What Virginia’s redistricting vote really means for Democrats and Republicans

Virginia Democrats got their number last night. But what they got was not a mandate, it was a margin. A razor-thin, 3-point squeaker that cost them $64 million in dark money to pull off, in a state where the governor won by 15 points just one year ago. If this is what victory looks like for Democrats, Republicans should be encouraged.

Let's be honest about what happened on April 21. Voters across Virginia were asked to ratify an amendment that a sitting circuit court judge had already declared void, not once, but twice, calling it a "blatant abuse of power." They were sold the word "fairness" on the ballot while Democrats designed a map that hands them 10 of Virginia's 11 congressional districts. They were told this was about the people's voice, funded by $93 million in largely anonymous cash, with $40 million flowing from House Democrat leadership's own political operation. If they were doing the right thing, they wouldn't have had to buy the election.

And the people of Virginia, particularly in rural communities, saw through it. Early voting was up across 70+ rural Republican localities. Lee County, Scott County, Alleghany County, communities that rarely make national headlines, turned out in force to say no to a gerrymander designed in a backroom by the same Richmond politicians who raised taxes and cultivated failing schools. That energy is real, it's not going away, and we are going to need it in November.

SOROS-BACKED GROUP AMONG LIBERAL ORGS PUMPING EYE-POPPING CASH INTO VIRGINIA GERRYMANDERING EFFORT

But Democrats’ celebrations of the vote might be premature. The vote is not the final word.

The Virginia Supreme Court has already told both sides exactly what comes next. Before allowing the referendum to proceed, the justices wrote that "if the electorate approves the proposed amendment, we then must exercise our constitutional duty to review lower courts' declaratory judgments... and address de novo what equitable remedies, if any, are appropriate." In plain English: the court reserved the right to strike this map down, and it set a briefing deadline for tomorrow, April 23. The legal fight is not over.

The constitutional defects here are not minor. Democrats jammed this amendment through a special session that was called exclusively to address the state budget, then expanded it to rewrite the rules of congressional representation. They skipped the required 90-day public notice. And they passed the amendment while over one million Virginians were already casting ballots in the 2025 general election, a direct violation of Virginia's constitutional requirement that amendments pass before an election takes place. A judge found all three violations. The Supreme Court of Virginia must now decide whether it will enforce its own constitution or stand down because Democrats ran a successful, and expensive, public pressure campaign.

Now, we have to trust the court to do its job.

And if the court does its job, Republicans must be ready to fight the next battle. The RNC, the NRCC and Congressmen Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith filed suit because the process was corrupt from the start, not because Republicans are afraid of competition. We are not afraid of competition. We are afraid of a system where constitutional guardrails are demolished whenever the other side decides they're inconvenient. Today it's Virginia. Tomorrow it's your state.

This is the broader war Democrats have declared. When President Donald Trump and Republican governors used the legal redistricting process to draw competitive maps in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina, Democrats screamed about gerrymandering. Then they turned around and drew a map in Virginia that is, by any objective measure, the most aggressively gerrymandered congressional map in the country. It splits Prince William County across five separate congressional districts as well as Fairfax County into five separate congressional districts.

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Republican women across this country need to understand what is at stake. If this map stands, Democrats could pick up four House seats in Virginia alone, potentially enough to flip the majority and end the legislative agenda that is delivering for American families.

So here is my message to Republican women in Virginia and across the country: last night was a setback, not a surrender. The courts must consider the referendum’s wobbly constitutionality. Our lawyers are still fighting. Our voters showed up in record numbers in places no one expected. And when the Virginia Supreme Court issues its ruling, potentially within weeks, we need to be ready to mobilize, organize and amplify whatever comes next.

They spent $64 million to win by 3 points in a friendly state. We need to spend our energy making sure that investment never pays off.

Fight on.