Virginia voters have approved a mid-decade redistricting plan, a move that could significantly bolster Democrats’ prospects of securing four additional U.S. House seats in the upcoming November midterm elections. These elections are poised to determine control of a narrowly divided Congress.
The constitutional amendment, endorsed by the electorate, circumvents a bipartisan redistricting commission. Instead, it permits the implementation of new districts drawn by Virginia’s Democratic-led General Assembly.
However, this public mandate might not represent the final word on the matter. The state Supreme Court is currently reviewing the plan’s legality, a case that could potentially render the referendum results null.
This Virginia redistricting referendum also marks a setback for President Donald Trump, who initiated a national redistricting push last year by urging Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts. His objective was to help Republicans gain more seats in the November elections and retain a slim House majority, particularly in the face of political headwinds that typically favor the party out of power during midterm elections.
The Texas gambit led to a burst of redistricting nationwide. So far, Republicans believe they can win up to nine more House seats in newly redrawn districts in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Democrats think they can win up to five more seats in California, where voters approved a similar mid-decade redistricting effort last November, and one more seat under new court-imposed districts in Utah.
Democrats hope to offset the rest of that gap in Virginia, where they decisively flipped 13 seats in the state House and won back the governor’s office last year.
But the back-and-forth battle is continuing in Florida, where the Republican-led Legislature is to convene April 28 for a special session that could result in more favorable congressional districts for Republicans.
In Virginia, Democrats currently hold six of the 11 U.S. House seats under districts that were imposed by the state Supreme Court in 2021 after a bipartisan commission failed to agree on a map based on the latest census data.
The new plan could help Democrats win as many as 10 seats. Five seats are anchored in the Democratic stronghold of northern Virginia, including one stretching out like a lobster to consume Republican-leaning rural areas. Revisions to four other districts across Richmond, southern Virginia and Hampton Roads dilute the voting power of conservative blocs in those areas. And a reshaped district in parts of western Virginia lumps together three Democratic-leaning college towns to offset other Republican voters.
Democrats portrayed the Virginia redistricting as a response to Trump. It is “pushing back against what other states have done in trying to stack the deck for Donald Trump in those congressional elections,” Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger said during an online rally last week.
Ads for the “yes to redistricting” campaign featuring former President Barack Obama flooded the airwaves.
But opponents of the redistricting also distributed campaign materials citing statements from Obama and Spanberger, who had both criticized gerrymandering in the past.
Congressional redistricting typically is done once a decade after each census.
In 2020, Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment meant to diminish political gamesmanship by shifting redistricting responsibilities away from the legislature.
