Virginia Democrats Need to Steal 4 Home Seats With One Vote

Ask any Virginian what day they’re most looking forward to this month, and they’ll probably say April 22. That’s when the constant barrage of political ads over the state’s redistricting measure will finally stop. For weeks, voters have been fed a steady diet of disinformation about the ballot initiative being decided next Tuesday, featuring everyone from Barack Obama to gray-haired veterans. It’s about “fairness,” the Left argues — if by “fairness,” they mean handing complete control of the Commonwealth to Democrats.

Of course, you can’t blame the party of Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger (D) for going all in on this amendment. Democrats may never have the chance to hijack four House seats in a single vote ever again. As far as they’re concerned, dumping $50 million into dishonest messaging is worth the price if it means silencing the state’s conservative, pro-life, pro-family voices in Washington, D.C.

Under the current congressional map, Virginia is represented by six Democrats and five Republicans in the U.S. House, which most people would agree is an accurate reflection of the purple state’s views. If this referendum passes, experts warn, the Commonwealth will become as deep blue as California — sending 10 Democrats to Congress and just a single Republican. “Even by the low standards of gerrymandering,” the JP editors warn, “what Democrats are doing in Virginia is both outrageous and legally dubious.”

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This is a state, the editors point out, where the GOP is extremely competitive. Donald Trump captured 47% of the vote in 2024, and “[o]ver the past three election cycles, Republicans have won 47.6 percent of the vote for House seats in Virginia. Over the past four, counting a Democratic wave year in 2018, that number is still 46.5 percent.” And let’s not forget, until last year, the state had a Republican governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, a tribute to the wide swaths of conservative voters outside of Richmond and Northern Virginia.

But naturally, they continue, “Democrats would prefer that Alexandria, Arlington, and the rest of the D.C. suburbs — currently represented by three heavily blue districts — be able to control the rest of the state. So, under the new map proposed by Spanberger in a naked partisan power grab, five different districts snake their way to the Beltway.” Look, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said on “Washington Watch,” “I grew up in Northern Virginia, but [we] have a little saying. There’s NOVA, Northern Virginia, and [there’s the] rest of Virginia. NOVA is really a D.C. suburb, and the rest of Virginia is, well, a lot more like America.”

Frankly, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter told The Washington Stand, this is about a lot more than redrawing the congressional map. It’s about whether the state’s Christians and conservatives have any representation in Congress. “The Democrats’ redistricting plan would essentially eliminate four pro-life, pro-family, pro-freedom votes in Congress,” he emphasized. “I try to encourage Christians to be paying attention to the political process that happens upstream of many of the policy debates, and next week’s redistricting ballot amendment in Virginia is a clear example why.”

While polling on the referendum is a dead heat, ping-ponging back and forth between the yes and no crowds, there’s a general consensus that what other states are doing to their maps shouldn’t factor into Virginia’s. “Just 34 percent of respondents said the state’s congressional districts should balance out recent changes in other states, compared with 57 percent who said the districts should ‘reflect the political makeup of the state,’” Politico noted, adding that a plurality (48%) thought a 10-1 map is unfair.

Not surprisingly, the Left has tried to frame the debate as a referendum on Donald Trump, but the reality is, it has nothing to do with the president. As usual, that’s the only argument they seem capable of making to justify any part of their agenda.

Meanwhile, Democrats are pumping massive amounts of money into Virginia in advance of the April 21 vote, Cuccinelli explains. “They’ve been running ads for a month. The Republicans are just now getting on the air. They’re going to be outspent in this thing probably around 8 or 9 to 1 — or maybe even 10 to 1. But we have truth on our side, which is the most powerful force in politics,” Cuccinelli insisted. “[That] doesn’t mean it always wins. … But Virginians are smarter than this. They see right through it.”

And the biggest irony, he underscored, is that five years ago, the original redistricting amendment — which rejected this kind of partisan districting — passed by a 2-to-1 margin. Now, five years later, “they’re asking people who voted 2-to-1 in favor of a balanced system in Virginia to throw it out.” Only the Left could concoct something so absurd.

That hypocrisy isn’t lost on NRO’s editors, who could only shake their heads at the flip-flop of people like Spanberger, who came out passionately opposed to a gerrymandered map in 2020. “Now that [the amendment voters passed] has become inconvenient, they are simply ignoring their own state constitution. That may not fly with the state’s supreme court, which ought to reject it. So should the voters.”

As for the legal concerns, the former Virginia AG says there are plenty. Even if they win, Cuccinelli warns, Democrats “have a very steep legal hill to climb under our state constitution. … So it’ll be challenged.”

For now, NRO’s editors stress, it’s important for the state to understand, “Virginia isn’t even pretending to do this for any reason other than to benefit Democrats — and unlike the majority parties in California or Texas, they can’t claim a longstanding mandate from voters for governance by just one side. They ought to be ashamed, and they ought to be defeated.”

LifeNews Note: Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand, where this originally appeared.