Editor’s note: The Purdue Exponent and The Indiana Citizen are working together on a joint project to give in-depth coverage to the race for Indiana Senate District 23. This is the first story in the series.
BY RONAK MOHANTY
Exponent Staff Reporter
When President Trump’s redistricting push failed in Indiana last year, the effort’s proponents promised retribution against the Republicans who killed it.
For West Lafayette’s State Senator, Spencer Deery, who came out early against redistricting in August, that retribution has taken the form of a Trump endorsed primary challenge by Paula Copenhaver, a top aide to Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith. Deery is the incumbent holding Indiana Senate District 23 which extends from West Lafayette into Fountain and Parke counties.
Copenhaver, who is the Governmental Affairs Director – North in Beckwith’s office, and chair of the Fountain County GOP, made the choice to run because of his stance on redistricting.
“It was kind of like the straw that broke the camel’s back when I realized that my state senator isn’t standing up for our republic,” Copenhaver said. “That I can’t just sit by and not continue to fight for not just our state but our nation.”
With the exception of redistricting, both candidates share similar visions for Indiana. Both Deery and Copenhaver speak of being strong conservatives, who believe in traditional conservative values of limited government, family values and lower taxes.
Where they diverge, and what the race’s primary fault lines will likely be, loyalty to Trump.
Purdue Political Science Professor Jesse Crosson said people won’t say it is because of Trump exactly, but will couch it by using terms such as “RINO (Republican in Name Only)” or “real conservatives.”
“Ultimately the reason there’s a primary challenge is because the Trump White House is angry that Indiana didn’t do what they were supposed to do,” Crosson said.
Deery may not have the support of Trump, but he has the endorsement of former Indiana Governor, and Purdue President Mitch Daniels.
The dueling endorsements are likely to play a key part in deciding the May 5th primary.
“Governor, President Daniels, whichever you want to call him, is highly liked in this state … he’s still a very revered figure, I mean certainly in the entire state, but especially here,” Crosson said. “On the other hand, Indiana was a pretty red state for Trump, right? And so, and everybody knows who Trump is, so both are popular figures.”
The May election will be a rematch of the 2022 Republican primary for SD 23. Deery won the four-way contest, capturing 39.8% of the vote. Copenhaver came in third with 22.9% of the GOP vote.
Deery is focusing on economic and other kitchen table issues, such as education. He echoed the concerns over affordability, saying his top three priorities were “helping folks that are struggling.”
His rhetoric on those issues, while still avowedly conservative, speaks much more like a pre-MAGA Republicans, such as former Mitch Daniels – which isn’t to call them moderates. As Crosson explained, the old guard establishment” are “pretty principled conservatives” but distinct from the MAGA Republicans.
“Gov. Daniels is very conservative,” Crosson said. “It’s not as though he was a squishy middle-of-the-road guy.”
Crosson said no one would have called Daniels a moderate when he was governor.
Deery and Daniels have been close professionally since before Deery was elected to the Indiana Senate. He served as deputy chief of staff when Daniels was president of Purdue. And after Daniels retired in 2022, Deery followed Daniels to the Purdue Research Foundation.
Deery said his current role is supporting Daniels in a “communications and prep role as an aide to Mitch Daniels.”
Deery emphasized his conservative credentials, saying he upholds constitutional and family values. He dismissed claims that he is not conservative. To underscore his assertion, Deery pointed to his 100% rating by both the Indiana Family Institute, and Americans for Prosperity.
“I consider myself a Christian, first, conservative, second and Republican, third, in that order of importance, and I’m happy to defend my record on all three.”
Copenhaver described her agenda in decidedly MAGA terms. She talked about putting Hoosiers first by supporting “our Republican platform.” She advocated for property tax relief, supporting law enforcement, and pushing back against both “the green energy scams” and foreign adversaries like the Communist Party of China.
Further echoing the rhetoric Trump has used, Copenhaver spoke darkly of America’s future. She said nations like America have only lasted around 250 years.
“We are at the kill zone, and yeah, I believe that we are in danger of losing our constitutional republic,” Copenhaver said.
Copenhaver placed the blame squarely on the left for the country’s uncertain future.
“The radical leftist agenda that gets rid of morals and values – it doesn’t support family and community – all of those things that are tearing away the core values of family and freedom is what is demoralizing our nation to where we have no rules,” Copenhaver said.
She highlighted immigration, specifically saying “illegal immigration” had increased because laws had not been enforced in the past. This is an issue Trump has focused on during his first and second administrations.
“You wouldn’t let just somebody come into your house, would you, unless they’re friends or family or they were invited in, right?” Copenhaver said. “So, same thing with our nation. We have to push back against that, and we have to protect America. We have to protect our borders. We got to push back against that government overreach, and that’s what that is.”
When asked a follow-up question about specific legislation she might introduce in the state senate to support those goals, Copenhaver deflected.
Instead she said, “I am going to win the primary, and then I’m going to win the general, and then we can have that discussion again.”
While the redistricting battle is looming over this race, Deery hasn’t campaigned on the issue. Instead, the state senator has sought to move on from the issue that caused his home to get swatted last year.
Deery was one of 21 Republican state senators who voted against midcycle redistricting. This ended the push for Indiana to join other Republican-led states to redraw their congressional districts ahead of the 2026 election and handed Trump a major defeat.
The fight in the Hoosier State attracted national attention. Daniels was a vocal opponent of the effort to shuffle Indiana’s map.
In an op-ed published in June of last by the Washington Post Daniels said, “(Indiana’s leaders) duty is to the citizens and the future of our state, not to a national political organization or a temporary occupant of the White House. And doing the right thing, by the way, really would be its own reward.”
Deery is trying to shift the focus of the race away from the past.
“There are too many big issues to let those petty things get in the way of the state,” Deery said.
However, Deery views his stance against redistricting as firmly in line with his conservative values.
“I also have stood for the principle, the very conservative principle, that politicians should be reelected based on the strength of their ideas and never on their ability to select new voters,” Deery said in his campaign kick-off in January.
When asked about Deery’s defense of his vote, Copenhaver scoffed.
She views Deery’s vote against redistricting as a choice to not help President Trump and to allow Democrats to “continue to play the game.”
“We are on the cusp of losing our Republican way of life,” she said.
In low-information races, such as this one, Crosson explained that the endorsements of Daniels and Trump will likely serve as a way for voters to quickly decide who to support.
Crosson did see the race as part of a national war over the Republican party.
“(Deery) is more along the lines of a traditional conservative than the preferences that we’ve seen from the Trump White House … which tends to be a more centralized style of governance,” Crosson said.
Crosson believed the vision that wins the SD 23 GOP primary in May – Deery’s traditional Republican or Copenhaver’s MAGA Republican – will likely come down to voter turnout.
“Ultimately, it’s gonna be up to the voters, because the people who are upset at Senator Deery will turn out,” Crosson said. “It’s just a matter of whether people who value Indiana calling Indiana shots, whether they do.”
The Purdue Exponent is the independent student media organization serving the Purdue University community. It is published by the Purdue Student Publishing Foundation, a non-profit educational organization. For questions about the story, contact the editor-in-chief, Olivia Mapes, at editor@purdueexponent.org.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. It is operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact the editor, Marilyn Odendahl, at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
