In what could be Democrats’ last wave of mid-cycle redistricting, the Virginia and Maryland legislatures will each convene on Wednesday with national party leaders pushing them to redraw congressional maps and net as many as five seats to help build an advantage ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Democrats in both states will hold majorities and the governor’s seat as debate unfolds, and they have been heavily lobbied for months to press for as many seats as possible — efforts that have had mixed results.
The clock is winding down to make changes before the June primary elections get underway, a race against time that Democratic redistricting advocates characterize as essential to win if they hope to counterbalance Republican mapmaking launched elsewhere at President Donald Trump’s behest.
Florida’s Republican political leaders are arguing over whether to redraw their boundaries in an April special session, as Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) wants, or to act during the regular session that began last week.
“I think it’s critical that Virginia and Maryland take this really seriously and engage this process with the understanding that what they’re doing has a national imprint,” National Democratic Redistricting Committee President John Bisognano said.
“This is a national crisis, and every person in this country that has power to do so should be looking at every available mechanism at their disposal to try to beat back what Donald Trump is trying to do and steal the 2026 midterm elections through redrawing maps,” he said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) has met privately with congressional and state lawmakers in both states, including as recently as Monday night, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. In one call with Maryland’s influential Legislative Black Caucus this month, one person said, Jeffries discussed “shared priorities” and “the importance of building Black political power.”
While litigation in New York and Wisconsin could ultimately lead to more seats for Democrats, Jefferies has publicly and privately leaned on the Mid-Atlantic states.
“We do need to act affirmatively. And what’s on the table in front of us right now is the state of Virginia and the state of Maryland,” Jefferies said Monday in an interview with liberal podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen.
“We’re all hands on deck, in terms of what currently is taking place.”
Virginia debates how far to go
Virginia presents the best political prospects for enacting a rapid redistricting shift, where there’s a potential to gain four seats and where the Democratic-controlled state legislature has already started the process to place a constitutional referendum before voters to draw new congressional districts outside of the 10-year redistricting cycle.
But the party’s leaders are now divided on how many seats they should tilt in their favor, according to interviews with five people involved in the process.
Virginia’s six Democratic members of Congress met with Jeffries last week and again Monday night to discuss the state’s redistricting effort, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
The conversations have in part focused on whether a 10-1 map or a 9-2 map might be more palatable to Virginia voters, who would have to approve redistricting in a referendum that would probably be scheduled for April.
Coloring those discussions is the redistricting process in California, where voters have approved new maps that give Democrats five safe seats. But the maps avoided splitting counties and smaller communities into separate districts, a feature some observers say is necessary to persuade enough Virginia voters to approve drawing a new map.
State Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) said he expects those maps to be available to the public after the halfway mark of the state legislative session — a mid-February date known as “crossover” — but before an April referendum. But, he noted, there are a lot of legislative and procedural steps to complete before that.
“From the very beginning of this, everybody’s wanted to know what the map’s going to look like,” Surovell said in an interview. “I keep trying to explain to everybody, there’s lots of stuff that has to be put in place before you have a conversation about a map.”
Surovell said the redistricting amendment is likely to start moving through the General Assembly before the end of the week.
Underpinning all those steps, however, is a brewing debate among Virginia Democrats over how exactly they should map out the state’s 11 congressional districts.
Some Democrats, including some members of Congress, have pushed for a map that would pack Republican voters into two seats — one in the Shenandoah Valley and another in Southwest Virginia — while carving the rest of the commonwealth into nine safely blue districts. Others have said the party should maximize its chances to offset GOP efforts elsewhere by drawing 10 more competitive seats that all lean Democratic but could result in narrower elections.
State Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) has repeatedly advocated for that “10-1” map.
“Anyone in the congressional delegation who wants a seat needs to campaign for it and not expect a safe seat,” Lucas wrote on X last week.
Surovell said he has not taken a stance on the matter.
“I’m keeping an open mind about it until I’ve had a chance to consider all the information that people provide to me,” he said. “But I know there’s definitely some people in the caucus that feel like 10-1 should be part of the conversation.”
The debate could also become an early political test for Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger (D), whose moderate brand of politics has made her one of the party’s standard-bearers. Although she officially has no role in the process, her inauguration this weekend makes her the party’s most influential voice in Virginia and one many voters might look to for guidance in a referendum.
She has expressed reservations, noting in public appearances that she carried Republican-leaning districts during her landslide win in November. Her office did not respond to a request for comment.
A steeper climb in Maryland
In Maryland, redistricting faces an uphill battle.
Democratic leaders disagree on whether they could legally secure any additional seats, arguing for months over potentially redrawing districts to push the state’s lone Republican congressman out of office.
“Maryland doesn’t just have the authority, but Maryland has the responsibility to be able to align ourselves with the national movement,” Gov. Wes Moore said in an interview on Monday. “But this is not because party bosses are saying that this is what Maryland should do.”
Moore (D) faces stiff resistancein the state Senate, where Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) refuses to enable an effort to draw an 8-0 map favoring Democrats, which he said carries “significant legal and political risks that will likely backfire.”
Ferguson’s spokesman said a majority of Democratic senators opposed redistricting mid-cycle during an internal caucus poll in December. He argues that by now, it is too late.
“It seems even more untenable and less likely to stand up to legal scrutiny with a compressed timeline,” Ferguson said in an interview Monday. “I think the window has closed.”
Nonetheless, the redistricting commission Moore convened last fall is continuing its work to draw and recommend maps, with the next meeting on Thursday.
“Donald Trump has decided to have an all-out assault on our democracy,” Moore said. “If the rest of the country is going to go through this mid-decade process of determining whether or not they have fair maps, I don’t know why Maryland should be excluded from that.”
The governor declined to directly address concerns raised during public hearings on redistricting that a new map would further disenfranchise Republicans in the state, who made up about 24 percent of registered voters in December. His staff disagrees that time has run out.
“We’ve seen maps pass really quickly in the past here in Maryland,” said Jeremy Baker, Moore’s chief lobbyist. “If the legislature’s in session, there’s always a chance for darn near anything to get done.”
House Speaker Joseline A. Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s) said in an interview she supports redistricting in general but wants to see what map the commission proposes. But if she agrees with it, she’ll swiftly pass it through her chamber and advocate pushing it through the Senate.
Maryland Republicans, meanwhile, plan to file a lawsuit if Democrats pass a map further diluting GOP representation in the state.
“We’re ready to go. You want to do it, bring it on,” said Del. Kathy Szeliga (R-Baltimore County). “Who can say that zero Republicans is fair in a state where two of the last four governors were Republicans?”
Gregory S. Schneider contributed to this report.
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