Virginia voters narrowly approved a gerrymandered House map Tuesday — one expected to add four Democratic seats in the midterms.
The 2026 Virginia redistricting amendment passed with 51% of voters backing the “yes” campaign and 49% casting their ballot for “no” with 94% of votes counted, the Associated Press reported. As a result, the light blue state, where former Vice President Kamala Harris won less than 52% of the vote in 2024, will likely see 91% of its House seats drawn to favor Democrats.
Prior to the state’s new lopsided gerrymander, Democrats held six of Virginia’s 11 seats, or 55% — a percentage just slightly higher than the share of the vote Harris won there. The new map, which some analysts say will disenfranchise the state’s rural areas, leaves just one Republican-held seat, the Ninth District. It redraws the four seats held by Republican Virginia Reps. Rob Wittman, Jen Kiggans, John McGuire and Ben Cline to favor Democrats.
Dark money groups backing the successful “yes” campaign significantly outspent the opposition to the referendum. The chief group in support of the 10 to one Democratic gerrymander — known as Virginians for Fair Elections — raised $64 million, with a quarter of this total going to television ads, The Washington Post (WaPo) reported on April 16. The outlet also likened uncovering the source of the group’s money to taking apart a many-layered Russian nesting doll.
Virginians for Fair Elections notably took $5 million from the Fund for Policy Reform Inc., a group affiliated with and funded by left-wing billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations network, Fox News reported citing the Virginia Public Access Project.
Meanwhile, House Majority Forward, a left-wing spending group linked to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and not required to disclose its donors, poured about $40 million into the pro-gerrymander effort, WaPo reported.
Virginians for Fair Maps, the group that funneled the most money into the “no” campaign, contributed only $20 million total, according to the outlet.
The referendum was supported by a wide array of prominent Democrats, including Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, both of the state’s U.S. senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine as well as former President Barack Obama. In justifying their support for the extremely lopsided map, the politicians often presented it as an opportunity to fight back against Republicans and President Donald Trump, who backed GOP-friendly redistricting efforts the same cycle, such as the successful one in Texas.
TODAY is Election Day!
I’ve talked a lot about how Virginia’s approach to redistricting is different. It’s temporary, it’s responsive to other states, but most importantly — it’s up to YOU.
Do you support the new gerrymandered House map in Virginia?Find your polling location at https://t.co/zlFMUhsjmV and join me in voting YES! pic.twitter.com/Yr0RvdxikO
— Abigail Spanberger (@SpanbergerForVA) April 21, 2026
“Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years. But you can stop them by voting ‘yes’ on April 21,” Obama said in a pro-gerrymander ad released by Virginians for Fair Elections.
“I’ve talked a lot about how Virginia’s approach to redistricting is different,” Spanberger wrote in a Tuesday morning X post sent about 12 hours before polls closed. “It’s temporary, it’s responsive to other states, but most importantly — it’s up to YOU. … join me in voting YES!”
“Today’s redistricting referendum is about one thing: President Trump’s power grab,” the governor later wrote in an X post Tuesday afternoon. “Last summer, he said he’s ‘entitled’ to more seats in Congress, and states across the country got to work to give him what he demanded.”
Despite Spanberger’s support, the map passed by a substantially smaller margin than the 15-point landslide victory the governor won in November 2025.
The day before Election Day, Trump participated in a tele-rally with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson urging Virginians to vote “no” on the referendum.
“The whole country is watching. So important and so unfair what they’ve done,” Trump said during his Monday remarks. “We need every Virginia patriot to get out and vote no, no, no on the radical Democrats’ unfair ballot referendum. It is so crazy what they’re doing. So go to your polling place tomorrow and vote.”
The actual 40-word referendum question presented to voters as the sole entry on the Tuesday ballot read: “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/CSPAN)
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