‘I hope he loses!’: Trump furious as Indiana election rigging scheme collapses, wishes worst on GOP who failed him

For someone who’s spent the last five years whining about the 2024 election being rigged, Donald Trump sure does like trying to rig elections. Trump and his team’s current objective is good old-fashioned gerrymandering: redrawing electoral maps to favor Republican candidates and minimize the impact of Democratic voters.

But, in a rare example of Republicans acting honorably, 21 Republicans in the Indiana Senate joined 10 Democrats to slap down his plan by a vote of 31-19. This happened despite intense pressure from the Trump administration to go along with the plan, though the Indiana GOP stood firm. State Senator Spencer Deery laid it all out:

“My opposition to mid-cycle gerrymandering is not in contrast to my conservative principles, my opposition is driven by them. As long as I have breath, I will use my voice to resist a federal government that attempts to bully, direct, and control this state or any state. Giving the federal government more power is not conservative.”

That’s despite a spittle-flecked post from a genuinely unhinged-sounding Trump, who took to Truth Social and vomited this out:

“Anybody that votes against Redistricting, and the SUCCESS of the Republican Party in D.C., will be, I am sure, met with a MAGA Primary in the Spring. If Republicans will not do what is necessary to save our Country, they will eventually lose everything to the Democrats. Rod Bray and his friends won’t be in Politics for long, and I will do everything within my power to make sure that they will not hurt the Republican Party, and our Country, again.”

A tantrum a five-year-old would be ashamed of

Well, his threats and anger fell flat. Trump is visibly seething about this but, when asked about the loss by reporters, tried to play off the whole thing as no big deal:

“I wasn’t working on it very hard. Would’ve been nice. I think we would’ve picked up two seats if we did that. And you had one gentleman, the head of the Senate, I guess, Bray, whatever his name is. I heard he was against it. He’ll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is. I hope he does, because he’s done a tremendous disservice.”

Trump then continued to pretend he didn’t know who Rod Bray was, the man he’s been directly pressuring over this vote for weeks:

“There’s a man named Bray, I guess, head of the Senate, was that Bray? Is that the name? Bray? And I mean, I’m sure that whenever his primary is, it’s I think in two years, but I sure he’ll go down. He’ll go down. I’ll certainly support anybody that wants to go against him.”

This Republican gerrymandering scam is as nakedly manipulative as it is stupid. Frankly, I never thought I’d ever be giving Indiana Republicans any credit for anything, but kudos to them for recognizing just how immoral and undemocratic redrawing the electoral map to directly benefit your party really is.