Incumbent Indiana State Senators Dan Dernulc and Rick Niemeyer lost their primary elections amid a wave of national endorsements and funding against state senators who voted against redistricting late last year.
With all precincts reporting, Dernulc, R-Highland, was trailing his Trump-backed opponent Trevor De Vries by more than 4,600 votes, 23% to 75%, while Niemeyer, R-Lowell, was losing by more than 750 votes to Jim Starkey, 43% to 57%. Vote tallies will remain unofficial until approved by the Lake County Election Board on May 15.
On his Truth Social account, President Donald Trump endorsed primary challengers to seven sitting senators, including Dernulc’s opponent De Vries. While Niemeyer’s opponent Jim Starkey wasn’t on the receiving end of a bump from Trump, he was visible on television and in mailboxes.
Indiana University Indianapolis professor of political science Aaron Dusso said while Trump didn’t outright endorse Starkey, the messaging used in De Vries campaign likely trickled into Starkey’s district since the two districts are next to each other.
In the 2026 primary election cycle, Indiana State Senate candidates saw $13.54 million in ad spending, up from $280,000 in the 2024 primary election cycle, according to an X/Twitter post from AdImpact.
On election night, five of the seven Trump-backed candidates won their primaries for State Senate. While the Trump administration touted that as a success, Dusso said he doesn’t view it as a Republican landslide victory based on the $13 million spent on the races and high-profile Republican endorsements — from Trump to Gov. Mike Braun — for the challengers.
“That should be a slam dunk. It shouldn’t be close and you should win every single one,” Dusso said. “With the advantages they had, I don’t know why you don’t win every one.”
Elizabeth Bennion, Chancellor’s Professor of Political Science at Indiana University South Bend, said ahead of the election she “did not expect to see such decisive victories” from the Trump-backed challengers because the incumbents had conservative voting records and endorsements from the National Rifle Association and the Indiana Right to Life, among others.
“I was surprised by the margin of victory in the targeted districts where the incumbent was defeated. It seems clear that the retribution campaign score card worked out very well for Donald Trump and his allies,” Bennion said.
With five of the seven Trump-backed challengers winning the night of the election, Bennion said it shows a clear victory for populist candidates and proves Trump was successful in his threat to oust those who voted against redistricting.
“It shows the power of the nationalization of state and local politics where the America First brand really became compelling when combined with millions of dollars in outside funds,” Bennion said.
While Trump backed the challengers as revenge on the incumbents who voted against redistricting, Dusso said the challengers tied the incumbent’s no vote on redistricting to “this is what Trump wants.”
Dusso doubts that the challengers would’ve won on a campaign solely against the redistricting effort. The challengers instead argued they support Trump, therefore they support redistricting, Dusso said.
“There’s not that independence between the issue of redistricting and what Donald Trump wants. Those things are tied together, and I don’t think you can split them up, especially in the minds of voters,” Dusso said.
The redistricting vote was the number one issue driving Trump to support the challengers and the number one issue raised in the challengers’ campaigns against the incumbents, Bennion said. The incumbents’ conservative voting record didn’t win over messaging for the need of Republican Party loyalty, she said.
“Ultimately, this one vote was framed as a loyalty test,” Bennion said. “The message that the incumbents did not sufficiently fight for the president, his America First agenda, and the future of the Republican Party really seemed to carry the day.”
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Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, believes redistricting wasn’t the top priority for voters statewide. The average voter is more concerned about other issues, including affordability and data center development in their communities.
“Redistricting was the genesis,” Vaughn said. “But I think there are other local issues, in each district, that might’ve resonated with voters a little bit more.”
For the Republican Party members most loyal to the president, Trump’s endorsement is important. However, Vaughn questions how meaningful it will be in November.
“It’s still a long way to the general election,” Vaughn said. “The president is still very unpopular in wide swaths of our state, certainly among Democrats and independents, and I think increasingly among members of his own party. I’m not sure a Trump endorsement will be a positive thing in all of the districts.”
Vaughn also questions if endorsements from national leaders will continue in the fall when they have priorities other than state legislative races.
The same ad money might not be available to those candidates in November, she added.
“It helped raise their profile,” Vaughn said, “But again, that profile is tied to an increasingly unpopular president.”
Bennion said the challengers will likely keep the same messaging from the primary election as they head into the general election because the districts are safe Republican districts.
State Senate District 1 could be more vulnerable for Republicans in the general election, Bennion said, because De Vries is further to the right than Dernulc was, which could turn away more independent voters or Republicans who supported Dernulc.
“(State Senate District 1) does lean toward Republicans and toward support for the president, but it was won by about 7% in 2024 so that suggests that with a huge surge of Democrats and some disaffected Republicans you could see a flip,” Bennion said.
Lake County Board of Elections and Registration Director Michelle Fajman said the county had a 15.6% voter turnout for the 2026 primary election. The county has 368,259 registered voters, and 40,136 voted on Election Day, Fajman said.
During the early voting in-person period, 17,263 Lake County residents cast their ballots, according to Post-Tribune archives.
Porter County had a 14.49% voter turnout in Tuesday’s election, with 19,240 ballots cast, according to its online election summary results. The county has 132,756 registered voters, and 5,767 voted during the early in-person voting period.
Porter County Elections and Voter Registration Assistant Director Tara Graf was unable to immediately respond to requests for comment.
In the 2022 primary election, Lake County saw a 12.68% voter turnout, Fajman said. In 2018 and 2014, it was 17.11% and 12.85%, respectively.
Lake County doesn’t yet have turnout statistics for political parties.
“Hopefully, we start seeing more and more people turn out,” Fajman said about voter turnout. “The turnout, in my opinion, is horrible. We have a lot more people not voting than voting. … People like to complain about a lot of issues, and those same individuals are probably not voting.”
Fajman believes the 2026 election had a larger turnout than 2022 because of more contested races and cycle changes for precinct committeemen.
“There were a lot of precinct committeemen running, delegates running, there was a highly contested race for sheriff on the Democrat side,” Fajman said. “They were hotly contested races on the Republican side for state senators and legislators, so I think that brought out a few more individuals.”
De Vries was endorsed by Trump in a previous Truth Social post, calling incumbent Dan Dernulc “a ‘RINO’ LOSER.” Gov. Mike Braun, Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith and Attorney General Todd Rokita also endorsed De Vries.
“All of their support is just a testament to the efforts that our team and myself have put in over the past couple months,” De Vries said. “It’s honoring and humbling, and I really think it’s a testament to people wanting to see change.”
De Vries previously told the Post-Tribune that he believes redistricting was not the priority on why people voted in the primary.
“I think the redistricting vote woke a lot of people up to realize that the people down at the statehouse had been asleep at the wheel,” he added. “People started digging into voting records, and we just started seeing their complacency in Indianapolis.”
Dernulc did not respond to multiple requests for comment following Tuesday’s election.
Starkey, of DeMotte, said so many incumbents lost because the voters wanted change.
“There’s a mandate in Indiana now. No more of the establishment, weak policies in Indiana. Redistricting was a big issue, and you could see that everywhere. It’s time that we have good candidates that don’t allow insiders and backroom deals,” Starkey said.
Headed into November, Starkey said he will use the same messaging and door-knocking strategy to engage with voters. If elected, Starkey said he will go to the statehouse to vote on the will of his constituents who “wanted redistricting.”
Niemeyer said he believes his vote against redistricting likely impacted his reelection campaign.
“It’s part of the dialogue in this election,” Niemeyer said.
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