The Great Indiana Bloodbath of 2026 | Hour 1

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to vpekclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. A bloodbath electorally speaking in Indiana yesterday, I was aware that they were holding their election, their primary election up in Indiana. I was, but. I was not following it very closely. And then reading through some of the some of the reactions that were pouring in last night after what a whole bunch of the Republicans that blocked the redistricting effort in Indiana and they all got just wiped out, almost all of them. So here's from This is from Decision Desk HQ, which if you are looking for good election night reporting, they do a very good job. They came out of the Ace of Spades headquarters shop Ace of Spades, they came out of that shop and then they broke away to become their own standalone entity. And yeah, so this is a good this is a good site to look at. Sorry, I was just trying to pull up a link here, so I have it ready to go as I proceed. So this is from Decision Desk Jeffrey Skelly. President Donald Trump's dominance over the Republican Party was confirmed once again on Tuesday, which is so weird because I thought that everybody hated Trump. Now I thought he had no support among anybody, right what happened. It's almost like they all can't vote or something like maybe some of the stuff that you're seeing online and the comments sections and Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson's bios may not be American, may not be able to vote, or maybe they're just. Not in Indiana. Anyway, there were several states that held primaries Indiana, Ohio, and there was a special election in Michigan. So last December, the Indiana States Senate rejected a congressional remap that could have given Republicans all nine of the state's US House seats. A majority of Senate Republicans voted against the plan, despite pressure from Trump and leading Indiana Republicans like Senator Jim Banks, Governor Mike Braun, and Lieutenant Governor Micah beckwith so to recap how it got to that point. Adam Wren is a writer at Politico, and this was his recap of how we got to where we were last night. He says, as the Indiana GOP Senate dragged its feet, things became personal for the White House. One of the GOP Senate holdouts, a guy by the name of Greg Walker, who is facing a tough challenge, told an aide that the President worked for him and not the other way around. Have you met Donald Trump, you probably this is probably not the best way. To, you know, to keep him off your back. So according to the article they wrote several months ago, there was a quote in here, the President wants to know if you could come to the White House to meet with him on Wednesday afternoon. I left you a voicemail. Can you can we discuss by phone? Walker responded, quote, mister President is on my payroll, but I know he is not requesting a work review. I declined the offer. So you know, I said at the very beginning of Trump two point zero here that he's on a clock, right, He's got about twelve to eighteen months to do whatever he can get done, because after that people will start perceiving him as a lame duck, right, And if he loses the midterm elections, which is the historical norm is for the incumbent party of the White House to lose seats in the midterm elections, and so then he's facing maybe a Democrat controlled House, maybe also a Senate Democrat controlled Senate. So then you're looking at impeachment once again. And so the amount of time he's got where he is at sort of his zenith of political capital, right, takes off quickly after he wins reelection, but it's going to burn also, and it burns pretty rapidly, and the more things you do, the more capital you burn. But I mean that's just in general. I think Trump defies a lot of these analyzes, and who knows, Like everybody's just going by sort of the conventional wisdom that this is the way it works with traditional conventional politicians, and Trump is not one of those. So next, Trump focused on the Senate President pro tem Indiana fellow by the name of Roderick Bray, who's not up for reelection until twenty twenty eight. But who could face a leadership challenge if enough seats in the Senate flip so from the political article. Trump worked on Bray directly. The two men had many amicable meetings and conversations, but in the last one in mid November, Bray could tell that Trump quote was not happy. Bray recalled, telling Trump quote, I'm sorry. We think there is another path forward to get you what you need, and that is by finding a good candidate instead in Congressional District number one and getting behind a person there and funding that person and organizing that campaign. Right, So we're not going to redistrict right, Indiana convinced to take the off ramp Indiana nice, Right, We're gonna play it nice. And by the way, again, I need to point this out because everybody keeps saying I keep seeing all the reporters and the talking heads, and they keep saying, well, you know, this all started in Texas. It did not start in Texas. It started in New York with the Hull commander. Okay, it started in New York. Now, concurring to that, there was a lawsuit that was brought and I went over this a couple of weeks ago. I went over in depth, the history of the lawsuit, what the case was about, and it was over the maps that were drawn, and the Biden DOJ sued the state of Texas and the and they knew, the complaintants knew, or the plaintiffs knew that if they won, it would allow the Republicans to test the principles that were eventually decided in Calais. Right. So, like all of this stuff, which was the Louisiana case, like all of this stuff was kind of built around this idea of getting the redistricting questions to the Supreme Court through these various cases. So Texas redraws mid decade because number one, they were allowed to by their state rules. But number two is because it was in