Deery, Copenhaver both claim victory in Trump-fueled Indiana Senate District 23 election
Margin in the race stood at 3 votes Tuesday night.
State Sen. Spencer Deery, one seven incumbent senators at the heart of a retribution campaign fueled by President Donald Trump and White House allies, declared victory Tuesday night in an Indiana Senate District 23 race that showed a margin of 3 votes.
“I think that there’s no reason to question the numbers that we’ve had right now,” Deery, a West Lafayette Republican, said Tuesday, after arriving at the Tippecanoe County Office Building in downtown with family to thank supporters.
From Covington, on the other side of the sprawling state Senate district, Paula Copenhaver, Deery’s Trump-endorsed challenger, scoffed at the celebration when things remained so close.
“That’s what I heard,” Copenhaver told Based in Lafayette when told about Deery’s victory announcement. “Nothing like counting your chickens before they hatch.”
Unofficial results had the race at 6,334-6,331, in favor of Deery, Tuesday night. Official results won’t be certified until 10 days after the election.
Less than a half-hour after Deery’s announcement, Copenhaver declared victory of her own.
“After all provisional ballots are counted, we will prevail and be declared the winner of this race,” Copenhaver said. “I want to thank President Donald Trump for his unwavering support and endorsement. President Trump is the leader of our party, and it showed clearly tonight in his victories across the state.”
How many provisional ballots and others were left to count in a district that includes six counties wasn’t clear late Tuesday. In Tippecanoe County, where Deery won by a nearly two-thirds margin, county clerk Julie Roush said the county had 21 ballots cast provisionally or for other reasons hadn’t been counted, as of Tuesday night.
Asked if declaring victory under the circumstances was a bold move, Deery said he was comfortable.
“We’re grateful to pull this off,” Deery said. “Whether it’s a small margin or a large margin, a win is a win, and glad to have it.”
If it stands as Deery says, he would be one of two senators who survived in a primary day where Trump-backed challengers beat five incumbents who drew the ire of the White House and its allies.
The Indiana Senate District 23, along with seven other state Senate races where Trump’s forces poured millions of dollars into, became litmus tests for Trump’s ability to call fellow Republicans to heel.
Deery’s re-election campaign was targeted for his vote – not to mention outspoken opposition – on a Trump-backed plan to redraw Indiana’s congressional districts to make it easier to pick up two more of Indiana’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Deery was one on 21 Republican senators who balked at that idea and one seven incumbents in the 2026 primary to get a Trump-endorsed candidate.
As Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith said during the campaign, tagging Republicans who didn’t get on board with Trump: “Actually, retribution seems a little bit vindictive. I’m not trying to be vindictive here. I would call it a consequence of their actions.”
As Deery put it, during the debate over redistricting and again on a campaign trail where he was portrayed as a liberal in Republican clothing: “This is about if we want to allow others to dictate what happens in our state.”
Copenhaver, a former Fountain County clerk and a member of Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith’s staff, made Deery’s opposition to redistricting a central part of her motivation to run again, after placing third of four candidates in the 2022 GOP primary: “District 23 deserves a senator who is unapologetically willing to take on the radical Democrats’ socialist agenda. I’ll be a fighter for Hoosiers and a defender of the Indiana and America First Agenda.” And she stuck to that message throughout the campaign.
By candidate estimates and records tracking ad buys, more than $3 million was spent on the Senate District 23 race, between $2 million and $2.4 million of that coming from groups including two with ties to U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, an unabashed Trump fan.
Primary Election Day opened with headlines tracking this and other similar state Senate re-election bids in the AP, CNN, Politico and this from the New York Times, reflecting the general framing of the moment: “7 Midterm Elections on Tuesday Will Test Trump’s Power in Indiana.”
Trump weighed in Tuesday, while polls were open, on social media: “Good luck to those Great Indiana Senate Candidates who are running against people who couldn’t care less about our Country, or about keeping the Majority in Congress. There are eight Great Patriots running against long seated RINOS — Let’s see how those RINOS do tonight! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
In a statement Tuesday evening, Banks said: “Everyone in Indiana politics should have learned an important lesson today: President Trump is the single most popular Republican among Hoosier voters,” Banks said in a statement. “Indiana is a conservative state, and we deserve conservatives in our State Senate who have a pulse on Republican voters.”
Tuesday morning at the John Dennis Wellness Center in West Lafayette, Jon Edwards, of West Lafayette, said he typically sat out primaries, “unless we have a say in president or something.” He said he made an exception Tuesday, pulling a GOP ballot to vote for Deery.
“Against Trump, really,” Edwards said. “This whole thing’s been ridiculous. … I don’t see people around (West Lafayette) falling for it. But I can’t speak for other places where he might say jump and people jump.”
Deery said he wished things had gone better for other Republican colleagues targeted by Trump who did not win. He thanked those who endorsed or spoke up for him – “that’s a bold thing for them to do, to back me, given the revenge tours that were ongoing and the pressures.
And he took another swipe at dark money campaigns that brought reports of an estimated $9 millions into toppling those recalcitrant on the call to redistrict.
“I think Americans should be concerned,” Deery said. “Politicians do what works, and our campaign finance laws are such that you can raise money in unlimited ways from people that don’t even really care how you spend it. They just want influence. Now what the model is proving Is that not only can you use that to protect yourself within Congress, you can possibly protect yourself from the states exercising the will and listening to their voters.”
The winner in the Republican primary will face Democratic candidate David Sanders, a West Lafayette City Council member who teaches at Purdue, in the general election in November.
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