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Speaker 1: Jasey. We long at a theory on this program that

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Speaker 1: redistricting is screwing everyone, especially.

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Speaker 2: One group of people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, let's President Trump. That's who this is helping. But

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Speaker 1: in the in the in the overall, it's not good

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Speaker 1: for the actual state of Indiana. And our next guest

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Speaker 1: say is, yes, a specific group of people is going

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Speaker 1: to take it. The worst headline Indie Star from our

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Speaker 1: old pal columnist extraordinaire Jacob Stewart gop redistricting and powers

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Speaker 1: Indianapolis over rural Indiana. He says, royally, India is going

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Speaker 1: to take it on the chin. Jacob Stewart joins us

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Speaker 1: now to discuss Jacob Stewart.

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Speaker 3: Hello, Hey, thanks for having me on.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so let's start with kind of the premise of

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Speaker 1: the of the column, which we can read now over

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Speaker 1: at Indie Star dot com. You say rural Indiana is

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Speaker 1: going to get the worst of redistricting.

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Speaker 3: Explain, Oh, yeah, so there are about a million different

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Speaker 3: ways that could have redrawn this map to give Republicans

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Speaker 3: a majority. They chose just about the worst one. It gives.

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Speaker 3: Indianapolis is split into four parts, tiny slivers, densely populated

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Speaker 3: and the districts that they aren't in now are if

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Speaker 3: this map passes, would stretch all the way through rural

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Speaker 3: Indiana to the corners of the state. So you get

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Speaker 3: these huge districts, and about twenty to forty percent of

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Speaker 3: the population in those districts is this tiny sliver of Indianapolis.

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Speaker 3: And the natural result of that is four congressional candidates

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Speaker 3: are going to pretty much exclusively campaign in Indianapolis and

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Speaker 3: Central Indiana. And all the money, all the political consultants

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Speaker 3: are there, the media market is there. So to long

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Speaker 3: story short, Indianapolis is going to have a much larger

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Speaker 3: sway over GOP politics, and rural conservatives and rural Republicans

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Speaker 3: are going to lose the advantages they've gained in the

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Speaker 3: party over the past couple of years.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, Casey, what it's like, We're just after ten

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Speaker 1: twenty and I have to do my least favorite part

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Speaker 1: of every show.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is to say that you're right.

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Speaker 1: Now, Look, let's go back in the time machine because

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Speaker 1: this just happened. Like, what have I been saying throughout

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Speaker 1: this whole process that we were gonna get two more

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Speaker 1: Jefferson Shreve People like, is this worth two more Jefferson Shreves. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: think about how Jefferson Shreve just became a congressman. What

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Speaker 1: did he do? That district has a portion of Indianapolis,

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Speaker 1: It stretches to the eastern border of the state. What

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Speaker 1: did he do? He got smoked in most of the district.

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Speaker 1: He cleaned up in Indianapolis, and now he's a congressman.

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Speaker 1: So who is right again? You are done?

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Speaker 3: Da right?

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Speaker 1: I mean right, Jacob. Mean, that's what you're talking about,

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Speaker 1: where a Jefferson Shreve type guy with infinite money just

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Speaker 1: pours resources into the Indianapolis portion of the district, cleans

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Speaker 1: up in the vote there and they don't have to

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Speaker 1: worry about the rest of the district.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's going to happen. I mean, especially when

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Speaker 3: you're you're going to have four different congressional districts in Indianapolis.

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Speaker 3: That's that's for you know, potential Republican headliners in the

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Speaker 3: in the state party and in the federal delegation. They're

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Speaker 3: going to compete with each other too, so they're not

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Speaker 3: gonna you know, it just makes the most sense for

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Speaker 3: people to campaign in Indianapolis and spend their money there,

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Speaker 3: and like you said, just like Jefferson Shreve, they're going

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Speaker 3: to focus completely on Indianapolis at the expense of the

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Speaker 3: rest of the state.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Jacob, you're actually one of the first people that

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Speaker 2: I've heard mention this, because it seems like the people

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Speaker 2: that will be celebrating Indianapolis or Marion County being split

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Speaker 2: up into four sections is the political elite, consultant types,

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Speaker 2: and also the media. Can you speak more on the

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Speaker 2: money that will be spent within the media to win

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Speaker 2: these races?

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Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, I mean the Indianapolis media market and you know,

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Speaker 3: the Central Indiana media market. It touches about eight of

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Speaker 3: the nine congressional districts now as oppos to right now,

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Speaker 3: Indianapolis just touches too, and then there's a couple surrounding it.

