Lisa Lerer

And in some ways, I think that incident underscores the potential political peril that Republicans now face.

Part of the reason they said no is that redistricting was unpopular with their voters, including with Republican voters.

And in the polling we saw, which was limited because this is, you know, a statehouse issue, what voters said is they would prefer that their representatives in the statehouse focus on cost of living issues.

And instead, they were forced to have this whole dust up over redistricting.

Not only is it not important, Indiana voters said, we actually don't like this.

And now they're caught in these very expensive races against the president over this issue that voters didn't really want in the first place.

I think it is worth dwelling for a brief second on the money.

Normally, a race like this, a statehouse race, you're talking $150,000, $200,000 maybe.

But we're now seeing millions of dollars flood into these races, which is really unusual to

It's also a bit unusual because I don't think it just sends a message to these state legislatures, right?

It sends a message to Republicans in the Senate and the House.

And typically midterms for the party in power, midterms in a president's first year, they always lose seats.

That's just what's happened.

18 out of 20 of the past midterms, you know, they've lost seats.

And what presidents sometimes do in that situation, knowing that they're likely to lose seats, is give their members of Congress from their own party a little wiggle room to break with them on certain issues so they can get that political distance and perhaps convince voters that they're more independent and that voters can cast a ballot for them even if they don't like the party in power.

And what Trump is effectively saying here is he is going to give Republicans in the House and the Senate very little wiggle room.

Well, I think you're right.

There's no real direct political risk.

But I do think there is a risk when you're less than six months out from what is, you know, broadly expected to be a very competitive midterm.

And part of the risk is we are here sitting talking about these primary races where the president is trying to extract pound of flesh.