Updated May 6, 2026, 12:41 a.m. ET
President Donald Trump tested the strength of his endorsement in eight Indiana Senate races, and he basically aced it.
The candidates he endorsed in his revenge plot to oust Republican incumbents who voted against mid-decade redistricting nearly all prevailed, and some by a landslide. Only one incumbent survived. One more is hanging on by a thread in a race that is still too close to call, per NBC News.
The resounding victory is a testament to Trump’s still-reigning power over the party, reinforced with more than $10 million in ad spending from allied groups like Club For Growth, Hoosier Leadership for America and American Leadership PAC. Indiana Senate leaders tried to combat the onslaught with record spending of their own to defend their incumbents, to little avail.
Should the six successful Trump-endorsed candidates also survive their general elections, they would tip the scales in the Indiana Senate Republican caucus in favor of granting Trump’s asks on topics like redistricting ― which would have passed had there been six more “yes” votes from lawmakers, plus Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith’s support.
“I’m excited about the next generation coming into the Republican party and Republican leadership,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh told IndyStar. “The old school guys like [Senate President Pro Tempore] Rod Bray can take a backseat or decide to step down and let some people who are more part of the team take over.”
Bray has taken the boatload of ire from Trump since last fall, when he first indicated that his caucus wouldn’t support redistricting. But he has remained steadfast, telling CNN the day before the election that he had “no regrets” about Indiana’s fateful decision to reject the president, citing the wishes of most of their constituents.
On election night, some of the margins were devastating to incumbents: in Northwest Indiana, a nearly 50% margin for Trevor De Vries, the St. John resident who defeated incumbent Sen. Dan Dernulc of Highland; a 23-point margin of victory for Blake Fiechter, a one-term Bluffton city councilor who bested majority caucus chair Sen. Travis Holdman; a gulf of nearly 30 percentage points between Trump-endorsed Tipton County Commissioner Tracey Powell and longtime Sen. Jim Buck of Kokomo.
To Trump allies, this amounts to a regime change.
“Tonight, Hoosier Republican primary voters sent a clear message: they are tired of the status quo and want bold leadership at the Statehouse,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement.
Meanwhile, six of the seven incumbent state senators who Trump endorsed due to their support for redistricting survived with double-digit margins, though a seventh ― featuring Fort Wayne Sen. Liz Brown and U.S. Sen. Jim Banks staffer Darren Vogt ― remains very close without a winner declared.
At a Wells County watch party, Holdman said he felt “numb” and somewhat surprised by his result.
“I have one message for people: Revenge and retribution is not a Christian value,” Holdman said. “That’s what this was all about. I’m not bitter about it. It’s just a fact.”
Buck, an 18-year veteran of the Senate, expressed similar disappointment in the level of intervention by the president in a campaign revolved around retribution and money. Between him and Holdman, more than 35 years of experience in the Indiana Statehouse has been wiped out.
“Power becomes an insatiable appetite. And you’ve just got to be careful what you do with that power and money,” he said. “The irony is when a Democrat becomes president, and they will, they’re going to do the same thing.”
On the other side of it, Fiechter said he thought the influence of Trump was “obviously instrumental” in him winning but said he doesn’t think outside influence will continue from Washington.
“I’m going to stick with my own gut and my own instincts,” he said.
This was one of the primary concerns of incumbents like Sen. Spencer Deery of West Lafayette, who argued that the success of Trump-endorsed candidates could mean more members of the Indiana Statehouse would be willing to take direct orders from the president.
His is the race that is still too close to call. NBC News has him leading Trump-endorsed Paula Copenhaver by just three percentage points. Both Deery and Copenhaver have claimed victory.
Trump allies see these results as a sign that Republican primary voters ultimately want their state representatives to support Trump’s agenda.
This could very well make redistricting in 2028 a higher likelihood in Indiana, McIntosh said, but there are other national issues he sees becoming increasingly relevant in statehouses across the country, from school choice to voting to housing affordability, that may prompt more national involvement in local races.
“I think you’re going to see more issues come back to the state and that’ll trigger more competitive elections,” he said.
This isn’t welcome news to all Hoosiers, some of whom were put off by the size and fervor of the negative advertising from outside groups in these hyperlocal races.
“It’s disappointing,” said Wells County GOP volunteer Patty Elwell, who voted for Trump in 2024 but supported Holdman in the Senate race. “Money runs everything now, I guess.”
The lone survivor, so far
The main exception to Trump’s sweep was in Senate District 38, where Sen. Greg Goode of Terre Haute defended his incumbency against two challengers.
And he might still have done so even if there were only one Wilson challenging him. Trump-endorsed Brenda Wilson’s 36% of the vote and Alexandra Wilson’s 10% still does not amount to Goode’s 54%.
Brenda Wilson faced some challenges in that race, among them the fact that her late husband’s family endorsed Goode. Goode is also a relatively new senator himself, and was the only one to hold a public town hall about redistricting last year.
It’s unclear whether he’ll be joined by another exception in Deery’s race.
“It was a challenging and close race. We were massively outspent, but Hoosier voices prevailed,” Deery wrote on Facebook, presuming his victory. “I tried to campaign as though I was behind by a small margin every single day, including hanging outside polling places in the rain today. That’s the only way I know how to run.”
In a statement of her own, Copenhaver said she believes she’ll be declared the winner once all provisional ballots are counted.
“I want to thank President Donald Trump for his unwavering support and endorsement,” she said. “President Trump is the leader of our party, and it showed clearly tonight in his victories across the state.”
Contact IndyStar Statehouse reporter Kayla Dwyer at kdwyer@indystar.com or follow her on X@kayla_dwyer17.