response to the lawsuit. And then when they redrew, they got they got sued, they had to redraw the lines and that's and then you have the rulings come down and boom, now we're going to do a mid decade redistricting. So it didn't start with Texas, but of course after Texas, then California went and you know, put a referendum to the voter saying, hey, please let us Jerry Mander and ignore the quote independent Redistricting Commission that for some reason always gives Republicans like I think they had nine seats out of like forty two or fifty two or something like that, even though forty percent of the state voted Republican. But the Democrats in charge don't care, and their quote Independent Redistricting Commission is completely corrupted, and so they keep drawing massive districts gerrymandering California and then they were like, Okay, we want to get some more seats from those dastardly Republicans, so let's ignore our constitution. Do you say yes or no? And of course enough voters said yes, so they suspended their constitutionally required independent Redistricting Commission. They redrew their maps, which they were not really supposed to be doing mid decade, but what ebbs, it's different when Democrats do it. So they then balanced out Texas had picked up four Republican seats at Democratic Spence anticipated we still have to have the election. We'll see, so California then picks up four seats, cancels out Texas. Then you had other states, though, including North Carolina, we did a mid decade redistricting, and that's like one seat for the Republicans, and then Maryland and Indiana were on the clock, and everybody was looking at Maryland and Indiana. Are they going to jerrymander? In Maryland's case even worse because their state is terribly jerrymandered. And that's part of the problem for Democrats is that they've already jerrymandered so much there's really no Republican seats left to take, so Maryland doesn't. And then Indiana plays nice and says we won't either, and then Virginia entered the chat. Stories are powerful. 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They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you. And they will tell others to come who you are? Is it creativideo dot com? Alrighty, So Indiana is on the clock for its redistricting vote. Trump is lobbying the Indiana lawmakers and the leadership. Hey, you need you need to do this redistricting. You're allowed to do it. You can pick up some seats for the Republicans in the House. And Indiana says no. And they not only say no, but they make kind of a big show about it, you know, and they're like, look at us, we stood up to Trump and you know, made some comments like. You know, he works for me, he's on my payroll. M I mean, the. Political highway is littered with the carcasses of people who try to be Trump to Trump, you know, and now there's like half a dozen more. So. The Senate President pro Tim Roderick bray not on the ballot last night. He's up for reelection in twenty eight and he said, oh no, no. What we'll do is we'll just get a really good candidate in this district one, and we'll be able to flip that seat for you. At eleven am, November sixteenth, Trump issued a broadside against Bray and State Senator Greg Good on truth social Good was undecided on the redistricting plan, but had been the only member of the legislature to hold a town hall on the subject. And obviously, like Democrats, pack that thing and say no. Because of these two politically correct gentlemen and a few others, they could be depriving Republicans of a majority in the House, a very big deal. Trump wrote Senators Bray, Good and the others, to be released to the public later this afternoon should do their job and do it now. If not, let's get them out of office asap. In October, Politico reported President Trump's mid cycle redistricting pushes on the verge of stalling in Indiana. Top state Republican officials have warned the White House and Vice President JD. Vance is on his way to the Hoosier state to turn things around. That did not happen. Obviously, House Speaker Mike Johnson got involved in the pressure campaign as well, and Adam Wrenn from political reports. Finally, in December twenty one Indiana Senate Republicans dealt Trump his most embarrassing political defeat since his return to the White House. Eight of them stand for reelection. Last night, so they refused. So what happened last night of the so there were twenty one GOP senators, So this is just in the Indiana State Senate, twenty one voted against redistricting. Ten were on the ballot last night. Of those ten, only eight were seeking reelection right, so two of them are are out anyway, eight are up for reelection. Trump endorsed primary challenges challengers rather in seven of the eight races. Not sure why he didn't do the endorsement on the eighth race, but he did endorsements on seven of the eight. And then I pours the money money from Grassroots Turnout, which is a consultant firm get out the Vote operation and Turning Point USA was involved in this. They spent over thirteen and a half million dollars in this primary Senate election cycle. By comparison, two years prior it was zero point two eight million for the entire for the entire election. So it goes from like a quarter of a million dollars spent across all of the Senate races to thirteen and a half million. So of the seven that Trump endorsed, six lost their reelection bids. The challengers won each by double digit margins, only one one renomination. The final incumbent's future hangs in the balance. State Senator Spencer Deary leads by three votes three one two three. That's it. So for people who say my vote does it matter? Your vote might have mattered in that race. The loan surefire winner was State Senator Greg Good, who won by seventeen points. Now, why well, he had two opponents in his primary. Instead of a single opponent, he had two and both of them were named Wilson, and so