The Indiana redistricting battle 2026 is now the center of the national political map, and Heritage Action’s Paul Lagemann explains why the fight in Indianapolis will shape control of Congress. The committee’s 9 to 0 map, the push for second reading, and the Senate resistance are turning Indiana into the first major test of the 2026 landscape.
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This clip aired on WarRoom’s evening show on December 2, 2025. Transcript begins below (lightly edited for clarity; may contain minor errors).
ALL IN FOR INDIANA: Paul Lagemann With The Latest Updates On The Redistricting Fight In Indiana
STEVE BANNON (HOST): I love Jake Sherman and the Katie Turr, and whether they now, they are not MSNBC, it is MSW, ShamWow, over at ShamWow of the new network, Katie Turr. They do not talk about 45 percent of folks in a 40 million persons in state in California. You are going to have four seats, and they want to have none, 52 to 0.
Paul Lagerman joins me from Heritage Action. Paul, this is kind of your beat over at Heritage Action. Tiffany Justice and the team over there tell me you are the absolute killer on this. We just, despite MSNBC, we just had very good news come out of Indiana, and that is the committee, I think, voted 8 to 5 to put forward a map that is 9 to 0. Can you walk us through the process, sir?
PAUL LAGEMANN (GUEST): Absolutely. So this began, you know, months ago. The fact that we talk about this happening overnight in Indiana is absolutely incorrect. This conversation has been ongoing for months, talking about redistricting, talking about these maps, talking about the inequity that we have in Indiana, where we have the 7 to 2 majority within our congressional delegation in a state that is deep red. Every statewide elected official in the state is a Republican and has been for the last few cycles. And we have not had a Democrat here in quite some time. The numbers just bear this out.
So today what happened, the exciting part of today is this was the first actual legislative step. The House came in early. This is special session light in that it is not the exact special session. This is an early start to the actual session. So the House came in. The bill was introduced yesterday on the floor of the House. Committee hearing lasted all day today. I can say that Heritage Action, we were about the only folks that testified in favor of this bill, and it was just, it was person after person from about 9.30 in the morning until about 3 o’clock in the afternoon that did not like to see, that did not want redistricting.
And as you said, the vote came out favorably in the committee. Now it moves on to second reading. Second reading will happen tomorrow. On second reading in Indiana, there is the opportunity to amend the bill, to discuss the bill, to debate the bill. This is sort of the big hit, right? And you are going to see tomorrow just everything in the kitchen sink come at this bill in the form of amendments trying to tear it apart, adding poison pills. Those are all going to be defeated tomorrow because we know going into this that the House numbers are there. The votes are there in the Republican caucus. Remember, in Indiana, it is a 70 to 30 House. Quite literally, there are 100 members, 70 Republicans, 30 Democrats. The House can conduct business without the Democrats showing up. They do not have to worry about quorum or that sort of thing.
So tomorrow is the big day for all the amendments and then third reading on Friday. At the same time as Turning Point will be hosting a very large rally in the State House right next door to the House of Representatives on one floor down. So it is a big beautiful granite building. You are going to hear this pro redistricting echoing through the halls. So it is going to be pretty exciting.
STEVE BANNON (HOST): Paul, you are a Hoosier, correct?
PAUL LAGEMANN (GUEST): Yes sir, born and raised.
STEVE BANNON (HOST): I mean this is a very, look, it just turns out that the Hoosier state is very red. It has been conservative a long time. It is quite, it is MAGA. There have been some of the Pence conservatives teaming up with the Democrats to do this. But when you said you had witnesses all day, the Democrats, because they are very smart, they understand the fight is just simply not here in Indiana. They need to send a message to their other troops because they are trying to force one in Virginia. They are trying to force something in Maryland. They think they got another bite at the apple in Illinois. They are going to go full on to even gerrymander worse than the gerrymandered states like California and Illinois right now.
So it is imperative. That is where this fight, this fight is not simply about an 8 to 1 map versus a 9 to 0 map. It is about, this is a war. This redistricting sets the predicate for the 2026 election. If Alast de Gras had not come to War Room in 2021 and we got revved up with him and others, we would have never picked up those eight seats in 2021 that are really the balance of what is in the House today.
Do the grassroots and the Republicans in Indiana understand the national importance and the national scale of this fight?
PAUL LAGEMANN (GUEST): I think that is the real struggle that we are running into, and it is not in the House. It is in the Senate. And in the Senate today, that is where we are seeing the pushback. That is where the vote count is in difficult territory. We have to move five more votes over to make sure that we can be successful in the Indiana Senate. So in the Senate, the body is 50. It is 40 to 10 Democrats. But you have to remember, you have Republicans teaming up with Democrats to kill redistricting in the Indiana Senate.
So this is the real difficulty. Now, a couple of weeks ago in what we call Organization Day, this is the day when the committees are assigned, when the rules are adopted, all the things for the upcoming session are happening, an unscheduled vote occurred in the Senate, and that was to not do a special session and not deal with redistricting. And it passed, okay? So now that was Democrats and Republicans, Republicans light, maybe I guess we should say, teaming up to say we do not want to deal with the process.
Well, the House countered that. And when Speaker Houston opened up this session early, the amount of pressure from the grassroots, from the base, the conservative base across the state, so folks from every district are calling their legislator. In Indiana it is a part time legislature, so they are not there all the time. They have a real job at home in most cases, unless they are retired or a teacher. And so those folks come home. They see their constituents in the grocery store. It is not like Congress. There is not a barrier of staff. There is not a lot of those people.
So they have been bombarded with calls and text messages, and people stopping by their house, and their friends are really kind of hitting them up. So we feel this momentum building. We feel the momentum building for the vote. We feel like we are in a good place. We have seen a couple of folks break from a no to a yes. And like I said, we still have five votes to go right now in the Senate. And so I think this House pressure is really making a difference in a very positive way.
STEVE BANNON (HOST): Paul, where do people go to get information on this at Heritage Action? And what is your personal coordinates as far as your social media? As you know, the War Room Posse wants to keep up to speed on this 24 hours a day.
PAUL LAGEMANN (GUEST): Yeah, we are right on top of this. Heritage Action, that is where you are going to find the War Room moment to moment activity. Keep an eye on our Heritage Action website. Keep an eye on our Heritage Action socials. That is where we are going to hit it. It is going to be coming out pretty much on a daily basis. You are going to see a lot more flying today.
And I happen to also be a locally elected official, so you will see me here. And you will see me on Friday too. We will be speaking at the Turning Point event on behalf of Heritage, and we are super excited about that. So if we can put it, it is, I think it is going to be terrific. And you are going to see members from the congressional delegation represented there. I know at least our Senator Jim Banks, who has been a stalwart conservative in the state, I know he is going to have some folks on site there. He is dealing with the defense budget, so I do not know that he will be able to be there in person. But it is going to be, I think, a really terrific thing.
Now the one thing I do have to mention is the onslaught of folks today and the hits that we took. The questions that came from the Democrat side of the aisle were pretty intense. And it was great. Representative Ben Smaltz of Auburn, Indiana, handled it with grace and charisma. He did a fantastic job of getting 70 or 80 of the same question repeatedly hit at him. He did not lose his temper. He handled it very well and just kept saying, look, this is a response to a political. And the Democrats kept saying, but Texas, but Texas. And the reality is in Indiana that California made the move, and if we do not respond, then we lose the House up the escalatory ladder.
STEVE BANNON (HOST): Paul Lagemann, a Hoosier. Look forward to coming back to you, sir. Thank you.
PAUL LAGEMANN (GUEST): Thank you so much. A real pleasure to be here. Thank you, brother.
