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The Washington, D.C.-based anti-tax Club for Growth is trying again to turn up the pressure on Indiana’s Republican legislators to support a new round of congressional redistricting.
The organization announced Tuesday it would be airing a 30-second ad on TV network stations and Fox News in Indianapolis this week.
That is just ahead of legislators’ returning to the Statehouse on Nov. 18 for their annual Organization Day meeting—and the Dec. 1 start of a two-week redistricting debate amid uncertainty over whether enough Republican legislators support redrawing the maps they approved four years ago.
The new TV ad leads with news video about Gov. Mike Braun calling a special session for redistricting and mentions the redistricting action in the Democratic-led states of California, Illinois and Virginia.
It does not mention that President Donald Trump started the fight by pushing Texas Republicans to redraw its congressional map to squeeze out more GOP-friendly districts ahead of the 2026 elections. The ad also doesn’t include Republican redistricting moves in Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina.
Supporters want Indiana lawmakers to craft a map with all nine Indiana congressional districts favoring Republicans based on 2020 census data. The current split is 7-2 in favor of the GOP.
The Club for Growth ad urges viewers to call an Indiana Senate phone number and tell legislators to “stand with Trump, pass new maps now.”
The organization did not reply to a request from Indiana Capital Chronicle for an interview about its pro-redistricting ad, which follows a similar one about a month ago.
Club for Growth President David McIntosh told The Indianapolis Star that it had already spent more than $1 million to support Republican redistricting efforts across the country.
McIntosh said the group is “going to spend what it takes” to boost the current 7-2 Republican advantage in Indiana’s U.S. House delegation.
“Our message is, to the Republicans, man up and get in the game,” he told the Star.
McIntosh was an eastern Indiana congressman in the 1990s and was the unsuccessful 2000 Republican nominee for governor.
The Club for Growth inserted itself into Indiana politics in early 2023 by criticizing former Gov. Mitch Daniels as an insufficiently conservative “old guard Republican” as the organization sought to keep him from challenging then-U.S. Rep. Jim Banks for the 2024 GOP nomination for a U.S. Senate seat.
A group called Fair Maps Indiana, which has deep ties to Trump, launched this week what it called a six-figure advertising effort in favor of the redistricting push. That includes digital, cellphone, television and mail ads.
The pro-redistricting campaigns come as a recent statewide poll 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.
The poll was sponsored by the group Indiana Conservation Voters, which has led an anti-redistricting campaign since soon after the possibility emerged in August with Vice President JD Vance’s first of two trips to the state to push the issue.
Megan Robertson, the executive director of Indiana Conservation Voters, called the pro-redistricting campaigns the product of Washington consultants trying to stir up voter anger.
“People are fired up and they’re fired up about this redistricting scheme because they see it for what it is, which is cheating,” Robertson told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “You got a bunch of guys from Washington, D.C., trying to bully our legislators and Hoosiers are telling them not to do it.”
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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