{"id":536840,"date":"2026-03-21T14:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T14:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/536840\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T14:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T14:18:10","slug":"democrats-start-to-sweat-over-virginias-redistricting-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/536840\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats start to sweat over Virginia’s redistricting referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"

After putting an aggressive redraw of the state\u2019s congressional map<\/a> before voters, some Virginia Democrats are growing uneasy about its prospects for passage one month out from the special election.<\/p>\n

Virginia Democrats entered 2026 riding a wave of momentum, comfortably flipping the governorship<\/a> and expanding their majority in the state House in last fall\u2019s elections. And heading into the April contest, they hold massive fundraising and ad spending advantages.<\/p>\n

But recently, the realities of waging a unique campaign in a state that isn\u2019t nearly as Democratic as California, where voters approved a redrawn map<\/a> through a similar process last year, have begun to set in.<\/p>\n

Some supporters of the Virginia referendum acknowledge the challenge of convincing voters to back a gerrymandered map when Democrats, who several years ago backed the formation of the state\u2019s bipartisan redistricting commission, have criticized Republicans for similar moves.<\/p>\n

Virginia voters are also not accustomed to going to the polls in April, when Democrats scheduled the special election, making turnout particularly unpredictable.<\/p>\n

And recent polling showing mixed views of the ballot referendum and some favorable early voting numbers<\/a> for Republicans has only added to Democrats\u2019 anxieties.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a done deal by any means,\u201d said Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va. \u201cWe have to effectively make the case that even though this seems unfair in Virginia, it\u2019s totally fair for America, for those of us who believe that taking back the House is the most significant thing we can do to stop Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the proposed map in Virginia, Democrats would be in a position to gain as many as four of the five seats currently held by Republicans in this fall\u2019s midterm elections, when control of the narrowly divided House is up for grabs.<\/p>\n

By comparison, Democrats in deep-blue California are hoping to pick up five of the eight Republican-controlled seats with their new congressional boundaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very easy to say, \u2018Well, California just did this, and therefore the same thing is going to happen in Virginia. But that ignores the reality that Virginia is a purple state,\u201d said one Democratic operative close to the campaign supporting the measure who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of factors you can\u2019t control about who\u2019s going to be an active participant in this election until the last minute. It\u2019s a random April election. We\u2019re talking about reaching voters who are taught to check out around this time of year and check back in the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

FORSUBSCRIBERS<\/p>\n

02:01<\/p>\n

NBC News poll shows Democrats with slight lead as midterms begin<\/p>\n

00:0000:00<\/p>\n

The April election is the latest front in the unusually active mid-decade redistricting battle. The push in Virginia came in response to President Donald Trump pressuring GOP-led states to redraw their maps to shore up the party\u2019s narrow House majority. Six states \u2014 including Texas, Missouri and North Carolina on the GOP side \u2014 enacted new maps<\/a> last year, while the biggest Democratic counterattack came in California.<\/p>\n

The process in Virginia has been especially complex<\/a>: Before putting it on the ballot, lawmakers were required to pass a constitutional amendment to temporarily bypass the state\u2019s redistricting commission during two separate legislative sessions, with an election in between.<\/p>\n

But voters may not even have the final say on the matter. While the Virginia Supreme Court has allowed the special election to move forward<\/a>, it also reserved the right to rule on the legality of the measure after the race.<\/p>\n

Still, the main group supporting the redistricting referendum has established a significant financial advantage.<\/p>\n

That group, called Virginians for Fair Elections, has already spent or reserved $17.2 million on ads from Jan. 1 through April 21, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Meanwhile, the primary group opposing the effort, Virginians for Fair Maps, has spent or reserved $1 million over the same period.<\/p>\n

The measure\u2019s supporters have used many of their ads to argue the change to the map-drawing process became necessary after Trump\u2019s redistricting pushes in Republican-led states.<\/p>\n