yeah, kind of hard, yeah, kind of hard to differentiate yourself when you got two Wilson's on the ballot and people go in and they're not following it, they don't really know. And so great Good won reelection. He did clear fifty four percent of the vote, So even if there was only one challenger, he may have still won. Hard to say, but he's the only one that survived, and he's the only one, as I just mentioned, that did the town hall from Decision DESKGHQ. Last night's results in Indiana could lead the Senate to pursue congressional redistricting ahead of the twenty twenty eight election because between incumbent retirements plus the defeats from last night, turnover in the state Senate among the Republicans will potentially give the crowd that was in favor of doing new maps. They go from a nineteen seat minority inside the Republican caucus to a twenty five seat majority. It was a twenty one to nineteen anti redistricting pro redistricting split that now flips to a twenty five seat majority for the pro redistricting camp. The turnover could also lead to the ouster of the state Senate President pro Tem Roderick Bray, who led the opposition to the remap. I mentioned him in the Politico article and he is not up for reelection until twenty twenty eight, but it could cost him his leadership position. Trump targeted much of his redistricting wrath at Bray, who wasn't up for reelection last night, so when thinking about twenty twenty eight redistricting battles to come add Indiana to the list. Elsewhere in Indiana, every incumbent US House member won renomination. In Ohio, the vek Ramaswami comfortably claimed the gop Nomi nation. He will be up against Democrat Amy Actin. And then there was a special election in Michigan. Democrats held a nineteen to eighteen majority, but the Chamber there was one seat empty, and so that's what this was a special election for. So Republicans could have picked up that nineteenth seat had a tie in the Michigan State Senate, but that did not happen. The Democrat won, so now they have a twenty to eighteen majority. There now a lot two things to add to the Indiana blowout of the anti redistricting Republicans. Well, a couple things actually, I've talked about comments made by in strategy laid out by Nick Fredis, former Virginia delegate. I think I mentioned him yesterday. Worth a watch of his podcast it's called Making the Argument. And you know he is a big believer in as am I solutions. Right, if you just want to sit on the sidelines and complain all the time, right, and not do anything except well, I go out and vote. And he was like, well, thanks a lot for doing your civic duty and voting every two or four years, right, and then complaining about all of the rhinos and no one's that they're not doing this stuff for us and all of that, And if you don't ever get involved, and if you're not ever you know in the arena, you're just sort of on the sidelines throwing tomatoes. That's not helpful. And you know you want to be critical of people, that's fine, But are they criticizing you because they want you to be better? Right? If you take criticism from your family, from people you love, then that lands differently than taking criticism from somebody that you no hates you, Right, Like, I don't care what somebody who hates me as to say their criticism doesn't bother me at all because it's irrelevant because I know it's bad faith. They hate me. Somebody loves me and they criticize me, that's going to land differently. Right. So, if you are. Angry at you know, rhinos Republicans in name only, you know what did Mark Robinson used to call him jellybacks? Right? Instead of you they don't have a spine anyway, and you want these people out, especially in solid Republican districts in solid Republican states, right, Like, this is why John Cornyn is having such problems in Texas. This is why, well it's actually this is why I don't understand why Lindsey Graham keeps winning reelection. I guess because he pivots back to the right and to MAGA again whatever. Like, if you can't get these people out in the primaries, and that means having people that are good candidates, because candidates matter, right, You can't just run any crackpot. You gotta find some good candidates, grassroots. They gotta work hard, and they gotta get involved. And what Indiana just did, with the help of TPUSA and GtC strategies, what they were able to do, get all this money, get good candidates. That's what's possible. You can actually do these things, and then when you get into office, you actually have to then run the bills. You're not going to be successful one hundred percent of the time. Freydis said yesterday, and he's exactly right. No lawmaker has a one hundred percent record of getting every single bill through, right, So you have to understand the process. You have to understand how it works, not to say that you just you know, abide by you know, oh well I just couldn't get it done. I guess right. I'm not saying take their excuses at face value if they don't want to see things get done, but recognize if they are actually working to get the stuff done or if they are not. And what Indiana did was I think a blueprint for other states at the legislative level that grassroots organizations can follow in order to get some of these people out that are not advancing legislation that they claim to support but then somehow never support. But there was this one piece or this one thing in NBC News, the double digit defeats of the five incumbents, some of whom are veterans of the Indiana Legislature, underscore the influence Trump continues to wield over the Republican Party. They called it Donald Trump's exacted revenge on Indiana Republican lawmakers. Is that true? Let's say it is. I probably is Donald Trump angry at the Indiana Legislature and so got his political team together and they're like, let's go get some scalps, right, can I say that is that allowed. I said it anyway, So let's go get some