The Virginia House of Delegates voted on Wednesday to approve a constitutional amendment that would allow the state legislature, where Democrats control both chambers, to draw new congressional maps for the 2026 midterm elections.
The amendment now goes to the Virginia Senate, which is expected to pass the measure in the coming days, setting in motion a monthslong process that could lead to new districts more favorable to Democratic candidates.
The sudden push to redraw the maps ahead of schedule is the latest in a wave of similar efforts in state capitals, and comes five years after voters in Virginia backed the creation of a bipartisan redistricting commission intended to make the process less partisan.
Instead, Virginia now finds itself one of several states caught up in the partisan fight for control of Congress, where Republicans hold a narrow majority but face the prospect of losing seats next year, as the party in power typically does in midterm elections. In the spring, President Trump urged Republican states to gerrymander to their advantage; Texas, North Carolina and Missouri have already passed new maps while the state legislature in Indiana will be holding a special session for redistricting next week.
In California, voters are likely to approve maps next week that could flip five seats for Democrats in 2026, polls show. And in Illinois and Virginia, Democrats also have begun efforts to redraw maps in response.
Mid-decade redistricting is more difficult in Virginia than it has been in many Republican-held states, as it requires amending the state constitution. To take effect, amendments must be approved by the legislature twice: once before the next statewide election and once after it.
Democratic lawmakers hope to pass the amendment for the first time before Election Day on Tuesday so that they can move ahead with a second approval once the new House of Delegates convenes in January.
Only then would the amendment be put to a statewide referendum, which Democrats hope to hold in the spring.
The proposed amendment is written in such a way that it does not eliminate the current process laid out in the constitution, in which redistricting is conducted by a bipartisan commission each decade based on census results. The new amendment authorizes the legislature to redraw congressional maps in a year outside of the once-a-decade cycle if another state has done so first. This power would expire in October 2030.
“Our hand has been forced here,” Delegate Rodney T. Willett, the Democrat who is sponsoring the proposed amendment, said at a House committee hearing earlier in the day. “We certainly didn’t wake up a few weeks ago and think that we were going to have to have this process. But what other states have done has forced that hand.”
Republicans have argued that the entire process is an unconstitutional affront to the voters and have pledged to fight the amendment in the courts.
“The people need to know that what’s happening today is a power grab by one party,” said Chris Obenshain, a Republican delegate, said on the House floor before the vote.
At least one lawsuit has been filed by Republican lawmakers and members of the redistricting commission challenging the validity of the week’s proceedings. At a hearing on Wednesday, a judge declined to halt the process but allowed the case to proceed.
The previous day, the state attorney general, Jason S. Miyares, a Republican who is currently running in a tight race for re-election, issued an opinion asserting that it is too late to start the amendment process. The 2025 election, he argued in the opinion, actually began in September with the start of early voting. Because the election is already taking place, he asserts, it does not count as the “intervening election” that the constitution requires between the two votes in the legislature.
Several Democratic lawmakers said they did not think the objections by Mr. Miyares or other Republicans would derail the amendment.
Asked about any specific plans for a new map, Don Scott, the speaker of the House of Delegates, emphasized that there was still a long way to go.
“The first step is to get the amendment in place,” he said to reporters after the House vote. “The second step is to try to see if we can pass it again in January, if necessary. The Republicans in these other states, they might stand down, and we may decide we don’t want to move forward.”
Ben Paviour contributed reporting.
Campbell Robertson reports for The Times on Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
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