Jim Buck has been in the Indiana legislature longer than some of his constituents have been alive. He won his first House seat in 1994, moved to the Senate in 2008, chaired committees, rose to become national chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council -- the most influential conservative state-policy organization in the country -- and never once faced a serious primary challenge.
Then, on December 11, 2025, he cast a single vote against Trump's mid-decade redistricting plan. And now the president of the United States wants him gone.
This is the story of SD-21: a race that started as a conventional generational-change primary and became a presidential loyalty test. It features an 80-year-old ALEC chairman who won't talk about redistricting and a county commissioner whose campaign changed its reason for existing halfway through.
Buck was born July 30, 1945, in Logansport, Indiana. His political career spans 32 consecutive years: 14 in the House (1994-2008) and 18 in the Senate (2008-present). His general election margins tell the story of a man whose district knows him well: 68.6% in 2010, unopposed in 2014, 65.4% in 2018, 64.0% in 2022. He has never faced a serious primary. In the Senate, Buck chairs the Committee on Local Government and sits on five others. His ALEC credentials are substantial: former national chair, current board member, Indiana state chair, and host of the 2025 ALEC Annual Meeting in Indianapolis.
This is not the resume of a man who stumbled into conservative politics.
Buck voted against HB 1032 on December 11, 2025, one of 21 Republican senators who joined all 10 Democrats to kill the bill 31-19. Unlike Greg Walker in SD-41, who delivered 20 minutes of emotional testimony and accused the White House of violating the Hatch Act, Buck said nothing dramatic on the floor. He simply voted no. His reasons -- whatever they were -- remained largely private.
Trump took to Truth Social and called Buck a "pathetic RINO incumbent," writing that Buck and his "RINO friends made Indiana, a State I love and have been very good to, the only State in the Country that essentially said they don't care if Democrats steal Republican House seats."
Buck's response was a study in strategic silence. He did not address the redistricting conflict. He did not mention Trump by name. He released a statement describing himself as a "principled conservative and staunch defender of the U.S. Constitution" and cited recognition from national conservative organizations and the Indiana State Police Alliance.
Tracey Powell is a Tipton County Commissioner, chiropractor, farmer, and small business owner. He announced his candidacy in September 2025, approximately three months before the redistricting vote. His announcement had nothing to do with Trump or redistricting. He said: "State government needs leaders who understand the challenges faced by our local communities." His platform was local: cutting taxes, strengthening schools, supporting healthcare access.
It was a standard generational-change campaign. An 80-year-old incumbent. A younger challenger arguing it was time for fresh leadership. Nobody outside Howard and Tipton counties would have noticed.
The redistricting vote in December and Trump's endorsement in late January rewrote Powell's candidacy. On approximately January 27, 2026, Trump gave Powell his "Complete and Total Endorsement," calling him an "America First Patriot." Powell said he was "deeply honored," pledging to fight for "Hoosier values, secure our borders, strengthen our economy, and defend our constitutional freedoms." Compare that rhetoric to his September announcement -- "give our communities a stronger voice at the Statehouse" -- and the shift is plain. The borders-and-freedoms language was absent from the original campaign. The local county commissioner had become a national loyalty candidate.
On March 4, 2026, the transformation was complete. Powell was one of six Trump-endorsed Indiana Senate candidates who received an Oval Office meeting with the president. A Tipton County Commissioner, filming campaign content from the White House lawn, for a state senate primary in north-central Indiana. That is the scale of what the redistricting fight introduced into this race.
The outside spending dwarfs anything a state senate primary in Kokomo would normally attract. Hoosier Leadership for America -- a dark-money 501(c)(4) affiliated with U.S. Senator Jim Banks and run by Andrew Surabian, a longtime Team Trump operative -- is running ads against Buck, planning to spend $3 million across seven state Senate races. Club for Growth Action PAC, led by former Indiana Congressman David McIntosh, is sending mailers on Powell's behalf. Fair Maps Indiana leader Marty Obst has pledged his organization and others will "spend seven figures" supporting the Trump-endorsed challengers.
What is analytically striking about SD-21 is the distance between the attack and the record. Jim Buck served as national chair of ALEC. He has a 32-year legislative career in a deep-red district. His general election margins have never fallen below 64%. There is nothing in his platform that a Republican primary voter in Howard County would find objectionable. The man is not a moderate. He is not a Democrat. He is a former ALEC national chair with law enforcement endorsements who has been winning elections in this district since Bill Clinton's first term.
And the president called him a "pathetic RINO" because of a single vote on a single bill.
On the Democratic side, two first-time candidates -- Joseph Kazlas and Kirsten Root -- are competing for a nomination in a district that has not elected a Democrat to the state senate in decades. Kazlas is a Navy veteran and 30-year Stellantis worker on the UAW Local 685 Veterans Committee. Root is a middle school social worker with an MSW from IU Indianapolis whose campaign centers on the mental health crisis, education funding, and healthcare access. She has pledged not to accept corporate PAC money. The challenge either faces is not rhetorical but arithmetic: SD-21 is deep-red territory where Buck won his last contested general election with 64% of the vote.
The May 5 primary will reveal whether the voters of Senate District 21 know Jim Buck well enough to disregard a president calling him a "pathetic RINO" -- or whether that label, amplified by millions of dollars in outside spending, overwrites three decades of constituent service.