When it comes to the top flashpoint in American politics at the moment, Republican voters understand the stakes, even if Republican politicians don’t.
That was the lesson out of Indiana’s primary elections on Tuesday that saw state lawmakers targeted by President Donald Trump go down in defeat to challengers.
And it’s a lesson to which the establishments of both parties should be paying attention.
According to theIndianapolis Star, at least five of the seven Republicans on the ballot who’d opposed a Trump-backed plan to redraw the Hoosier State’s congressional map had been turned out by their party’s voters.
“It’s rare for a state senator to lose in a primary,” the Indianapolis Star reported Tuesday. “Before today, it’s only happened to Indiana Republican senators six times since 2002: three of which occurred in the same districts where incumbents were ousted this year.”
That’s because this year is different.
At a time when Republican legislatures are pulling out all the stops to keep a GOP majority in the U.S. House in the November elections, 21 Indiana Republican state senatorsscuttled a planin December to redistrict the state in a way designed to pick up two more House seats while shutting Democrats out completely.
With state Senate elections staggered, and the retirement of one of those Republicans from office, seven of those lawmakers faced GOP voters on Tuesday.
The results weren’t even close.
In Indiana’s Republican primaries, voters ousted several incumbent state senators who opposed a proposed congressional redistricting plan.
Source: VidNews » Feed