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Speaker 3: But under this new map, like I said, there's four

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Speaker 3: districts that directly touched Marion County. There's a couple more

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Speaker 3: that are like very very close, And it's basically, people

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Speaker 3: are going to spend all their money here. It's where

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Speaker 3: the TV is going to reach the most people, and

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Speaker 3: it's just a matter of geography. And then with the

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Speaker 3: political consulting class, you know, a lot of them are

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Speaker 3: Republican maybe more establishment types. And you know, they've been

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Speaker 3: kind of out of power for a while in the GOP,

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Speaker 3: as you're well aware. COVID nineteen made a lot of

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Speaker 3: people angry at how Indianapolis Republicans handled things, especially the

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Speaker 3: former governor. But now this is going to firmly put

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Speaker 3: them back in control because they have the money to

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Speaker 3: control things. They just didn't have the demographics anymore. And

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Speaker 3: Indianapolis Republicans haven't had that congressional power, uh in a while.

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Speaker 3: Jefferson sure, he was one of the more recent ones.

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Speaker 3: And uh yeah, And I mean, now this is just

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Speaker 3: going to you know, if we have four congressional candidates

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Speaker 3: that are Republicans from Indianapolis, who are they going to

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Speaker 3: get their policies from? Who are they going to get there,

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Speaker 3: you know, other political things from. It's going to be

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Speaker 3: the political consultants there. So it's going to be a

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Speaker 3: huge boon for them.

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Speaker 1: A couple of minutes left with Jacob Stewart, columnist Indie

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Speaker 1: Star new column out today, GOP redistricting in powers Indianapolis

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Speaker 1: over rural Indiana. Didn't they kind of make a huge mistake,

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Speaker 1: Jacob not unveiling these maps when Braun first went for redistricting,

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Speaker 1: like saying, here's what we want to work off of.

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Speaker 1: That way they could have got input and maybe made

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Speaker 1: these maps a little better to make the opposition less stern,

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Speaker 1: because I think one of the points of the opposition is, Ben,

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Speaker 1: we don't even know what the maps are going to

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Speaker 1: look like, and neither do you. How could you be

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Speaker 1: for it?

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Speaker 3: I you know, I think I know exactly why they

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Speaker 3: do maps the way they did. I mean, they involved

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Speaker 3: this out of state group, the National Republican Redistricting Trust,

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Speaker 3: and they've pretty much directly said that they drew the maps,

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Speaker 3: or at least had a huge role in it, and

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Speaker 3: they were solely drawn with the intent of preserving geop

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Speaker 3: political majority. My guess is that it's drawn the way

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Speaker 3: it is to, you know, have those tiny slivers of

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Speaker 3: Indianapolis and then all the way across the rest of

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Speaker 3: the state. I think the goal is, no matter where

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Speaker 3: this demographics trend of like Indianapolis and Central Indiana, they

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Speaker 3: want to keep that majority in those districts. So I'm

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Speaker 3: sure that's why they did it. They don't really care,

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Speaker 3: at least they haven't said that they care about the

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Speaker 3: actual impact on state politics. And we know that because

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Speaker 3: pretty much everyone pushing this is from out of state

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Speaker 3: except for a small minority of legislators and some political

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Speaker 3: people here, like I said, the Indianapolis political consultants. So

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Speaker 3: I mean, that's really why they did it, And sure

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Speaker 3: it could have helped them get some more or if

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Speaker 3: they revealed it earlier, it also could have helped shut

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Speaker 3: it down earlier too, because you know it, just the

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Speaker 3: way it's drawn, it gives people really easy out to

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Speaker 3: oppose it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, hey, before we let you go, we're kind of

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Speaker 1: asking all our media friends this and we're hearing from

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Speaker 1: more and more people. Kayla Dwyer, who's your colleague at

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Speaker 1: the Star, said this yesterday. I heard from Adam Wrenn

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Speaker 1: who said it at Politico. Abdul has said this with

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Speaker 1: had Jim Merritt on earlier who said this. They think

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Speaker 1: this thing is going down in the Senate, which blows

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Speaker 1: my mind that they could just thoroughly embarrass the governor

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Speaker 1: in front of the entire nation. But it sounds like

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Speaker 1: lee's a lot of people think that's where it's headed.

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Speaker 1: What do you think you have your ear to the

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Speaker 1: you know ear on all of this. You are talking

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Speaker 1: to people. Where do you think this vote is headed

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Speaker 1: in the Senate.

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Speaker 3: I think it will be very close. I don't think

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Speaker 3: I have a firm opinion yet. I've said this throughout

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Speaker 3: this whole process. I think it's going to eventually happen.

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Speaker 3: And you know, am I just died at the last moment,

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Speaker 3: or it might get just one vote enough to get

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Speaker 3: it to pass. You know what a non opinion.

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Speaker 1: You should run for Congress, Jacob Stewart. You should run

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Speaker 1: for wherever these districts are. You should run in one

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Speaker 1: of them. All right, brother, Uh, yeah, we appreciate you.

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Speaker 1: This is a really interesting column, a great perspective. You

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Speaker 1: echo a lot of sentiments we've been saying. The column

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Speaker 1: again is GOP redistricting empowers Indianapolis over rural Indiana. Jacob Stewart,

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Speaker 1: Thank you, yep, thank you,