Indiana State Senator Chris Garten will run for president pro tempore of the state senate after State Senator Rodric Bray announced Friday he won’t seek reelection in response to backlash following the chamber’s failed redistricting vote.
Garten, R-Charlestown, announced his run for the top leadership position in the state senate Monday and promised “decisive leadership and unapologetic conservatism.”
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“Our caucus stands at a defining moment, and the challenges ahead demand bold, focused leadership,” Garten said in a statement. “Hoosiers don’t send us to Indianapolis to play defense or simply maintain a status quo — they send us to deliver results. I am committed to driving conservative, Indiana First agenda and I am ready to deploy my experience to ensure our campaign apparatus is intentional and ambitious to secure and expand our supermajority.”
Garten has been a member of the in the Indiana State Senate since 2018 and has served as ranking member of the senate appropriations committee and rules and legislative procedures committee. He served in the U.S. States Marine Corps. Reserve Forces, with broken time in service equaling 14 service years from 2001 through 2021, including two combat tours in Iraq, according to his legislative profile.
Garten’s statement did not address Bray’s time in leadership. In June, Garten resigned as Senate majority floor leader, and there was discussion about him challenging Bray for the Senate’s top post.
Bray, who served as president pro tem of the Senate for eight years, announced Friday that he won’t seek reelection to serve as Senate leader amid ongoing acrimony by Republicans who blame Bray for the failure of mid-cycle redistricting effort last winter.
On Friday, Bray, R-Martinsville, said in a statement that “he has determined he will not put members in jeopardy from their own party simply because he is asking members to support his re-election as pro tem.”
At least eight members of the Indiana Senate, including Sen. Dan Dernulc, R-Highland, and Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, were the subject of swatting calls during the redistricting fight last winter.
President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Friday that he was pleased that Bray won’t be seeking reelection for his leadership role, though he would’ve liked to see Bray resign from office.
When the Senate didn’t pass mid-census redistricting legislation in December, Trump called out Bray, who had stated since October that the chamber didn’t have the votes to pass redistricting, for the measure not passing. Trump vowed to endorse candidates in the May primary running against Republican senators who voted against redistricting.
In the May primary, six of seven Trump-backed candidates won against incumbents in their run for state senate.
Bray will continue to serve as president pro tem and manage the day-to-day operations of the Senate until an election is held in November, according to the statement.
Last summer and fall, Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, pressured Republican states, including Indiana, to undertake mid-census redistricting to help Republicans increase their majority in the U.S. House. Typically, redistricting occurs every 10 years after the release of the U.S. census data.
During the two-week special session in December, the House passed the redistricting legislation but it failed to pass in the Senate.
If elected, Garten said he would appoint State Senator Eric Koch, R-Bedford, as majority floor leader. Koch would help him build “a strong, united caucus,” Garten said.
“Eric is an elite strategist, an accomplished attorney, and a deeply respected leader with judgement beyond reproach. In the floor leader seat, he will be a powerful driver of our conservative agenda for Hoosiers,” Garten said in the statement.
Koch said in the statement he has shared priorities with Garten including listening to members, empowering senators and moving “a conservative agenda with discipline and purpose that delivers on the priorities Hoosiers have trusted us to advance.”
“Senator Garten understands that a supermajority is not self-sustaining — it has to be earned every cycle and held together every day of session,” Koch said in the statement. “Chris leads with courage and a deep knowledge of the issues our state faces.”
Garten and Koch will meet with caucus members in the coming weeks to learn about their legislative priorities and discuss a way forward to unite the caucus, according to the statement.
During the 2026 legislative session, Garten authored a welfare fraud bill to prevent fraud and contain state spending on welfare programs as well as bills that prohibit ranked choice voting, which Indiana hasn’t ever utilized as a voting method, and an immigration bill that allowed local and state police to enforce federal immigration laws and for those officers to cooperate with ICE.
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