Voters mark their ballots during the presidential election on Nov. 5, 2024 in Tryon, North Carolina. Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits, Getty Images.

By Leslie Bonilla Muñiz
Indiana Capital Chronicle

INDIANAPOLIS — Hoosiers who oppose early redistricting are more vehement in their convictions than proponents, a new poll says.

Indiana lawmakers will meet in December to consider redrawing the state’s two blue congressional districts red ahead of the 2026 midterm elections – following a months-long pressure campaign by Pres. Donald Trump and his administration officials for a mid-cycle flip.

In a statewide survey of 800 registered voters, 51% didn’t want redistricting now – with 45% “strongly” opposed. About 39% supported the prospect, but just 23% “strongly” backed it.

Virginia-based Bellwether Research, led by prominent Hoosier pollster Christine Mathews, performed the survey for Indiana Conservation Voters. The group is against redistricting.

“The negative intensity on the opposition is 2-to-1 over the positive intensity,” Matthews said. “So what I’m saying about this is: the folks who are are really against this, are really against this. And the folks that say they support it are mildly supportive of it.”

During a Thursday, Nov. 6 news conference, she said the sample “is robustly reflective” of Indiana’s GOP voters, noting, “I have seen the other polls on redistricting. I think our survey is probably the most solidly Republican … in terms of sample composition.”

Of the 800 respondents, 49% were Republicans, 35% were Democrats and 16% were independents.

The poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 29-30 and Saturday, Nov. 1 – after Gov. Mike Braun announced a special session – with an overall margin of error of 3.5%.

Bellwether Research also targeted more than 600 voters living in the state’s 40 Republican-held Senate districts. Of those, 48% opposed redistricting – with 43% “strongly” against it. About 42% professed support for redistricting, with 26% feeling “strongly” in favor.

Indiana’s Senate has become a potential stumbling block for early redistricting proponents. While the House’s GOP leader has confirmed enough support within his caucus to pass new maps, his counterpart in the Senate has repeatedly said the votes “aren’t there.”

Other Findings

Voters are generally aware of the redistricting push, per the poll.

Most respondents – 63% – reported following redistricting news “fairly” or “very” closely, with Democrats more likely than Republicans to be keeping up on developments.

Bellwether Research also looked at how voters’ sentiments could translate into action at the ballot box.

Pollster Christine Matthews presents the results of a survey during a virtual news conference. Screenshot of virtual meeting.

Asked how they’d feel if their state legislator voted to redraw the maps, 43% said they would disapprove and be less likely to vote for them. About 6% would disapprove but wouldn’t change their vote.

Meanwhile, 27% said they would approve and be more likely to vote for that legislator. About 12% wouldn’t pay much attention either way.

Some questions were asked only of Republican voters.

Bellwether Research presented them with a pair of options, for example. One proclaimed that GOP lawmakers who oppose redistricting are “standing up for fairness” and “keeping politics out” of the process, and the second asserted those lawmakers are “betraying” Trump and “helping Democrats keep power.”

Republican respondents were fairly split, with 38% choosing the “fairness” perspective, 37% choosing the “betrayal” version and 26% unsure. That’s although 90% of them viewed Trump positively.

The survey also tested various anti-redistricting arguments, ranging from a proposed focus on kitchen-table issues – which voters found most convincing – to accusations of D.C.-led election-rigging.

“If I were state legislator, I would not be worried about where I stood on redistricting in terms of backlash,” Matthews said. “I would be worried about not doing enough for voters in their real lives.”

She described little evidence that Hoosiers are connecting their support for the president to state lawmakers’ actions.

“I know that the folks who want Republican legislators to do this are threatening retribution, but I’m not seeing in the data that individual voters are going to be incredibly responsive to that,” Matthews said. “… They could run candidates against these folks, but I don’t see average, rank-and-file Republicans in Indiana getting super fired up about this.”

Indiana’s elections are largely uncompetitive, so many races are decided at the primary election in May – and primary voters tend to lean further one way or the other on the partisan spectrum.

Still, Matthews said, “I’m not seeing a lot of evidence that even when you shrink this down to a low-turnout, Republican primary election, that this is going to be the kind of issue that is a single-issue determinant.”

The poll also asked voters how they feel about the country and state’s top two political leaders.

• Trump: 50% favorable, 45% unfavorable
• Vice President JD Vance: 50% favorable, 42% unfavorable
• Indiana Gov. Mike Braun: 32% favorable, 50% unfavorable
• Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith: 16% favorable, 32% unfavorable, with many unsure or unaware of him.

The results echo other surveys conducted in October by North Star Opinion Research on behalf of Independent Indiana, and in August by the left-leaning Change Research.

District lines are typically reconfigured every 10 years, after the release of new decennial census data. The Statehouse’s GOP supermajorities constructed the current 7-2 maps in 2021.