How Virginia redistricting got harder than Democrats wanted
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BRIDGEWATER, Va. — Democrats are almost apologetic when they campaign for next week’s ballot question that could delete four Republican House seats in Virginia this fall. Republicans have a simpler pitch: How dare they?
“What Abigail Spanberger has done is lie to everybody in the Commonwealth,” former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said at a Saturday rally here, 84 days after his term ended and Spanberger’s began. He called the redistricting measure “the most blatant seizure of individual rights that any of us have seen in the Commonwealth.”
The question before Virginia voters on April 21 is 40 words long, promises that the new congressional map is temporary, and claims that it will “restore fairness.” Democrats portray it as painful therapy for an “extraordinary moment,” forced upon them by President Donald Trump and his push for unprecedented mid-decade redistricting in red states to help Republicans in the November midterms.
Republicans — who first sued to stop the vote, and now hope to win it — would rather not make the campaign an up-or-down referendum on Trump’s push, which they would likely lose. They want a fight over fairness and Spanberger, the incoming governor. And if those are the terms, they think they can win.
Both parties expected a more competitive vote in Virginia than California, where 59% of voters backed Kamala Harris for president and 64% endorsed Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new map designed to punish Republicans. The president’s party is more vigorous in Virginia, where Harris prevailed by just 6 points but Spanberger won by a landslide.
The new governor’s Democratic sweep of Virginia races came days after her party announced plans for a congressional map that gives it four more winnable seats, with the blue DC suburbs overwhelming red, rural Youngkin Country.
But Republicans got off the mat quickly, forming Virginians for Fair Maps to battle the other team’s Virginians for Fair Elections. To Democrats’ surprise, the GOP went full-bore after Spanberger, effectively canceling her political honeymoon and boosting the “no” vote.
