Deery announces re-election bid, as Trump promises GOP primaries in Indiana Senate districts
Plus, reports of ICE agents in downtown Lafayette have groups looking at ways to respond, share information.
Support for this edition comes from Purdue Musical Organizations, presenting the 92nd annual Purdue Christmas Show. The Christmas Show will shine Boilermaker bright with an all-student cast, festive music and dazzling performances. Tickets are now on sale for the Dec. 6-7 shows, where audiences of all ages will come together to celebrate the spirit of the holiday season at this timeless Purdue tradition. Get your tickets here.
Support for this edition also comes from the Unitarian Universalist Church’s annual Holiday Art Fair, Dec. 5-6. For more than 50 years, the UU Holiday Art Fair has been the place to find unique gifts including jewelry, handmade soap, ceramics, glassware, fiber arts, watercolors, ornaments, cards and more. Gourmet food, desserts, and live music make it an event you won’t want to miss. Learn about the artists and more at www.facebook.com/UUArtFair.
DEERY ANNOUNCES RE-ELECTION BID, AS TRUMP PROMISES GOP PRIMARIES IN INDIANA SENATE DISTRICTS
State Sen. Spencer Deery announced Monday from a kayak on the Wabash River that he’s running for a second four-year term in the sprawling Indiana Senate District 23.
The West Lafayette Republican’s announcement comes as President Donald Trump has been promising primary opponents for state senators who didn’t join his call to redraw district maps, with the goal of tilting more of Indiana’s nine congressional seats for Republicans willing to back his agenda.
Deery was among the earliest in the Indiana Senate to reject the redistricting idea and among eight who publicly said they wouldn’t vote for it in a special session called for by Gov. Mike Braun. By Friday, Sen. Rodric Bray, Indiana Senate leader, announced that the chamber wouldn’t meet in December in special session because the votes weren’t there to create new maps designed to pick up the two Democratic seats among Indiana’s nine congressional districts.
On Saturday, a day after Bray’s announcement, Deery told BiL he stood by that stance, saying that constituents he’d talked with were overwhelmingly against the idea.
“The power to draw election maps is a sacred responsibility directly tied to the people’s faith in the electoral process,” Deery said. “Normalizing mid-cycle gerrymandering would create a culture in which a political party could select new voters not once a decade, but any time it feared the consequences of an approaching election. Any elected office — from the U.S. Congress to a school board — could fall prey to such a culture. Such a shift would make it harder for the people to hold their elected officials accountable, and it would erode trust in our elections. For me, this was about preserving the integrity of our elections, and I will never waver in my defense of this most basic right in our Constitution.”
Off the water from his re-election video Monday, Deery said he’s figured for a while that he’d have Republican competition in the May 2026 primary.
“To be honest, I’ve expected a primary ever since I came out against mid-cycle gerrymandering,” Deery said Monday evening. “But I ran on not becoming a politician, and I’m trying to teach my kids to do what’s right, no matter the consequences — so there was never really another option. I genuinely believe that in today’s environment of nasty politics and childish behavior from so many elected officials, there’s an appetite for my brand of public service that will earn me another term.”
Trump reiterated the primary threat in a series of social media posts aimed at Indiana, including one Monday that said he “will be strongly endorsing against any State Senator or House member from the Great State of Indiana that votes against the Republican Party, and our Nation, by not allowing for Redistricting for Congressional seats in the United States House of Representatives as every other State in our Nation is doing, Republican or Democrat.”
As of Monday evening, no Republican had announced a bid in Senate District 23. No Democratic candidate had, either.
Deery – who worked for Purdue under then-President Mitch Daniels – won a four-candidate race in the 2022 GOP primary, beating Republicans Bill Webster, Paula Copenhaver and Christian Beaver in a district that had been redrawn during the once-a-decade redistricting and had no current senator running for re-election. Deery won the general election in November 2022, getting 63.6% of the vote over Democratic candidate David Sanders, a West Lafayette City Council member.
