If anyone wondered if President Donald Trump’s powerful influence over the Republican Party was still fully intact almost a year-and-a-half into his second term, the answer was revealed following the results of the Indiana Republican primary on May 5, 2026. Five months ago, many Republicans in the Hoosier State’s Senate opted to resist pressure from the president concerning congressional redistricting.
Had they gone along with President Trump and passed measures to redraw district lines, the new map would have given the red state two more conservative seats in the U.S. House ahead of the midterms. Fast-forward to now and eight of the establishment Republicans who voted against the redistricting measure faced GOP primary challenges.
Seeking vengeance against those who sought to sabotage the president’s plan to retain control over the House and Senate in the midterm elections this November, Trump endorsed challengers to seven of the eight GOP lawmakers who voted against the bill. Five of those whom the president endorsed defeated the incumbents, with only one surviving the onslaught. At the time of this writing, one race has yet to be determined.
According to a report from Fox News, Blake Fletcher, endorsed by President Trump, beat incumbent state Sen. Travis Holdman in Indiana’s 19th District, located in the northeastern part of the state. Michelle Davis, who was also backed by Trump, defeated incumbent Sen. Greg Walker in District 41, located in the center of Indiana.
Another candidate supported by the president, Tracey Powell, topped state Sen. Jim Buck in District 21. Buck was endorsed by Trump’s former vice president from his first term, Mike Pence, who also previously served as an elected congressman and governor of Indiana. In District 11, incumbent Sen. Linda Rogers was beaten by Brian Schmutzler, also endorsed by Trump.
The only state senator to make it through as of this writing was Sen. Greg Goode, who beat out two challengers, Trump-backed Brenda Wilson and Alexandra Wilson, in District 38, in western Indiana. However, in District 39, Jeff Ellington, another Trump pick, won the Republican nomination in an open-seat race where there was no incumbent.
A GOP source who was close with the effort to beat the Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) in the Indiana Senate, revealed that a total of over $8 million was spent on television and digital ads between the American Leadership PAC and Hoosier Leadership for America to help boot the incumbents. Both of those organizations are closely aligned with Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana, who is a close ally of the president’s in the U.S. Senate.
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“Everyone in Indiana politics should have learned an important lesson today: President Trump is the single most popular Republican among Hoosier voters. Indiana is a conservative state, and we deserve conservatives in our state Senate who have a pulse on Republican voters,” Banks went on to say in a statement.
The battle between the incumbents and the more MAGA-aligned candidates was seen as a fight for the future of the Republican Party as a whole. “We’ve got to change those old-style Republicans, put in people who will fight, fight against the Democrat gerrymandering,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh told Fox News just ahead of the primary.
Another source closely involved in the effort to boot the incumbents told Fox that if half the MAGA candidates won, that would be considered a victory. If they pulled in more, that would be a major win. According to those standards, since more than half sealed the deal in the primary race, Trump scored a “major win.”
Watch one ousted RINO loser whine about his defeat: