Kornacki: Trump-endorsed wins in Indiana are ‘very clear’ message to defecting Republicans

Añadido: 2026-05-07

[00:00:03]Welcome back. If it's Wednesday, we have election results, including the closely watched Republican state Senate primaries in Indiana, where five of the seven incumbents who opposed the president's redistricting push were defeated by Trumpbacked challengers.

[00:00:17][music] At this hour, state senator Greg Good is the only one projected to hold on to his seat. With the final incumbent still locked in a tight race, separated by just a handful of votes, that race is still too close to call. Joining me now is NBC News chief data analyst Steve Cornaki and Shaquille Brewster on the ground in Indiana. Steve, let me start with you. Walk us through last night's results and what we know about the remaining uncalled race there.

[00:00:42]>> Yeah, well, take a look, Kristen. Here is the map here highlighting the districts here in Indiana that Trump had targeted here where Republican state senators had voted against him on that bid to redraw the state's congressional maps where you see that pink color. That means those state senators lost. The Trump side won and the margins where this happened generally were landslides.

[00:01:02]This is Lake County here. This is basically the Chicago suburbs.

[00:01:05]Republican incumbent here was absolutely clobbered who had voted against uh that redistricting plan. A loss here. This is another state senator who was defeated.

[00:01:13]Trump endorsing the challenger. This was a member of state senate leadership, Republican leadership who opposed Trump, who got beaten by the Trump back candidate. It was a landslide here. It was a landslide here. By the way, this is also this district right here is a Republican state senator who voted against redistricting and who got drumed out last night. Trump for reasons that are not well understood did not actually endorse the opponent here. But it seems the Republican voters there understood the dynamics the way they did in all these other districts and voted out that incumbent anyway. So as you can as you said there was one who survived down here in terote one incumbent who defied Trump who survived and then there's this one outstanding race. So the Trump forces in these of these eight incumbents six of them have been defeated. One survives and then one's fate is still to be determined. And we can just zoom in here and show you that.

[00:02:05]Uh thought we could just zoom in. Here we go. And show you that race right here. I mean, it doesn't get much closer than this, but it's three points.

[00:02:12]Spencer Deiri is the incumbent. Paula Copenhaver is the challenger. You're talking about West Lafayette where Purdue is some rural areas. And basically what's happening here is we're just trying to figure out how many provisional ballots there might be here.

[00:02:25]We're talking about potentially a dozen, two dozen ballots, something like that.

[00:02:30]Obviously, with the margin that that close, this is not something we're going to be in a hurry to call, but this is the one incumbent, you know, left here who has a uh a chance of hanging on potentially. So, it's either going to be seven for eight or six for eight for the Trump side. In that sense, the outcome of this almost doesn't matter because the message that comes through from the Trump side very clear after this. Steve, I can't remember the last time we saw a race separated by three votes. That's just astounding. I think you're right.

[00:02:57]We'll take our time before we call that one. Let me ask you about Democrats.

[00:03:00]They continued to overperform, including a Michigan state special election. Tell us more about that.

[00:03:06]>> Yeah, I mean, this has been the story of Trump's second term. When we've had these special elections, when I say special election, you're talking about like not not in November, low turnout, only the most committed go to the polls.

[00:03:17]And the Democrats, the Democratic base has been more committed in those elections than the Republican base. They keep doing much better than they did in 2024. It continued last night. This was a special election for a state senate district in Michigan. You can see here, this is Democrats had held this seat uh and they continue to hold it by a landslide here. Again, this is consistent with what we've seen in all these other special elections. The significance of this one is it preserves Democratic control of the state senate in Michigan. with a win here, Republicans could have moved into a tie.

[00:03:47]Instead, the Democrats win. They win in a landslide. And again, it's just that story we've seen here, that Democratic base. There's a component of that base that is clearly showing it wants to turn out in any and every election. It's very motivated. It's very plugged in right now. And when Donald Trump isn't on the ballot in these low turnout special elections, the Republican base, you're just not seeing that same level of enthusiasm. So, we keep seeing results like this in special elections.

[00:04:12]>> Remarkable. All right, Steve Cornaki, as always, thank you so much for the breakdown. We really appreciate it.

[00:04:18]Shaq, let me turn to you. You're on the ground there. You actually spoke to one of the Trump Act winners, Trevor Dere, before polls closed last night. How did he describe the president's influence on the race to you?

[00:04:31]>> Well, he said it's a big factor, Kristen. And just to kind of paint the picture a little bit, this was minutes before polls were were closing and set to close. And he was still handing out flyers to people who were going into the polling locations. But you can tell from his body language how confident he was feeling. He knew he was in for a good night. He suspected that other uh challengers in these primary races were in for good nights. And he was right.

[00:04:57]And he won his race by more than 50 points. And for some color on the ground, when you look at his lawn signs that have been around this district, he had Trump's name on top and then it said Trump endorses Dere. So that just gives you a sense of how much he leaned into that endorsement. So I asked him right before polls are closing, what do these Senate races say about President Trump's influence here in Indiana? Listen here.

[00:05:22]>> He is the sitting active president of the free world at the end of the day.

[00:05:26]Um, it's an honor and a privilege to be endorsed by President Trump. Um, and really he he's he's been the driving force in the Republican party for the past 10 years at this point. I mean, he's been helping push for change and helping reform a lot of the things that people are upset about and have been disenfranchised by the political systems over the past couple decades. Um, so him, he won our district heavily and he's going to continue to move the needle in Northwest Indiana. It's a a fire incumbent season right now and people are just tired of feeling like they're being left out.

[00:06:00]>> Now, one of the uh incumbents who was fired in another district said that this was about retribution and retaliation.

[00:06:08]You had another Senate leader who's on the opposite side, a Republican, but kind of uh gets uh some heat from President Trump and other Republican leaders here. He said that it's about the outside money that came in to these local state senate races. But look, this was a good night for President Trump and his allies. They got nearly exactly what they wanted and what they were expecting heading into this primary. Kristen, >> all right, thanks for bringing us that interview and that breakdown of the results overnight. Steve and Shaq really appreciate it. We thank you for watching and remember, stay updated on breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or watch live on our YouTube channel.