Red state shocker 'a microcosm of everything that went wrong for Trump': analyst

On MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Joe Scarborough pointed to Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman shocking observation on how badly Indiana Republicans would have suffered if Donald Trump had gotten his way.

Reflecting on the midterm blowout that has Republicans reeling and questioning what is in store for them in 2028, Scarborough reported, “If you look at the arrogance, the abuse of power, the corruption, all of the overreaching, and especially just politically, the abuse of gerrymandering, doing it, you know, breaking all norms and deciding they're going to do a mid-decade gerrymander.”

“There's, of course, Jake Sherman reporting last night that if Indiana had gone along with Donald Trump and redistricted the way Donald Trump was trying to force them to redistrict, Democrats would have won every seat in Indiana except for one,” he added.

“Which, again, goes to when you're corrupt, when you try to overplay your hand, it usually blows up in your face. And that certainly happened on Tuesday night for Republicans,” he elaborated.

Bulwark editor-in-chief Sam Stein agreed and offered, “Yeah, the Indiana story is actually pretty interesting because it's a microcosm of everything that went wrong for Trump. So basically, the Republicans Trump led, say to the Indiana state Republicans, ‘You have to redistrict your state.’ And the Indiana state house Republicans, who are sort of preternaturally cautious, say, no, we don't want to do that, it's not right and also may not work.”

“And the Trump people lose their minds and then go and try to primary every single Indiana Republican who said no to redistricting,“ he continued before observing, “Flash forward half a year. The Indiana Republicans who said no to redistricting look like geniuses. They saved congressional delegations, but they're all out of office, or almost all, because Trump primaried them.”

“And it shows you that if you took a stand, if you were sort of a moderate force in the Republican Party against Trump, you risked your career and oftentimes lost it — and you were right.”