revenge. But note the difference in the way that is framed. That is framed as him exacting revenge and representative of the influence he. Wields over the party. You never got that framing for Roy Cooper or Josh Stein. They just simply endorsed candidates. That's all they did. There was no wielding of power, there was no revenge taken. Because it's different when Democrats do it, Danny says, Pete. Candidates do matter, and that is why right minded individuals who have a lick of sense don't come within one hundred miles of running for office. Who in their right mind would politics are toxic and say, for the greater good, no sane person wouldever expose themselves to that toxicity, unless, of course, you're on the left, when then you love every second of it. Okay, let me go through this, because this is I'm not saying, Danny. I'm not saying you're black pilling, but you are on the path. Okay, I understand politics is toxic. I understand. You know people don't want to get involved because of the toxicity, because they don't want to be smeared and attacked and all of that. I get that, I absolutely get it. However, if then the option is, what are our options? Right Like, if we if everybody who is on the right believes as you do, or as you've stated, if everybody's like, I'm not going to run because I don't want, you know, to be smeared. I don't want to be attacked. It's gross, it's toxic. Whatever, So you just surrender the field, You just give up, because that's what that's what you're talking about. Now. I know you're not saying that we all should just give up. But if you think that your kids and grandkids deserve to grow up in a society that has the values and the you know, the respect for rule of law, right you want that for your kin, then it's not some sort of idea of the greater good, it's a direct interest in the future of your children, right Like. That's why people enter the arena because they want to try to make a difference. They see the way things are going and they try to get involved to stop it from going in that direction. And if people just throw their hands up and say, oh, well, we can't do anything about it, stuf's too it's too nasty. I don't want to get involved. Look, do you think I wanted to join by HOA board. It's not really us. We're not the board, we're just advisory because we're still under builder control. But I could see things that were messed up, and I was like, people are too busy fighting with the you know, between personality conflicts and pettiness and stuff, and I'm like this, this has to stop, Like we have big issues that have to get fixed. So I volunteered. I've been doing it three years, hopefully not much longer because I believe in term limits. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take the off ramp. But that was what I did. And that's what people do in their churches, right, they get involved in their churches, right because it's not as toxic and all of that, but all of the or maybe it is, maybe it's worse, but like that's that's the path to blackpill viill. Black pill is all is lost. None of the institutions are worth saving. My vote doesn't make a difference. What's the point. And then you become like this accelerationist where it's like I just want it all to burn down and then something better will come up afterwards. Well, how how if everything gets burned down? Like then then you're going to go to work. I'm not talking about you specifically, Danny, it's like, but that's when you're going to take an interest. That's when you're going to devote some of your time and resources. Right, that's when you're going to offer yourself up for as a candidate. You're gonna run, or you're gonna volunteer. Right. You can volunteer for a campaign. You can make phone calls, door knock right. There are all sorts of ways to get involved in trying to make things better and sitting around saying, you know, basically there's no point to it or the risks are too great. I mean, that is an option, but I don't see how things get better if you're trying. If everybody on the right adopts that posture, I would like for everybody on the left to adopt that posture. That would be fantastic. Now, Kevin says, I think Republicans had a chance of holding onto the House and the Senate before the full scale attack on Iran that drove up fuel prices. If my fleet customers are any reflection of the average Trump loyalists Republican or loyalist Republican, then there are a ton of ticked off Republicans throughout this country. Again, I know you disagree, but the average Republican voter views a spike in fuel prices as only slightly less egregeous than killing puppies. I have no doubt about that, completely agree. There are people that are really mad that I had to fill up the other day. It's like, well, I got the haris heater diss count so it was like three point fifty five a gallon, and it was still the most expensive tank of gas I think I ever bought. I get that. Everybody gets that. So we should just let Democrats run the show. That's what you're saying, right, that's what you're saying. You're saying, Well, you know what, my gas prices went up so high, so I guess we should turn the country over to the party that wants to pack the US Supreme Court ad two US states and rule in perpetuity, and then you know, raise taxes on everybody. Do the green energy stuff, right, Go go as. Far left as quickly as possible as they can because that's what you're saying to me, and that doesn't make sense. That does not make sense. I always say, don't fall in love with the politician because they're going to break your heart at some point. Trump is not going to be on the ballot. Trump is the one that did this with Iran. Okay, so whoever comes next or if you're voting in the midterms, that doesn't make any sense at all because the Congress didn't vote on Iran. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecalanarshow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.