of the White House,” Daniels concluded in his piece in the Post. “And doing the right thing, by the way, really would be its own reward.”

— Nicole LaFond

Virginia Dems Will Redraw Maps

Democrats in Virginia are planning to take the first steps toward redrawing some congressional district lines in order to potentially give their party two or three more seats in the U.S. House. Virginia was not high, until now, on anyone’s list of potential counter-moves by Democrats to offset the impacts of Trump’s nationwide redistricting gambit.

Democratic state legislators announced their plans today, making Virginia the second state where Democrats are trying to fight Trump’s efforts to give Republicans an advantage in the midterms. More from the New York Times:

No other Democratic state has begun redistricting proceedings, while several Republican states have drawn new maps or are deliberating doing so.

Democrats now hold six of Virginia’s 11 congressional seats. Redistricting could deliver two or three additional seats for the party, depending on how aggressive cartographers choose to be in a redrawing effort.

“We are coming back to address actions by the Trump administration,” said Scott Surovell, the majority leader of the Virginia Senate.

— Nicole LaFond

Trump Listens to Rich Friends in San Fran

Trump backed off his threats to send federal law enforcement into San Fransisco Thursday, sparing the city for now from the same assault he’s aimed at other blue cities across the nation under the pretense of conducting immigration raids and supposedly cracking down on crime. He made the announcement in a Truth Social post where he acknowledged that his rich tech friends persuaded him to leave the new mayor, Daniel Lurie, alone for the time being.

“The people of San Francisco have come together on fighting Crime, especially since we began to take charge of that very nasty subject. Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff, and others have called saying that the future of San Francisco is great. They want to give it a ‘shot.’ Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday. Stay tuned!”

— Nicole LaFond

Dispatch From Lower Manhattan

Here’s a report from my colleague Hunter Walker, who was on the ground outside 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan for the second night in a row Wednesday night. The building has become notorious as a location where the Trump administration is unceremoniously rounding up immigrants before and after their court dates.

Wednesday evening was quieter than it was on Tuesday night, when federal law enforcement conducted a sweeping immigration raid blocks away on Canal Street, a scene that New York City’s Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (D) described to TPM as “authoritarian.”