US Sen. Banks takes an unusually active role in attacking anti-redistricting lawmakers

Title: US Sen. Banks takes an unusually active role in attacking anti-redistricting lawmakers URL Source: https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2026/05/01/us-sen-banks-behind-many-of-the-attack-ads-against-anti-redistricting-lawmakers/ Published Time: 2026-05-01T10:00:34+00:00 Markdown Content: U.S. Sen. Jim Banks has his fingerprints all over the campaign to oust several Indiana state senators in the Republican primary, although voters might have a hard time knowing it. Two political groups affiliated with Banks have poured several million dollars into television, digital and radio advertising against eight Republican senators who defied President Donald Trump’s push for redrawing Indiana’s U.S. House districts to further favor GOP candidates. Those ads paid for by Hoosier Leadership for America and American Leadership PAC don’t mention Banks’ name as many of them tout Trump’s endorsement of challengers on the May 5 primary ballot. Banks’ role is a sign of the tear within the Republican Party since the redistricting bill failed in the Senate in December. ## Banks denounces ‘very weak Republicans’ Banks won two elections to the state Senate before winning his first race for Congress in 2016. Trump’s Indiana target list includes three senators with whom Banks served in the Legislature — Jim Buck, Travis Holdman and Greg Walker. Banks has not responded to several interview requests made to his office by the Indiana Capital Chronicle. > Trump’s Indiana redistricting revenge aims to topple state Senate’s leader He told a nationally syndicated radio show in an interview last week that he remained “disappointed about the weakness of the Indiana state Senate” after the House approved the redistricting plan. “In the Senate, you had 21 Republican state senators join the Democrats to literally thumb their nose at President Trump and, really, the Republicans all over the country who are begging Republicans to fight back against radical Democrats and all of the games that Democrats play,” Banks told the “Clay & Buck Show.” Banks went on to call them “a group of very weak Republicans.” “For some reason, we still have this bastion of anti-Trump Republicanism in the state of Indiana, and I’m trying to lead the way to fix that,” Banks said. “In fact, we’re spending millions of dollars to oust some of these anti-Trump Republican state senators. … I think we’re going to beat all of these anti-Trump Republicans state senators who are running again and replace them with strong, conservative pro-Trump Republicans.” ## No attempt to repair redistricting rift Current Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray and Banks were political up-and-comers when they had desks a few feet apart on the Senate floor after Bray was first elected in 2012. Now, a goal of Trump’s allies is to force out Bray from his position as the Senate’s leader since his Senate seat isn’t up for election until 2028. Bray is leading the defense of his fellow legislators with at least $3.5 million from campaign funds he controls. When asked by the Capital Chronicle about Banks being behind attacks on the current senators, Bray replied, “Well, candidly, I’m a little frustrated by that.” In reply to a question about whether he had talked with Banks about working things out, Bray paused for a few seconds before simply saying, “No.” Bray denounced arguments that the current Republican supermajority in the Senate isn’t conservative enough as “just patently false and just said by people that, maybe, have some sort of agenda for power.” “We’ve passed in the last 10 years, I went back and counted them up, more than 30 tax cuts. We banned boys from competing in girls sports,” he said. “We passed the strongest pro-life legislation in the nation since Roe vs. Wade was overturned. We banned China and all of our foreign adversaries, basically, from owning land in Indiana now and we’ve given Indiana full-blown school choice. So tell me where in there have the conservative ideas died? I don’t understand that concept at all.” ## Source of money for Banks’ groups hidden One of the Banks-affiliated groups, Hoosier Leadership for America, is registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a nonprofit organization. Such groups are allowed to keep the sources of their money secret, which is why they are commonly referred to as dark-money groups. > Pro-redistricting groups aiming to follow through on Trump’s Indiana reprisal threats The other, American Leadership PAC, reported collecting $1.8 million so far this year through the end of March. Of that, $1.5 million came from another dark-money group and $300,000 from the Hoosiers for Opportunity, Prosperity and Enterprise PAC that’s run by allies of Gov. Mike Braun. Bray recently responded by creating his own nonprofit political group: the Indiana First Coalition Inc. Marty Obst, senior political adviser to Banks, said Banks and other pro-redistricting groups such as the D.C.-based Club for Growth had teamed up on the Indiana campaigns. “B anks offered to run, really, the TV effort,” Obst said. “Then Club for Growth is running the mail effort, primarily. There’ll be some crossover, but, for the most part, that’s what they’re owning.” Republican Sen. Jean Leising of Oldenburg, who also served in the state Senate with Banks, said “there’s just no doubt” that the aggressive primary campaigns have split the party. “If (the senators) that are being targeted for defeat, if they all win, that may calm down the people working so hard against them,” she said. “If they all lose, it’ll probably be a continued rejuvenation of out-of-state players in Indiana politics. What a shame. What a shame that would be.”