Democrats\u2019 success in pushing through one of the country\u2019s most aggressively gerrymandered congressional maps on Tuesday in Virginia represented the latest example of the party\u2019s willingness to take the gloves off as it seeks to win back control of Congress and thwart President Trump\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n
It was a stark reversal for a party that has decried partisan gerrymandering for years. But Democrats said that the new map, which could flip as many as four Republican-held seats blue, was necessary to counter similar G.O.P. efforts in Texas and other states.<\/p>\n
Their new mantra: It\u2019s time to play hardball.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile many expected Democrats to roll over and play dead, we did the opposite,\u201d Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader from New York, said in a statement after The Associated Press called the race. \u201cDemocrats did not step back. We fought back. When they go low, we hit back hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The party\u2019s newly combative approach extends beyond redistricting as it has felt a new urgency to regain power in Washington. Despite their qualms over dark money, Democrats are nowadays more reliant on it<\/a> than Republicans. And on Capitol Hill, they have adopted an uncompromising approach to spending negotiations, forcing a partial government shutdown earlier this year after they refused to fund immigration enforcement operations without new restrictions on federal agents\u2019 tactics.<\/p>\n All of it amounts to a new openness among Democrats \u2014 spurred on by angry constituents demanding more forceful opposition to Mr. Trump \u2014 to reverse their opposition to political tactics they once considered bad governance. And none has been more head-spinning than the Virginia gerrymander, which transforms a nearly evenly divided 11-member congressional delegation into one with only one surefire Republican seat.<\/p>\n Proponents framed the initiative as a less than ideal but very necessary rebuttal to a gerrymandering war kicked off by Republicans. The measure allows for the temporary adoption of a new map, returning control of the process to an independent commission in 2031.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot bring a stick to a knife fight,\u201d said Kelly Hall, the executive director of the Fairness Project, which spent more than $12 million backing the redistricting referendum.<\/p>\n With Republicans \u201cassaulting the integrity of representation in the U.S. Congress, we need to be able to respond with every tool that we have,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Even getting the measure on the Virginia ballot required some parliamentary trickery. Without the two-thirds vote needed in each house to call a special legislative session last year, Democrats instead seized on a budget session called by Glenn Youngkin, then the governor and a Republican, to schedule the referendum.<\/p>\n Such tactics represent a dramatic reversal from the recent past. Throughout the Trump era, Democrats have portrayed themselves as the high-minded party focused on preserving democratic institutions. In an ideal world, they say, Citizens United \u2014 the 2010 Supreme Court ruling removing limits on independent political spending by corporations \u2014 would be overturned, and there would be a nationwide prohibition on partisan gerrymandering.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would like to get rid of this stuff,\u201d said Tim Persico, a veteran Democratic strategist. \u201cBut in a world where one side is still actively, openly, cravenly engaging in it, we cannot afford to not engage by the same rules.\u201d<\/p>\n That contrast has opened the party to attacks from Republicans, who have had no trouble finding national Democrats\u2019 past words opposing partisan gerrymandering. Dueling video advertisements<\/a> from former President Barack Obama in the closing weeks of the Virginia campaign, which attracted more than $80 million in spending, underscored how Democrats have evolved: Republicans ran ads featuring Mr. Obama\u2019s past opposition to partisan gerrymandering, while Democrats highlighted his current support for the measure.<\/p>\n The issue seems to have unsettled some Virginia voters, given the narrow result of less than three percentage points. In contrast, Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, won her election last fall with a 15-point margin. And Kamala Harris won Virginia\u2019s presidential election in 2024 by nearly six points. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is all about having a level playing field,\u201d said Representative Eugene Vindman, a Virginia Democrat. Mr. Trump, he said, shouldn\u2019t feel like he could take \u201cvengeance out on Democratic-leaning states and expect Democrats to always take the high ground.\u201d<\/p>\n Democrats are hardly alone in showing flexibility when it comes to hewing to past positions. When Mr. Trump campaigned against the Virginia measure on the eve of the vote, he told a local radio host: \u201cI don\u2019t know if you know what gerrymandering is, but it\u2019s not good.\u201d But it was the president who helped kick off the mid-decade gerrymandering battles with his call last year for Texas to draw new maps to benefit Republicans.<\/p>\n Some Democrats remain divided over just how far they should go in trying to place a check on Mr. Trump\u2019s administration. The debate has played out in statehouses, federal primaries and national party meetings this spring.<\/p>\n A similar effort to flip a Republican-held seat in Maryland by gerrymandering its map failed to advance<\/a> this month, after the Democratic president of the State Senate refused to bring it to a final vote.<\/p>\n The argument against redistricting there was more tactical than ethical \u2014 the senate president suggested that a new map could backfire or face legal challenges \u2014 but he also noted in a letter that he had \u201cpersonal concerns with mid-cycle redistricting and its potential long-term effects on the resilience and trust in democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n Maryland\u2019s eight-member congressional delegation includes just a single Republican, meaning the new map would have eliminated any Republican representation in the House. Roughly one-third of Marylanders voted for Mr. Trump in 2024.<\/p>\n The fault lines are more muddled when it comes to how willingly Democratic candidates should welcome money from groups that accept unlimited corporate contributions, sometimes with no disclosure requirements.<\/p>\n Many in the party view so-called \u201cdark money\u201d \u2014 money from undisclosed donors \u2014 as morally reprehensible. And they decry the influence of corporate interests, in particular groups representing cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence companies, and powerful interest groups funded by major donors such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the hard-line pro-Israel group.<\/p>\n That debate was on display this month at a Democratic National Committee meeting in New Orleans, where some Democrats pushed for resolutions condemning dark money.<\/p>\n One such resolution moved forward<\/a> but was stripped of language specifically calling out A.I. and crypto money. Another, targeting AIPAC, failed to pass, partly because the D.N.C. had already resolved to ban dark money<\/a> from presidential primaries, but also because Democrats are wrestling with how firmly to call out AIPAC and whether they want to discourage candidates from accepting large financial contributions.<\/p>\n Melissa Bean, who won a Democratic primary in Illinois last month with the help of millions of dollars from an AIPAC-linked group, echoed the sentiments of other Democrats when she told a local radio station<\/a> that she did not think \u201cwe as Democrats should tie our hands behind our backs\u201d by turning down campaign contributions.<\/p>\n \u201cThe stakes are incredibly high, and we have to ensure that we have the resources that are required to at least get one branch of government,\u201d said Rusty Hicks, the chair of the California Democratic Party, who was in attendance in New Orleans.<\/p>\n Others at the D.N.C. meeting took a harder line.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is so much public outcry and opposition that I worry if we don\u2019t reject it, or if we don\u2019t show an intent to reject it or a plan to move away from it, we will have more people sit out, because they\u2019re like, \u2018They\u2019re all evil,\u2019\u201d said Francesca Hong, a Democratic candidate for governor in Wisconsin. \u201cWe should read what the majority of people are saying. There\u2019s bipartisan opposition to AIPAC.\u201d<\/p>\n