The Race
Senate District 11 occupies a crescent of suburban and exurban territory northeast of South Bend, straddling St. Joseph and Elkhart counties. The district includes Granger -- one of St. Joseph County's fastest-growing communities, with a population of 30,337 as of the 2020 Census -- along with portions of Clay and Harris townships in St. Joseph County and Cleveland, Osolo, Washington, and York townships in Elkhart County. [1] This is the Michiana suburbs: Penn-Harris-Madison school district families, University of Notre Dame employees, small-business owners, and retirees in a landscape of golf courses and subdivisions. It is not Trump rally country. It is the kind of Republican territory that votes reliably red but does not mistake volume for virtue.
Linda Rogers has represented the district since 2018 and won reelection in 2022 with 61.7% of the vote. [2] She is a businesswoman, not a career politician -- she and her husband built a portfolio of restaurants, a golf course, and a construction firm over nearly four decades in the region. [3] She chairs the Senate's Pensions and Labor Committee and sits on Tax and Fiscal Policy, Education and Career Development, Elections, and Family and Children Services. [4]
On December 11, 2025, Rogers was one of 21 Republican senators who voted against HB 1032, the mid-decade redistricting plan backed by President Trump and Governor Braun. The bill failed 31-19. [5]
That vote made her a target. But what makes SD-11 unusual among the redistricting revenge races is what did not happen next.
The Redistricting Connection
Trump endorsed challengers against five of the six Republican senators who voted no on redistricting and face May 2026 primaries: Michelle Davis against Greg Walker (SD-41), Blake Fiechter against Travis Holdman (SD-19), Tracey Powell against Jim Buck (SD-21), Paula Copenhaver against Spencer Deery (SD-23), and Brenda Wilson against Greg Goode (SD-38). He also endorsed Beau Ellington for the open SD-39 seat vacated by Eric Bassler. [6]
Rogers is one of three anti-redistricting senators with primary challengers who received no Trump endorsement against them. The other two are Dan Dernulc (SD-1) and Rick Niemeyer (SD-6). As of March 25, 2026, Trump had made 17 social media posts weighing in on Indiana Senate Republican primary races -- and none mentioned Rogers' district. [7]
The distinction matters. In the five direct revenge races, Trump-endorsed challengers received Oval Office meetings, Hoosier Leadership for America television and radio ad buys, and the full architecture of the dark money machine documented in the broader investigation. [8] Rogers' challenger arrived through a different door -- Turning Point Action, not Trump's Truth Social account.
This makes SD-11 a quasi-redistricting revenge race: the challenger exists because of the redistricting vote, but the race lacks the presidential endorsement and the coordinated national spending apparatus that define the core revenge contests. The revenge impulse is present. The revenge machinery is not -- or at least, not at the same scale.
Republican Primary
Linda Rogers (Incumbent)
Rogers' path to the state senate itself was a primary challenge. In 2018, she defeated one-term incumbent Joseph Zakas with 64.9% of the Republican primary vote -- 5,512 to 2,982. [2] She then won the general election with 61.2% and held the same margin (61.7%) when reelected in 2022. [2] Her campaign finance history shows she raised $597,065 for the 2022 cycle and $321,760 for 2018 -- nearly $920,000 total across two cycles. [9]
Born in Bad Axe, Michigan, Rogers earned a B.S. in mathematics education from Central Michigan University and worked as a teacher before entering business. She is the only woman to have been elected president of both the Indiana Builders Association and the National Golf Course Owners Association. [3]
Her legislative record places her squarely in the Republican mainstream. She voted YES on the 2022 near-total abortion ban (SB 1, both initial and final passage). [10] She achieved a 100% attendance record for the 2026 legislative session. [4] In 2025, she supported the property tax reform package (SB 1 of 2025), speaking favorably about its property tax sharing provisions for school districts. [11] She also authored a bill to replace the elected South Bend Community Schools board with state-appointed members -- legislation that drew criticism from her Democratic opponent but aligns with the charter school and school choice priorities of the Republican caucus. [12]
Before the redistricting vote, Rogers was targeted by threats. On November 21, 2025, she confirmed she had been "the victim of several intimidation incidents" at her home and her family's Juday Creek Golf Course. The St. Joseph County Police Department and Indiana State Police investigated. [13] Despite the pressure, she voted no. Her reasoning was consistent with the other anti-redistricting senators: constituent opposition and procedural concerns about mid-cycle map changes.
Governor Braun's HOPE (Hoosiers for Opportunity, Prosperity and Enterprise) nonprofit also targeted Rogers during the 2025 legislative session with a "mid-six figure" social media ad campaign over property taxes, accusing her of voting "to gut Governor Braun's tax relief plan." [14] This preceded the redistricting fight and indicates Rogers had already drawn establishment ire on a separate front.