One Virginians for Fair Elections ad features former President Barack Obama<\/a> saying that \u201cRepublicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years,\u201d adding, \u201cbut you can stop them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another spot<\/a>, a narrator highlights that Trump \u201ctold Texas to rig their congressional maps\u201d \u2014 and that \u201cwe can stop Trump by voting for fair elections.\u201d Notably, the ad paints the Virginia measure as a \u201ctemporary fix to level the playing field.\u201d And another casts<\/a> \u201cMAGA Republicans redrawing congressional maps\u201d as \u201cone of the biggest threats to democracy ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed constitutional amendment would return congressional mapmaking powers to the bipartisan commission after the 2030 census.<\/p>\n

Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who approached the issue cautiously during her winning campaign last fall, also recorded a video expressing her support for the redistricting push<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a statement to NBC News, she said she saw the referendum as a \u201ctemporary, responsive action to address the redistricting efforts of other states\u201d and that \u201cVirginia voters deserve the opportunity to respond to the President\u2019s nationwide pressure campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ads run by Virginians for Fair Maps have hammered the process used by Democratic lawmakers and have connected it to an effort to oppose Trump and Republicans on immigration.<\/p>\n

\u201cRichmond politicians are drawing new congressional districts to rig the game for themselves,\u201d a narrator says in one ad<\/a>, adding that the move would \u201cprotect sanctuary city policies that put dangerous criminal aliens back on our streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another spot highlights<\/a> how voters passed a constitutional amendment that created the bipartisan redistricting commission in 2020 by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans and Democrats worked together to get politicians out of the business of picking their own voters,\u201d the narrator says in that spot, adding that a win would \u201cend competitive elections in Virginia and silence your voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, another group opposed to the measure sent out mailers<\/a> targeting Black voters with Jim Crow-era images, sparking an outcry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Recent polling has shown that Virginians back the bipartisan redistricting commission, but are less certain about the Democratic-backed referendum.<\/p>\n

A Roanoke College poll<\/a> of Virginia residents conducted in mid-February found that 62% supported the state\u2019s current method of drawing congressional maps. Asked about the constitutional amendment, 44% said they\u2019d vote to approve it, while 52% said they\u2019d prefer to keep the current process.<\/p>\n

A mid-January poll of Virginia registered voters from Christopher Newport University<\/a> similarly found that 63% were in favor of the current map-drawing process. But this survey showed a slight majority, 51%, also backed the temporary constitutional amendment, while 43% opposed it.<\/p>\n

Threading the needle of not completely dismissing the commission while pushing for a more partisan map represents a big hurdle for the referendum\u2019s supporters \u2014 one underscored by the fact that some Democrats are aggressively opposed to the amendment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a big group of people that don\u2019t like Donald Trump \u2014 like me \u2014 that are worried about him stealing the midterms and ruining our democracy \u2014 like me \u2014 but who don\u2019t think this is a smart way to fight back, or that we even need to do this in Virginia,\u201d said Brian Cannon, a Democratic operative in Virginia who advocated for passage of the bipartisan redistricting commission.<\/p>\n

Cannon, who now works for the nonpartisan election reform organization FairVote and helps to lead the group No Gerrymandering Virginia, asked: \u201cAs we fight Trump, are we becoming what we abhor?\u201d<\/p>\n

That sentiment is one of several dynamics leading Republicans and opponents of the redistricting measure to feel bullish.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen a marked increase in energy and, frankly, anger on the part of the voters who are starting to realize what\u2019s going on,\u201d said former Republican Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, a co-chair of Virginians for Fair Maps. \u201cAnd I do feel that that anger is a strong motivator for people to turn out for a vote in April.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pointing to a Virginia Public Access Project analysis of the early vote<\/a>, which kicked off March 6, Cantor said those totals were trending \u201cour way, especially in Republican areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel really good about where we are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Democrats say they have their work cut out for them in the closing weeks of the campaign.<\/p>\n

Beyer, who represents a solidly Democratic northern Virginia district, said they will need to persuade voters to \u201chold their nose on gerrymandering because this is a response to Trump\u2019s gerrymandering.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t like doing it. It is temporary, and the alternative is to roll over and let the bad guys cheat,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After putting an aggressive redraw of the state\u2019s congressional map before voters, some Virginia Democrats are growing uneasy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-536840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}