Indiana Primary Results Prove It: The GOP Is Still a Trump Cult

A few state senators bucked Trump on mid-decade gerrymandering. He endorsed their opponents. And Trump’s candidates won. But there is a silver lining here.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, and a long list of other powerful figures in the party spent last winter and spring begging Maryland’s state legislature to further gerrymander the state to make up for Republican moves in Texas and other GOP strongholds. But Maryland state Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat, not only balked at moving forward on the gerrymandering but refused to even hold a vote. By March, the redistricting proposal was dead, and party leaders huffed and puffed but moved on. Last night, we saw the opposite of that docile approach—and, unfortunately, it worked for Republicans.

President Trump pushed super hard for Indiana Republicans to redistrict. Party leaders there felt compelled to hold a vote on redistricting, but surprisingly a slew of Republican state senators joined their Democratic colleagues to block it. That vote provided Trump names. Eight of the Republican state senators who opposed the redistricting were up for reelection this year. Trump endorsed primary challengers to seven of them. And on Tuesday, five of the seven lost to their Trump-backed rivals; some of the incumbents were resoundingly defeated. Another primary is currently too close to call. Just one has been declared the winner of his race.

The good news is that the results of Indiana show that the Republican Party is really a cult of Trump—so........

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