Democrats zero in on Virginia redistricting as early voting begins

Democrats are zeroing in on Virginia as voters weigh a redistricting plan that could help the party win four more House seats this fall — the latest front in the nationwide war over congressional lines ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

Early voting started Friday on a constitutional amendment that would temporarily bypass the state’s redistricting commission to redraw maps mid-decade, giving Democrats the edge in all but one of the state’s 11 congressional districts.   

The Old Dominion’s April 21 referendum offers Democrats what’s likely their last chance to pass a set of new congressional lines in their redistricting tit for tat with Republicans ahead of November, as control of Congress hangs in the balance.  

“This is a real battle,” said Jared Leopold, a Democratic strategist based in Alexandria. “It is a new kind of campaign in Virginia, and it’s going to be a campaign where shoe leather is going to make the difference … to turn people out to vote in the middle of April, which is not a time that people traditionally vote in Virginia.”

Republicans have passed new maps in Texas, North Carolina and Missouri, and they’re eyeing pre-midterm changes in Florida. Voters approved Democrat-friendly redistricting in California and scored a surprise pickup opportunity with a court-ordered map in Utah.  

In Virginia, the proposed map could expand Democrats’ 6-5 majority in the House to a 10-1 advantage, which the party argues could be critical to leveling the playing field in this fall’s midterms.   

“We’re going to punch back,” Virginia House Speaker Don Scott (D) said on a press call Tuesday, blasting redistricting backed by President Trump and Republicans across the country.   

“That’s what this referendum does,” he added. “It levels the playing field so that Virginians can protect fair representation at a moment when it is under direct threat.”  

The ballot measure is “an opportunity for Virginia voters to offer yet another referendum on how they feel about President Trump” in a state he lost in all three of his elections, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.  

And Democrats are ready to spend big to get their plan across the finish line.   

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said last month that his party will put in “whatever it takes” to get out the vote — an urgency that comes as a Jeffries-backed push to redistrict in Maryland has hit a dead end.   

Former President Obama last week even appeared in an ad for the group behind the Virginia measure, calling out Republican-controlled states that have redistricted “to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms” — and arguing that “Virginians can respond.”   

So far, more than $21 million has been funneled into Virginians for Fair Elections, a group that’s urging a “yes” vote on the amendment, according to data from the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP). That includes $10 million from House Majority Forward, a nonprofit aligned with Democratic leadership. 

A Republican-backed group pushing against the measure, Virginians for Fair Maps, has brought in less than $300,000 so far, according to the VPAP.   

“When you have that much more money, it’s a bit challenging when you’re in an off-cycle election. So awareness around that day, and what’s on a ballot, is an advantage to the Democrats because they have superior resources,” said Virginia Republican strategist Zack Roday, adding that the ballot language itself “kind of favors Democrats.”   

But Roday argued that Democrats’ spending shows “they have a little concern” that the election isn’t a lock.   

On the April ballot, Virginia voters will be asked whether their state constitution should be amended to let the General Assembly “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.”   

Republican Party of Virginia Chair Jeff Ryer has argued that Democrats are “dishonestly and deceptively claiming that their scheme is about ‘fairness,’ when in reality it is specifically designed to disenfranchise nearly every Virginian who voted for President Trump.”   

No Gerrymandering Virginia, a bipartisan no-vote group, also contends that the state shouldn’t go around the bipartisan redistricting reform passed by voters in 2020.   

A January poll from Christopher Newport University found 51 percent of Virginia voters supported mid-decade redistricting via constitutional amendment. A February poll from Roanoke College, meanwhile, found that 52 percent of respondents said they’d vote to keep the existing process in place.

But Harry Wilson, the Roanoke College poll’s director, noted in a release that “partisan ramifications” and “the Democratic-inspired wording of the question ‘to restore fairness’ to elections” could sway the ultimate results. 

“I think that a lot of the success or failure of this referendum will depend on the efforts to present this case to the voters,” Farnsworth said. “People are not used to voting in April in Virginia, and the referendum has been on again-off again, because of earlier court rulings. And so now that it is definitely proceeding, there will be a lot of effort to persuade voters on both sides of this question.”

The no-vote push has also faced trouble in recent days amid reports that some Virginians received political mailers invoking Civil Rights imagery, including depictions of the Ku Klux Klan, comparing the redistricting push to Jim Crow-era policies.  

Scott, the first Black Speaker of the Virginia House, said on Tuesday that a little-known, GOP-aligned group, the Democracy and Justice PAC, is sending the mailers out “to try to trick Black voters in Virginia.”  

“The other big question here is, who actually turns out to vote in an April initiative election?” Leopold said.  

He pointed to Democrats’ off-year and special election momentum, which contributed to Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s (D) victory last year, as a sign of optimism.  

“What we’ve seen since Trump has been elected has been: the Democrats have been more motivated to turn out,” Leopold said.   

But Karen Hult, a political science professor at Virginia Tech, predicted turnout will be “abysmal” compared to other races, calling April “a very unusual time” for elections. She noted that the midterm primaries have also been shifted from a June start to August, adding to voter confusion.

There’s also a chance that the redistricting plan, which has so far survived several GOP-led legal challenges, could hit further snags.  

“It looks like the Supreme Court of Virginia has left open the possibility that this will be litigated once the votes are counted,” said Farnsworth. “Even if the voters say yes, it may very well be that the courts say that the procedure was wrong and that the amendment can’t go forward.”   

Sarah Fortinsky contributed.

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