Looking at just the numbers, Democrats would have almost no shot to win in the new Indiana 8th congressional district proposed by Republican state legislators in redistricting.
An analysis of the proposed redistricting map by PlanScore, a nonprofit that analyzes political maps, shows the new district would give Democrats just a 1% chance of winning. It is the same chance PlanScore gives Democrats in eight of Indiana’s nine congressional districts, factoring in 2024 vote data.
Republican Donald Trump would have received 61% of the proposed new district’s vote in last year’s presidential election to Democrat Kamala Harris’s 39%, according to PlanScore.
Indianapolis City-County Councilor Nick Roberts, a Democrat and self-described data nerd, performed an analysis of the nine proposed new congressional districts that found Trump would have won the proposed 8th District by 22 points in 2024. Two other proposed districts would have given Trump the same victory margin, but none would have given him bigger margins.
More: Indiana’s redistricting bill advances to a vote in the House with a lone Republican opposed
But high-profile presidential races aren’t always the best measure of voters’ political preferences, said Robert Dion, a political scientist at the University of Evansville.
Dion pointed to Indiana’s 2018 U.S. Senate election pitting Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly against Republican challenger Mike Braun.
Braun, who defeated Donnelly, won within the proposed new 8th District’s boundaries by just seven percentage points, according to Roberts’ analysis.
What is Indiana’s 8th District?
The current version of Indiana’s 8th congressional district stretches all the way from southern Posey County up the Illinois-Indiana border to the top of Fountain County. It includes all or parts of 21 counties in Southern and West Central Indiana.
The current district is home to more than 758,000 people. First-term Republican Congressman Mark Messmer won last year’s election with 68% of the vote.
Indiana House Republicans unveiled a proposed congressional map Dec. 1.
The proposed new 8th District would still include Vanderburgh, Warrick, Posey and Gibson counties but would no longer include the smaller and mostly Republican counties of Clay, Crawford, Orange, Owen, Parke and Vermillion. It would lose parts of Greene and Fountain counties.
However, it would also add Monroe County to Indiana’s 8th district map.
The changes were made primarily to accommodate more high-profile proposed changes in other congressional districts, UE’s Dion said. The new congressional district map proposed by House Republicans would split Indianapolis into four congressional districts.
Could adding Monroe County make a difference… for Democrats?
The notable addition to the proposed new 8th District is Monroe County, which has Bloomington as its county seat. Monroe County gave 62% of its votes in the presidential election to Democrat Harris. Monroe County has been part of the 8th District before but had been cut out of it in previous redistricting.
Adding Monroe County and subtracting smaller, more Republican counties would make the 8th District “slightly more competitive” for Democrats, Dion said, but by itself it wouldn’t be a game-changer.
The current 8th District produced nearly 324,000 votes in the 2024 congressional race won by Messmer. Monroe County voters cast just short of 60,000 ballots and Harris’s margin over Trump there was slightly more than 16,000 votes.
Dion noted the habit of American voters of going against the party in the White House in mid-term elections. Republicans are almost certain to lose seats in Congress in 2026, he opined.
In a theoretical 8th District campaign — held within the boundaries of a new district including Monroe County and pitting Democrat Allen against Republican Messmer — Dion said Allen would have a puncher’s chance.
But the circumstances would have to be right. A national “blue wave” of support for Democratic candidates would help Allen if it actually materializes, Dion said. Messmer is a freshman in Congress, and he hasn’t had time to become well-known everywhere. If he has to run in a new district, he’d be campaigning among voters who do not know him.
And, Dion said, Messmer doesn’t appear to have worked the current 21-county 8th District as well as his predecessor, Republican Larry Bucshon, did.
“He could be more visible,” the UE political scientist said. “He could maybe have a town hall or debate his opponents or speak to the Courier & Press.
“There’s a lot of things that he could and should be doing, that a smart freshman lawmaker would do to try to lock in the district. But maybe he knew something we didn’t know in that, why should he work a district that was likely to be redrawn?”
Messmer isn’t in the political danger zone, Dion said. But he’s not going to be able to coast to an easy re-election, especially if the 8th District is redrawn to cut out small Republican counties and add Monroe County.
Allen has a base of support in Evansville, in what would still be the biggest city in the 8th District.
“If she were to make a real run at it, she’d have to have the right set of circumstances, a couple lucky breaks and a lot of money,” Dion said. “We’re less than a year out at this point.”
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington and Spencer to be affected by 8th district map changes
