Democrats on Wednesday celebrated an election win in Virginia that could put them slightly ahead in a national redistricting competition tied to President Donald Trump’s push to preserve the Republican Party’s House majority in this year’s midterms, but they said it would not be the final round.
The Virginia result came after voters approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday that would authorize new U.S. House districts. Even with the vote approved by voters, the new Virginia map faced additional legal hurdles, starting with a ruling earlier in the day from a judge in rural southern Virginia ordering that the results of Tuesday’s vote not be certified.
The state attorney general’s office said Wednesday it would immediately appeal that decision. Ultimately, the Virginia Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether Democratic lawmakers violated procedural rules when they referred the constitutional amendment to the ballot, a process that could determine whether the map voters narrowly approved Tuesday is invalidated.
Democrats and Republicans are also looking past Virginia to how the mid-decade map fight could shift seats at the national level. After voters passed the Virginia amendment, Democrats could tentatively claim they netted 10 seats nationally from the mid-decade redistricting, compared with nine that Republicans claim—though the article said the outcome could still swing back toward Republicans.
John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said, “We have successfully blunted Trump’s attempt to completely hijack the midterms.” Ari Fleischer, a spokesman for President George W. Bush, said on X after the Virginia vote, “The GOP will now lose net seats across the country. If you’re going to pick a fight, at least win it,” adding, “All this was foreseeable and avoidable. We should not have started this fight.” Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, argued it was too soon to declare one party a victor, saying, “It’s an ongoing process with many legal challenges pending, and it’s far too early for sweeping statements on the final outcome.”
In the days leading up to and after the Virginia vote, Trump sought to undermine the result by posting groundless accusations of fraud. He called the Virginia vote “RIGGED” and “Crooked” and added, “Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice.’”
Beyond Virginia, the article said what happens in Florida could matter as well. It reported that Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature is to meet in a special session next week that Gov. Ron DeSantis called in part to draw a new map to expand the GOP’s congressional majority there, with Courts and state rules still likely to be central to any new boundaries.
The broader redistricting push began when Trump pushed redrawing in Texas last summer, prodding the Republican-controlled Legislature to add up to five House seats for his party. The article said he then pressured other Republican-run states to follow, citing Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio as having created more GOP-leaning seats since then, while Democrats began to fight back through ballot measures and state-level changes designed to reshape maps.
In Washington, U.S. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York warned Florida Republicans, who he said have been openly nervous about redrawing their district boundaries, telling them, “Our message to Florida Republicans right now is, ‘F around and find out,’” the article reported. House Majority Forward, the nonprofit arm of a super political action committee aligned with House Democrats, spent nearly $60 million to push back against Republicans’ redistricting efforts, including about $40 million on the Virginia campaign.
The article also described Florida’s legal terrain, including an anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2010 and concerns that any new Florida map would prompt significant litigation. It said Nicholas Stephanopolous, a Harvard law professor, argued that for DeSantis the challenge is that the Florida amendment forbids drawing lines for purely partisan purposes, meaning the GOP would need another justification for revising the map.
Virginia’s own legal fight is moving through the court system as well. The article said that Republicans challenged the process used by Democrats to place the measure on the ballot and that the state Supreme Court opted to wait for the vote before even scheduling arguments in the case, while a separate case brought by Republicans prompted the judge’s Wednesday order stopping certification. Terry Kilgore, the Virginia House Republican leader, said in a statement after Tuesday’s vote, “The ballot box was never the final word here,” adding, “Serious legal questions remain about both the wording of this referendum and the process used to put it before voters.”
The article said the largest legal wild card is the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority, which could overturn a key provision of the Voting Rights Act used to require certain districts to be drawn to help elect minority candidates. It said Louisiana brought the lawsuit the high court is scheduled to rule on, and that even if Section Two is eliminated, it is unlikely most states could adjust congressional lines in time for the November election because candidate filing deadlines and, in some places, primary elections have already passed.
The result is a national redistricting battle expected to keep moving through courts and state legislatures, even as voters in Virginia formally approved the map that Democrats celebrated Wednesday.