By Eric Bradner, CNN
(CNN) — A set of May primaries will test the strength of Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party and the role the president intends to play as GOP voters pick their candidates knowing he’ll never again appear on the ballot.
In Indiana on Tuesday, Trump is intervening in seven ordinarily sleepy state Senate races, seeking to purge a GOP old guard that rejected his demands to redistrict the state’s US House map.
It’s the first of several primaries in which Trump could play a dominant role this month — with a US House race in Kentucky, where Trump is seeking to oust one of his foremost conservative challengers, Rep. Thomas Massie, and a Senate runoff in Texas, where Trump has stayed out of the race despite GOP leaders’ hopes he would back Sen. John Cornyn over Attorney General Ken Paxton, also being closely watched.
Ohio will also hold its primary on Tuesday. Here’s what to watch in Indiana and Ohio:
Trump’s revenge campaign
Indiana’s Senate Republican supermajority embarrassed the president in December, when it ignored his months of lobbying and voted down a new congressional map that would have likely allowed the party to win the state’s two Democratic-held US House seats in November’s midterms.
Now, Trump is looking for payback — endorsing primary challengers to seven of the eight Republican state senators who voted against redistricting and who are up for reelection this year.
The outcome of those typically low-profile races will have outsize ramifications for a GOP that will soon be forced to grapple with what the post-Trump political landscape will look like. These races will test whether voters are willing to ignore Trump’s wishes and give their elected officials room to go in another direction.
Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray — who has drawn Trump’s ire over redistricting but is not on the ballot himself Tuesday — told CNN’s Dana Bash that such primary contests are usually fought over “home-grown issues.”
“That’s not what this is,” Bray said. “This is really driven from outside the state of Indiana, mostly in Washington, DC, and the money’s coming from outside Indiana as well.”
These are the Indiana state Senate Republican primary races to watch:
- District 1: Sen. Dan Dernulc faces Trump-backed Trevor De Vries.
- District 11: Sen. Linda Rogers faces Trump-endorsed Brian Schmutzler.
- District 19: Sen. Travis Holdman faces Trump-endorsed Bluffton City Councilman Blake Fiechter.
- District 21: Sen. Jim Buck faces Trump-backed Tracey Powell, a Tipton County commissioner.
- District 23: Sen. Spencer Deery faces Trump-backed Paula Copenhaver, an aide to the Trump-aligned Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith.
- District 38: Sen. Greg Goode faces Vigo County Councilwoman Brenda Wilson, whom Trump endorsed.
- District 41: Sen. Greg Walker faces Trump-endorsed state Rep. Michelle Davis.
Turning Point’s test
Twenty-three days before Charlie Kirk was killed, the conservative activist took up Trump’s push for redistricting in In