Senate District 23 covers the western half of Tippecanoe County, along with all or parts of Vermillion, Parke, Fountain, Warren and Montgomery counties.
In his video campaign announcement, Deery said he was doing it from the Wabash River because Senate District 23 included the longest stretch of the river of any in the General Assembly and was something that bound communities of various types in the district. He said it also symbolized one of the most important issues during his four-year term, as communities fought an Indiana Economic Development Corp. plan to build a $2 billion pipeline that would have tapped and taken up to a 100 million gallons a day from western Tippecanoe County to feed water-intensive industry in the LEAP district 35 miles away in Boone County.
The official candidate filing period ahead of the May 2026 primary starts Jan. 7.
REPORTS OF ICE AGENTS IN DOWNTOWN LAFAYETTE CAUSES A STIR MONDAY
Reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were patrolling alleys and streets in a section of downtown Lafayette spread quickly and had parts of Main Street on edge Monday.
What happened and whether it was truly ICE targeting parts of downtown remained a bit sketchy as of Monday evening. But Monday saw social media posts, mostly second- and thirdhand, flying about unmarked vehicles and people resembling agents working on immigration crackdowns in other cities, staging and lurking on and near Main Street.
Lafayette Police Chief Scott Galloway said he started getting questions at 10:30 a.m. Monday. Galloway said no federal agencies had checked in with the Lafayette Police Department and there were no reports of actual incidents that would have indicated ICE arrests that day.
“Typically, we would get notified as a courtesy, but it’s not a mandate,” Galloway said about whether ICE would check in with local police. “If we become aware of another agency working in town, we make sure we communicate it to our command staff, just for awareness. … Appears to be a false report that got shared.”
Greater Lafayette Immigrant Allies, a local advocacy group, reported Monday evening that it had fielded several reports of possible federal agents on Main Street.
“We are relieved to say that there have been no reports of anyone detained or kidnapped. We have also been unable to verify the presence of any federal agents,” the group wrote in a statement released by Margaret Hass, president of Greater Lafayette Immigrant Allies.
But the group said it had verified “through reports and photos that there was at least one individual walking downtown on Main Street and in the alleyways on the north side of Main Street armed with a firearm and taser, and wearing military-style clothing that could easily be misidentified as ICE or Border Patrol.” (The group did not immediately share photos its members had seen.)
The group said several organizations were teaming up to create the United Tippecanoe Rapid Response Network, whose members will be “trained to respond and verify reports of ICE activity in our community so that we can share accurate information and keep each other safe.” The group encouraged people to share as specific information possible about the time, location, appearance and activity of suspected ICE agents at utrrn@proton.me.
“We are turning away from fear and isolation, and instead turning toward solidarity and community,” the group said in a statement Monday evening. “(United Tippecanoe Rapid Response Network) members are being trained to respond and verify reports of ICE activity in our community so that we can share accurate information and keep each other safe.”
THIS AND THAT/OTHER READS …
Speaking of voting, GrowLocal Urban Gardens Network, a collection of 20 volunteer-run community gardens tucked into Lafayette neighborhoods, is taking part in the annual #SeedMoneyChallenge, a 30-day fundraiser that started Saturday and runs until Dec. 15. Money raised helps provide seeds, plants, fertilizer, supplies, raised beds, garden soil and mulch to all the gardens, maps and signage for sharing garden locations in Spanish and English, along with garden programming, purchase shared tools and build accessible raised beds. GrowLocal partners include churches, K-12 schools, community centers, social service agencies, non-profits and more, sharing produce from 10 sharing gardens and supplying local food pantries and Food Finders Food Bank with any excess. Find the campaign and the 20 gardens in the GrowLocal network at: https://donate.seedmoney.org/12199/growlocal-urban-gardens-network
Thanks, again, for support for this edition from Purdue Musical Organizations, presenting the 92nd annual Purdue Christmas Show Dec. 6-7. Get your tickets here.
And from the Unitarian Universalist Church’s annual Holiday Art Fair, Dec. 5-6. Learn about the artists and more at www.facebook.com/UUArtFair.
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