Virginia voters narrowly approved a Democratic-backed constitutional amendment on Tuesday (April 21) that would allow lawmakers to directly implement a new congressional map.
According to HuffPost, the newly drawn maps would gerrymander the state into 10 districts likely to elect a Democrat to the U.S. House. This has the potential to give Democrats up to four additional seats in Congress, further smoothing their path to a majority come November’s midterm elections.
Democrats currently control only six of those seats, while Republicans hold five.
“Virginia voters have spoken, and tonight they pushed back against a President who claims he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress,” Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger said in a statement following the vote. “As we watched other states go along with those demands without voter input, Virginians refused to let that stand. We responded the right way: at the ballot box.”
The vote represents the latest in Democratic-led pushback against President Donald Trump’s efforts to order Republicans to redraw district lines to eliminate Democratic-held seats in red states like Texas, Ohio, and North Carolina.
California Governor Gavin Newsom previously responded to this push by implementing new maps in the state.
“There was an assumption that in the face of these attacks from Texas and Missouri and North Carolina and elsewhere that Democrats and blue states would just roll over or not stand up and fight,” Kelly Hall, the executive director of the Fairness Project, told HuffPost. “The balance really has evened out thanks to Virginia and California.”
According to CNN, the referendum passed by a slim majority of about 1.5 million ‘yes’ votes (51.2%) vs about 1.4 million ‘no’ votes (48.8%)., Virginia Democrats previously expressed concern that their efforts to push for redistricting, despite having previously criticized Republican efforts to do the same, could turn off voters and hurt their chances.
In the wake of the Virginia vote, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has called on state Republicans to convene on April 28, 2026, to consider redistricting proposals that could allow Republicans to pick up more seats in November, according to WFSU.
Despite the vote, there is also still a chance that the Virginia Supreme Court could completely block the new map.
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