Brian Schmutzler (Challenger)
Dr. Brian Schmutzler announced his candidacy on January 19, 2026 -- roughly five weeks after the redistricting vote killed HB 1032. [15] He is a board-certified anesthesiologist in Elkhart, holding both an M.D. and Ph.D. from Indiana University School of Medicine. He completed his residency at IU with a focus on regional and ambulatory anesthesia, and serves as Executive Vice President of Medical Affairs at CCI Anesthesia, a physician-owned practice in the Elkhart area. [16]
Schmutzler's campaign website makes no mention of redistricting. His platform centers on "faith, family, and freedom," with positions on school choice (microschools, hybrid schooling, homeschooling), healthcare reform (reducing insurance company intermediaries, the "MAHA movement"), opposition to property taxes and government debt, and concerns about chemicals in food and consumer products. He describes himself as "Christian first, conservative second, Republican when the party reflects Christian conservative values." [17]
He is not running as a redistricting revenge candidate. He is running as a movement conservative in a district whose incumbent is a mainstream Republican.
But the circumstances of his entry are not neutral. Within days of his announcement, a social media post by a Turning Point-aligned account declared: "Dr. Brian Schmutzler will run in District 11 vs. Linda Rogers, an opponent of redistricting. Turning Point is keeping @charliekirk11's promise, and will support him in this race. GREAT TO SEE! TIME'S UP, LINDA!" [18]
This references the late Charlie Kirk's pledge -- made through Turning Point Action before his death in September 2025 -- that the organization would spend "congressional-level" money to primary anti-redistricting senators. Brett Galaszewski, an enterprise director at Turning Point Action, had specified: "If it does not pass, Turning Point Action is willing to throw more money and resources into these primary races than some congressional" races. [19]
The question of how much Turning Point Action money has actually flowed to SD-11 is harder to answer. Hoosier Leadership for America -- the 501(c)(4) dark money vehicle run by Andrew Surabian and affiliated with Sen. Jim Banks -- purchased television, radio, and digital advertising in at least four Indiana media markets (Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Lafayette, Terre Haute) against five anti-redistricting senators. Rogers was not among the named targets in reporting on those ad buys. [8] No Trump endorsement means no Oval Office visit and no inclusion in the most visible prong of the revenge campaign.
What Schmutzler has is the Turning Point brand connection, the redistricting backdrop, and the broader atmosphere in which outside groups have promised to spend millions against anti-redistricting Republicans. Whether that translates into actual spending in the South Bend television market -- which is more expensive than the smaller markets where Hoosier Leadership for America has been active -- remains unclear. No specific dollar amounts of outside spending in SD-11 have been publicly documented as of late March 2026.
General Election
Gabrianna Gratzol (Democrat)
Gabrianna Gratzol is a community organizer and activist from the Elkhart County portion of the district. She describes herself as "a working class wife, mother, and Hoosier who understands the struggle that Hoosiers with full time employment face daily." [20]
Her activism has been visible in the Michiana progressive community. She organized Progress Fest, a community engagement event bringing together nonprofits, coalitions, candidates, and progressive leaders. She co-organized the "No Kings" protest in downtown Elkhart in October 2025 alongside Kate Marsh of Elkhart County Indivisible, and participated in "Hands Off!" rallies in early 2026. [21]
Her campaign platform focuses on education, worker protections, and affordability. She has been most vocal on education issues, particularly opposing Rogers' bill to replace the elected South Bend Community Schools board. "I fail to see how removing the local voices is a solution," Gratzol said, arguing that GOP policies on vouchers and charter schools drove public school enrollment losses. [12]
Gratzol faces the structural reality of SD-11's partisan lean. Rogers has won her last two general elections with approximately 61-62% of the vote. [2] The district has not elected a Democrat in recent memory. In a midterm year with no statewide headliner race, generating the turnout needed to overcome a 20-plus-point structural deficit would require either extraordinary circumstances or an extraordinary campaign. The Republican primary is, for practical purposes, the election that decides who represents SD-11.
Why It Matters
SD-11 is the quietest front in the redistricting revenge campaign, and that quietness is informative. It illustrates the limits of the revenge apparatus. The national organizations that pledged millions to punish anti-redistricting senators appear to have concentrated their firepower on the six races where Trump personally endorsed challengers. Rogers, Dernulc, and Niemeyer -- the three anti-redistricting senators who escaped Trump's Truth Social targeting -- inhabit a different category: technically vulnerable to the redistricting anger, but outside the infrastructure of national spending.
The result is a race that looks like a normal ideological primary challenge dressed in redistricting-era clothing. Schmutzler is a credentialed physician running to Rogers' right on school choice and healthcare philosophy, backed by a Turning Point commitment of uncertain size. Rogers is a two-term incumbent with strong fundraising history, institutional committee power, and the credibility of having won her own seat through a primary challenge eight years ago. She knows what it takes to beat an incumbent -- because she did it.
The race also reveals the layered pressures facing Republican moderates in Indiana. Rogers was attacked by Braun's HOPE organization over property taxes. She was threatened during the redistricting debate. She was named by pro-redistricting forces as one of the "Traitorous 21." And now she faces a primary challenger backed by the organization that promised to spend congressional-level money against senators like her. Each pressure comes from a different direction, but they all arrive at the same message: fall in line, or face consequences.
Whether those consequences amount to a real electoral threat in SD-11 -- or merely a symbolic one -- depends on whether Turning Point Action's promise of support materializes as actual spending. In the six Trump-endorsed races, the money arrived. In SD-11, as of late March 2026, it has not been documented.