Virginia voters authorized a map that offers Democrats the chance to web as many as four US House seats in a main enhance to the social gathering’s effort to win House management within the midterms.
The map set to enter impact represents one of the most extreme political gerrymanders of the 2026 election cycle, giving Democrats an electoral benefit in 10 of the state’s 11 House districts. Currently, Democrats management six of these seats.
Tuesday’s referendum drew a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign to steer Virginians to change the state structure to quickly enable strains crafted by the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature to manipulate the election this fall, in 2028 and in 2030.
Supporters of the map, led by nationwide figures equivalent to former President Barack Obama and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, forged the change as essential to function a test on President Donald Trump and Republican insurance policies throughout his last two years within the White House. Trump launched the continuing mid-decade redistricting battle final yr when he pushed Texas Republicans to redraw their maps for GOP benefit.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and several other former Virginia Republican officers, together with former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, campaigned against Democrats’ redistricting actions in the state, as Republicans labored laborious to mobilize conservatives in rural areas to oppose the map. Trump dialed into a name Monday evening to mobilize opponents and posted Tuesday morning on his social media community: “VIRGINIA, VOTE ‘NO’ TO SAVE YOUR COUNTRY!”
“Virginia just kicked Donald Trump’s ass,” Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, one the leaders of the pro-map effort, informed NCS Tuesday evening. “We have rejected him in every state election where he has been anywhere close to the ballot.”
Scott argued Trump’s Eleventh-hour transfer to rally voters helped Democrats’ trigger ultimately. “All he did was wake Virginians up and let them understand the threat that he is.”
Virginia is the most recent to have interaction within the once-rare observe of mid-decade redistricting as each political events hunt for benefit forward of November’s elections for Congress. Republicans maintain a paper-thin majority within the House and face the headwinds of historical past: The president’s social gathering sometimes loses floor in Congress within the midterms.
With Tuesday’s victory, Democrats have redrawn 10 seats nationally to their benefit since Texas kicked off mid-decade redistricting, in comparison with Republicans’ 9.
The map’s proponents spent more than $56.4 million on promoting by way of Tuesday morning – more than twice the $24.6 million invested by teams against the map, in response to AdImpact, which tracks political promoting.
In a video message within the marketing campaign’s last days, Obama stated the brand new map would assist “push back against the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms.”
In a assertion Tuesday evening, Jeffries was blunt.
“Democrats did not step back,” he stated. “We fought back. When they go low, we hit back hard.”
Republicans indicated they are going to proceed to pursue authorized challenges to the Virginia plan. One avenue is the state Supreme Court, which allowed Tuesday’s vote to go ahead however remains to be weighing an enchantment of a lower-court ruling that the referendum was invalid.
North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, the chairman of the House Republicans’ marketing campaign arm, stated the margin of victory – which appeared nearer than current Democratic wins within the state – “reinforces that Virginia is purple state that shouldn’t be represented by a severe partisan gerrymander.”
In interviews at polling locations Tuesday, voters stated they weren’t captivated with redistricting however determined to help the map nonetheless.
John McIntire, an impartial voter from Manassas in northern Virginia, stated he’s “not a real fan of gerrymandering” however voted in favor of the referendum after Texas Republicans’ opening salvo within the redistricting combat final summer season.
“If it’s being done by one party, it’s a problem. I think it shouldn’t happen at all,” McIntire stated. “My concern is that it’s an unlevel playing field and this is trying to right it a little bit.”
The ‘No’ marketing campaign ran adverts for various audiences
One closing advert from the main opposition group, Virginians for Fair Maps, distilled the message Republicans sought to ship to rural Virginians and leaned into hot-button points for conservatives. It confirmed AI-generated imagery of somebody resembling the state’s newly put in Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, smiling as she set fireplace to a barn. It claimed that Spanberger and Democrats wished to “burn Virginia’s democracy to the ground” with the purpose of accelerating taxes, seizing weapons and opening borders to undocumented immigrants.
In an effort to sway Black voters, opponents sought to characterize the brand new map as decreasing the affect of African Americans. For occasion, one advert from a group referred to as Justice for Democracy featured video of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington and warned that the redistricting “dilutes the votes of historically marginalized communities.”
(The map shifts some Black and Hispanic voters within the Hampton Roads and Richmond communities into neighboring districts to make these areas more Democratic, however proponents rejected claims the change would weaken Black political energy.)
The Virginia final result represents a important setback within the GOP’s redistricting marketing campaign Trump set off final yr by efficiently encouraging Texas Republicans to attract 5 extra Republican-friendly seats. House district strains are sometimes drawn as soon as each decade, following the Census, slightly than in the midst of the 10-year interval.
Democrats in California responded with a map that largely offset Texas’ transfer, and different states rapidly joined the fray.
Vindication for state Democrats
In Virginia, Democrats debated internally about what number of Republican seats to focus on with their new map, with some elected officers advocating going for a more modest eight or 9 seats, slightly than 10. Former Vice President Kamala Harris received Virginia in 2024 by lower than 6 factors.
But outstanding figures within the social gathering, led by the outspoken state Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas, prevailed. Lucas spent months taunting Republicans with social media memes selling the 10-1 map.
“Why would we go through all this for an 8-3 map?” she informed NCS in a current interview. “We’ve got to fight fire with fire.”
National Democrats say their aggressive response exhibits their social gathering is prepared to combat the president on his personal phrases.
“We have to be as aggressive, dare I say, ruthless, as they have been,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom stated throughout a digital occasion for the pro-redistricting marketing campaign in Virginia. “We can’t win arguments anymore. We’ve got to win fights. And we’ve got to fight fire with fire.”
Newsom, who spearheaded the redistricting effort in his state, is term-limited and positioning himself as a potential 2028 presidential candidate.
Florida may very well be the subsequent battleground
Trump, who misplaced all three of his presidential bids within the state, had been notably absent from any public-facing function within the GOP effort till becoming a member of Johnson for an election-eve tele-rally to induce Virginians to vote “no.”
“This is really a country election,” Trump stated through the occasion, underscoring the importance of Tuesday’s ends in the nationwide redistricting combat. “The whole country is watching; it’s so important and so unfair what they’ve done.”
Despite Democrats’ victory, Virginia voters might not have the final phrase on redistricting.
Next week, Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature is slated to fulfill in a particular session referred to as by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis to contemplate new US House maps. Republicans haven’t but launched a particular plan, however some have indicated an curiosity in concentrating on as many as 5 seats now held by Democrats.
The Florida effort faces a number of obstacles of its personal.
The state’s structure prohibits gerrymandering on partisan grounds. And some Florida Republicans in Congress have publicly warned that an aggressive redraw may endanger GOP incumbents. They’ve taken be aware of sudden Democratic wins in particular elections, together with in a deep-red district that features Trump’s residence of Mar-a-Lago.
This story has been up to date with extra particulars.
NCS’s David Wright, Arlette Saenz and Jeff Simon contributed to this report.
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