The Daniels Wing
Spencer Deery is the kind of Republican who was unremarkable before 2025 and became remarkable by refusing to change.
He grew up in rural Indiana, the son of an elementary school principal and a public school teacher. Eagle Scout. BA in communications from Brigham Young University. Master's in public administration from the Trachtenberg School at George Washington University, where he graduated at the top of his class. He speaks fluent Spanish. [1]
For eleven years he worked in the President's Office at Purdue University as deputy chief of staff and communications advisor to Mitch Daniels -- the former Indiana governor who became Purdue's president and who represents a specific tradition of Indiana Republicanism: fiscally conservative, institutionally serious, temperamentally allergic to spectacle. Deery absorbed that tradition. He is, in the language of Republican factional politics, a Daniels man. [1]
That background matters because it explains why Deery frames his dissent the way he does -- not as rebellion, but as first principles. The Daniels wing of Indiana Republicanism believes in constitutional process, institutional norms, and the idea that conservative governance means conserving things, including the rules.
Winning SD-23
Senate District 23 covers the western townships of Tippecanoe and Montgomery counties and all of Warren, Fountain, Parke, and Vermillion counties in west-central Indiana. It is a largely rural, multi-county district anchored by the West Lafayette area and Purdue University. It is solidly Republican. [2]
Deery won the seat in 2022, capturing 39.8% of a four-way Republican primary. Paula Copenhaver -- his current challenger -- finished third in that same race with 22.9%. Even in the more rural counties closer to Copenhaver's Fountain County base -- Vermillion and Parke -- Deery held the lead with 31% to her 23%. [3]
He arrived in the Indiana Senate as a freshman with a Purdue pedigree and no obvious enemies. That lasted until November 2025.
"I Took an Oath Before God"
On November 17, 2025, Deery was among the first Indiana state senators to publicly oppose Trump's push for mid-decade redistricting. His statement on the Indiana Senate Republicans website laid out a constitutional argument with unusual clarity:
I took an oath before God to support the Constitution. There is no constitutional principle more basic than popular sovereignty and the idea that voters choose their leaders and shape their own destiny.
He warned that the state was "being asked to create a new culture in which it would be normal for a political party to select new voters, not once a decade -- but any time it fears the consequences of an approaching election," which would "clearly violate the concept of popular sovereignty." He pledged to "stand up for the principle that candidates should win on the strength of their ideas and not on their ability to choose new voters." [4]
He told the Christian Science Monitor: "I'm not taking this position because I'm opposing conservative values. I'm taking it because of my conservative values." [5]
Of all the targeted senators, Deery articulated his dissent in the most explicitly constitutional terms. He framed it not as political calculation but as a small-c conservative argument about popular sovereignty -- the kind of thing that sounds unremarkable in a civics textbook and gets you swatted at your home in 2025.
Pizza, Then Swat Teams
Three days after Deery's public statement, on November 20, 2025, police dispatch received a report of domestic abuse at his West Lafayette residence, including a threat of violence toward responding officers. Police thwarted the swatting attempt. The night before, someone had sent an unpaid pizza delivery to his address -- what Deery described as "an attempt to intimidate an elected official by conveying 'we know where you live.'" [6]
He was at least the third Republican senator targeted by swatting in connection with the redistricting fight. The sequence is worth noting: a senator announces a constitutional objection, receives a message establishing that his home address is known, and is then swatted. Whether these events were coordinated or opportunistic, the effect is the same -- a freshman state senator weighing a vote now weighs it alongside the knowledge that armed officers may arrive at his door.
The Response
Deery's response to the Trump challenge has been to lean into the record rather than run from the vote.
He claims a 100% rating from right-leaning groups -- which, if accurate, neutralizes the ideological dimension of the challenge entirely. The case against him rests on a single vote: his opposition to the mid-decade redistricting plan. On every other axis of conservative policy, there is no daylight. [5]
Former Governor Mitch Daniels endorsed him in a pre-recorded video played before Deery's campaign kickoff in mid-January 2026. Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray controls more than $3 million in campaign funds that could be deployed to defend targeted incumbents, though specific allocations to SD-23 remain unclear. [7] [5]
What Deery does not have is an Oval Office photo, a Truth Social endorsement, or the backing of national dark-money groups. What he has is an argument: that a state senator's job is to represent his district and uphold his oath, not to ratify presidential preferences on legislative procedure.
Whether that argument survives a primary in 2026 Indiana is exactly what this race will decide.
For the full SD-23 race analysis, see the Deery vs. Copenhaver race pair.