On a weeknight in late 2025, Greg Goode did something no other Indiana state senator bothered to do. He held a public listening session on redistricting -- at Terre Haute City Hall, open to anyone who wanted to show up and speak.
Every single constituent who spoke opposed mid-cycle redistricting.
Then Goode voted no.
For that, he got called out by name by the President of the United States on Truth Social. Hours later, someone sent an email to the Vigo County Sheriff's Office claiming harm had occurred at Goode's home. Deputies rushed to the scene. His family was safe. The investigation was handed to federal authorities.
Now Goode faces a Trump-endorsed challenger, a dark-money air war, and a ballot dispute so chaotic it temporarily shut down absentee voting in three counties. Welcome to Senate District 38.
Goode is not who you'd cast as a RINO rebel. He studied political science and history at Indiana State University, pursued graduate studies at the Catholic University of America (at the Pentagon), and is a doctoral student at Virginia Tech. For over a decade he served as Executive Director of Government Relations and University Communications at Indiana State, then became State Director for U.S. Senator Todd Young -- a Republican. He co-chairs the Indiana General Assembly Defense Caucus.
He got the Senate seat in October 2023 after Sen. Jon Ford resigned. Goode won a Republican precinct committee caucus 56-18 over former state senator John Waterman, with Ford's endorsement. He has never faced a general electorate.
When the redistricting vote came, Goode framed his opposition in terms that were hard to argue with from the right. The proposed map would have split Clay County and other Wabash River counties into a congressional district with Boone County and Indianapolis, fracturing an economic development region that had been working since 2015, under three governors, to unify those counties. During the Senate floor debate, he invoked former Vice President Mike Pence's signature phrase: "I'm a Christian first, then an American, then a conservative, then a Republican -- in that order."
It was a defense designed to make the "betrayed Trump" attack awkward to execute.
Brenda Wilson is a Vigo County Council member whose family has farmed in the county since 1816. The Wilson farm encompasses approximately 2,600 acres with cash crops of corn, wheat, and soybeans. She and her husband have also developed property and own an excavating company. Since September 2025, Wilson has worked for Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita's office as an outreach coordinator at a salary of $62,000 per year.
On January 28, 2026, Trump gave Wilson his endorsement via Truth Social, describing her as a "Successful Family Farmer, and Highly Respected Vigo County Commissioner, who will be a strong and effective Voice for our amazing Farmers and Indiana Agriculture." Trump got her title wrong. She's a Vigo County Council member, not a County Commissioner.
On March 4, 2026, Wilson was one of six Trump-endorsed Indiana Senate challengers who received an Oval Office meeting with the president.
But this race acquired complications the others did not.
A second candidate named Wilson filed for the same Republican primary. Alexandra Wilson's candidacy has been challenged on the basis of a 2010 guilty plea to resisting law enforcement -- originally charged as a Class D felony, though her attorney contends the judge accepted it as a Class A misdemeanor. Indiana law prohibits felony-convicted individuals from holding elected office. The Indiana Election Commission deadlocked 2-2 on the eligibility challenge, keeping Alexandra Wilson on the ballot.
Conservative attorney Jim Bopp -- a political ally of Governor Mike Braun -- filed an appeal, arguing that Alexandra Wilson's candidacy is a ballot "trick" by local Republicans to help Goode survive the primary by splitting votes intended for Brenda Wilson. Bopp noted that Alexandra Wilson's name will appear above Brenda Wilson's on the ballot due to alphabetical ordering.
The legal fight spilled into election administration. On March 19, 2026, a judge ordered Vigo, Clay, and Sullivan counties to "immediately cease sending, mailing, or otherwise distributing absentee ballots" for the SD-38 race. He then recused himself. A replacement judge lifted the stay on March 21. No other redistricting revenge race has produced anything like this -- a judicial halt on absentee voting weeks before the primary.
Here is the wrinkle that makes this race structurally different from the other revenge primaries. The Attorney General's office is defending the Indiana Election Commission in the ballot dispute litigation. The Attorney General's office also employs Brenda Wilson -- the candidate who would benefit most from Alexandra Wilson's removal from the ballot. This dual role has not resulted in formal recusal. The AG's office is simultaneously the employer of one candidate and the legal defender of the body that ruled on her competitor's eligibility.
Whether the second Wilson is a deliberate plant or a coincidence, the practical effect is the same: voters in SD-38 will see two candidates named Wilson on their ballot, and only one of them has Trump's endorsement. If Alexandra Wilson remains on the ballot, the anti-Goode vote splits between two Wilson candidates -- one endorsed by the president, one not.
While the Republican primary has consumed all the oxygen, Democrat Kacey Blundell -- a social worker for Vigo County Community Corrections -- filed for the general election and is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. Her platform centers on affordability, workforce development, public school funding, vocational education, and protecting the Wabash River. If the redistricting revenge battle damages the eventual Republican nominee through prolonged ballot litigation, dark-money attack ads, or voter fatigue with intra-party warfare, Blundell could inherit a general election opponent who has already spent their political capital fighting their own party.
The irony is thick. A race designed to punish a senator for independent judgment has become a case study in how national political hardball produces unintended local consequences. What should be a simple question -- should a senator who held the only public hearing and voted with his constituents be removed for defying the president? -- has been buried under procedural wreckage that is, itself, a symptom of how far outside power is willing to reach into a state Senate primary in Terre Haute.