Yes, Virginia! The passage of a ballot initiative that allows Virginia Democrats to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts will make it easier for Democrats to win the House and put another check on our autocratic president. But just as importantly, the aggressive, collective gerrymandering pushes by Democrats in California and now Virginia show a party that finally fully understands that it will have to fight hard and a little dirty to defeat the GOP and defend American democracy.
The ballot initiative, which passed by about two percentage points, formally allows the Virginia General Assembly to redraw the state’s 11 congressional districts, supplanting the bipartisan Virginia Restricting Commission. Redistricting by the legislature is triggered by another state changing its congressional districts outside of the traditional every-10-years process without a judicial order. The measure is temporary, with redistricting power going back to the commission in 2031.
Informally, the Virginia Democrats who control the state’s legislature have given themselves power to gerrymander the state’s districts as a short-term response to Republicans gerrymandering Texas and other states they control at the behest of President Trump.
The legislature has already created and adopted the new district maps. They go into effect with the passage of this amendment. But the Virginia Supreme Court could still decide that the process by which the amendment was passed or the gerrymandering itself violates the state’s constitution. Republicans have filed numerous suits to stop the redistricting, and those have not been fully resolved. They are expected to fail.
If this redistricting stands, it’s a huge boon for Democrats. The maps adopted by Virginia Democrats are projected to give the party up to a four-seat boost, potentially carrying 10 of the state’s 11 districts instead of the current six. Remember that the House is very narrowly divided today, with Republicans holding 217 seats and the Democrats 214. Every seat matters.
That narrow majority is why Trump was pushing his party so hard to gerrymander in the states the GOP controls. But if this Virginia redistricting stands, Democrats will have matched the Republicans. Ballotpedia estimates that redistricting in Texas, Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina positions the Republicans to win nine additional seats. But redistricting in California, a judicial ruling favorable to Democrats in Utah, and this Virginia vote combined creates 10 potential seats for Democrats. That balance may not last for long though, as Florida Republicans are considering changing their districts too.
There are two other major factors shaping this year’s House elections. Trump’s growing unpopularity means that the Republicans could lose seats even in fairly conservative areas. On the flip side, the Supreme Court could further roll back the Voting Rights Act in a ruling this summer and allow states in the South to eliminate districts where Blacks are a majority or substantial minority.
Even if we can’t yet say that the Democrats will win the redistricting battle, it’s great that they are fully engaged in it. Republicans gerrymandered many states legislatures in the 2010s while the Democrats largely sat idly by or filed unsuccessful lawsuits. Now, the party is fully invested in using its power in blue states to fight back. State legislators, governors, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Barack Obama, and rank and file Democratic voters have all played a critical role in these redistricting efforts in California and Virginia. Progressives have of course been on board, but so have moderates, such as Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger.
This fighting spirit is perhaps best embodied by L. Louise Lucas, who is in the Democratic leadership in the Virginia state senate. After Senator Ted Cruz whined on X about Virginia’s gerrymandering effort, Lucas replied, “You all started it and we fucking finished it.” It was not, “when they go low, we go high,” or “there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America - there’s the United States of America.”
“I think what the Republicans expected from Democrats was that we would write op-eds. I’d go on television (and) do interviews with you and say, “Oh, this is terrible. What we said is, ‘No, we’re going to be tough,” former Attorney General Eric Holder said in a recent interview with the Virginia Mercury. Holder is a leading figure in Democrats’ redistricting push.
I’m no fan of gerrymandering. Forty-six percent of Virginians voted Republican in 2024; ideally they would be represented by five House members, not one. But Republicans have been egregiously gerrymandering state legislatures for years and are now doing the same in U.S. House districts. And let’s not downplay the stakes here. Yes, Democrats sometimes gerrymandered state legislatures in the past. But gerrymandering so an autocratic president can continue virtually ignoring all laws is a threat to America as we know it. What California and Virginia have done is not just smart and fair, but their democratic duty.
Ultimately, the United States needs independent commissions drawing districts in all 50 states and reforms like proportional representation that foster more parties. But any such changes will almost certainly require the Democratic Party to be fully in control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency, because it’s America’s only remaining democratic party. For now, aggressive partisanship will be required of Democrats to return America to a country where serving the military, teaching at a university, working in public health, and numerous other pursuits are again nonpartisan, instead of determined by one’s allegiance to Trump and the GOP. Democrats in California and Virginia have done the messy and mean but necessary work. They should be applauded, and all anti-Trump Americans should follow their example.
