RICHMOND — Virginia Democrats released a proposed political mapThursday night that could give their party an edge in 10 of the state’s 11 congressional districts if voters approve a referendum empowering lawmakers to implement it.
The new boundaries include a solid red 9th District along the mountainous southwestern border of the state and 10 others that lean blue, according to recent election outcomes. As with the state’s current political map, two of the districts — a new 3rd District in Hampton Roads and a 4th District along the southern border — would have populations that are majority-minority, according to demographic information supplied with the accompanying legislation.
State Republicans have condemned the effort as a “reckless” power grab and challenged the process in court, where a judge has agreed with them and issued a ruling to block it. Democrats immediately appealed and are awaiting action from the Supreme Court of Virginia.
“If Donald Trump had not started this power grab … we wouldn’t be in this place right now,” state Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) said in a brief news conference Thursday. “He started this mess, and Virginia is going to finish it.”
President Donald Trump has pushed Republican states to draw red-leaning districts to protect the GOP majority in the House of Representatives in this fall’s elections, with Texas, North Carolina and Missouri so far heeding the call.
Virginia Democrats, who control both chambers of the General Assembly, have responded by pushing through a proposed constitutional amendment to temporarily allow mid-decade redistricting — until the next U.S. census in 2030 — so they can create more blue-leaning districts.
The state’s congressional delegation now stands at six Democrats and five Republicans.
Democratic leaders of the House of Delegates and Senate had clashed behind the scenes in recent days over the specifics of the proposed maps. The aggressive 10-1 stance, which Lucas had touted on social media since last fall, poses a testfor Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D), who has publicly suggested that she believes Democrats could pick up more seats even without drawing such a heavily tilted map.
Spanberger’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but in a speech last month, the governor moved closer to the effort by casting it as “a response to … extreme measures” on the part of national Republicans and saying she trusts voters to decide.
House Speaker Don Scott (D-Portsmouth) said Thursday that Spanberger has seen the proposed map and is supportive. “I think the governor is on board, and she’s on board with doing her part,” Scott said. “Her part is just to administer the election.”
Spanberger has no role in the amendment itself, but must sign or veto legislation already passed by the General Assembly to set the date for the referendum, planned for April 21. That bill is on her desk awaiting action.
Scott characterized the district maps — which he said were created by Democratic consultants — as “competitive,” while Lucas was more emphatic that the 10 districts favor Democrats.
Ten of the proposed districts voted Democratic in both last year’s gubernatorial race and the 2024 presidential election, though Democrats won seven of the proposed districts in the 2021 gubernatorial election.
“We think we can win them in this environment where Donald Trump’s ICE agents are running amok,” Scott said, referring to the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials that have caused violence in other states.
The 6th District, now represented by Republican Rep. Ben Cline, would shift eastward out of the Shenandoah Valley and into the center of the state, trailing south from Charlottesville. The vote-rich Democratic strongholds of Fairfax and Prince William counties would be sliced into parts of five districts.
“This is an illegal, hyper-partisan gerrymander drawn in backrooms hidden from the public,” Mike Young, president of the Republican-backed advocacy group Virginians for Fair Maps, said in a statement. “This map completely disregards common sense and silences millions of Virginians. This is not just extreme. This is an embarrassment to the Commonwealth.”
Lucas said she had no trouble convincing fellow Democrats to go along with the heavily blue map because of Trump’s policies, which elections and opinion polls have shown are extremely unpopular in Virginia. A slim majority of Virginia registered voters, 51 percent, favored the redistricting amendment in a poll last month by the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University.
“I wake up with this fight in my heart every morning,” Lucas said. “We fight fire with fire here in Virginia.”
Though Democrats say they are forging ahead, the referendum has been blocked by a Tazewell County circuit judge who ruled against itin a lawsuit brought by Republican lawmakers. Judge Jack S. Hurley Jr. found that lawmakers violated state law and the state constitution in the way they passed the proposed amendment.
Scott and other Democrats have appealed that ruling, and the state Court of Appeals on Wednesday referred the matter to the Supreme Court of Virginia for an expedited opinion. Scott said he is confident the original ruling will be overturned and the referendum will go ahead as planned.
The post All but one Virginia House district could go blue in Democrats’ proposed map appeared first on Washington Post.
