Since her inauguration on January 17th, 2026, Abigail Spanberger and her Democrat colleagues in the Virginia State Senate and Virginia House of Delegates have been working hard to find ways to put their party affiliation over their constituents. In less than a month, the state legislature has introduced over 50 new tax proposals, something quite ironic considering they ran on a platform of making life in the Old Dominion more affordable. These tax increases are even more absurd when you consider that Governor Youngkin handed Spanberger a $2.7 billion budget surplus. I’m no fan of additional taxes, but something much worse is now being attempted by Virginia Democrats: mass gerrymandering to turn a state with a 6-5 Democrat-to-Republican congressional representation into one with a 10-1 Democrat stronghold, a clear attempt at disenfranchising over two million rural and Republican Virginian voters.
Background
In 2021, the Supreme Court of Virginia took over the state’s redistricting process after the newly established and bipartisanly supported Virginia Redistricting Commission failed to meet constitutional deadlines. Because this commission could not agree on maps for the State House, Senate, and U.S. Congress, responsibility ultimately fell on the Supreme Court of Virginia, which proceeded to draw new state legislative and congressional maps that were adopted on December 28, 2021. These resulting maps generally maintained existing political dynamics while accounting for population shifts, creating districts that were relatively balanced towards both political parties.
Fast forward to 2025, and as was reported here by my colleague, Virginia Democrats experienced a blowout victory in the 2025 election cycle, giving them control of all major aspects of Virginia Government, including both legislative bodies, the Governor’s office, the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, and the office of the Attorney General. This massive majority enabled Democrats to do as they pleased with minimal possible opposition from the state’s Republicans outside of the courts.
Thus, Virginia Democrats began plotting about what to do with their newfound control of nearly all aspects of Virginia government. Out of all the issues troubling Virginians that State Democrats could have focused their full efforts on tackling, Democrats ultimately decided that a partisan redistricting initiative was what needed to be codified into law. A legal battle then ensued, with a lower court in Virginia ruling that state Democrats violated procedural rules in their amendment to form these new gerrymandered districts, and that their amendment therefore could not be placed on the ballot by the deadline required by Virginia laws twice. However, the Supreme Court later overruled this decision, meaning that the Democrats’ referendum to gerrymander the state’s districts is currently set to be voted on in an April 21st ballot, with early voting starting on March 6th.
Redistricting visualized
Current congressional districts:
How each county voted in the 2025 gubernatorial election:
Proposed congressional districts for 2026-2030:
What does this all mean for Virginia voters?
In a resurfaced tweet, then-Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger said, “Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates. Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority.” This leads me to wonder, did Spanberger really mean this, or was she just concerned about Republicans gerrymandering? In every respect, Spanberger’s endorsed redistricting amendment would achieve precisely what she claimed to have condemned. These maps, produced by the New York Times and the Virginia Public Access Project, demonstrate just how blatant Spanberger’s endorsed gerrymandering would be. For instance, my hometown in the northern part of the Shenandoah Valley would share congressional representation with the largest and wealthiest part of the state. In the Shenandoah Valley, the culture, which I grew up in, is extremely homogenous with the rest of my current district (VA-6). However, this would not be the same in the slightest under the gerrymandered district proposed by Spanberger. Under this new plan, for some reason, my county of roughly 40,000 residents, with over half its area being farmland, would share a congressman with Fairfax County, a county of nearly 1,200,000 people and almost no farmland. Furthermore, the average Fairfax household earns 2.3 times that of one from Shenandoah County, and the average house is worth 2.6 times more. Fairfax County is one of the richest counties in America! This incongruity means that my new congressman will never visit my part of their district or care to understand and fight for people like those in my community. After all, they’d never have to, since they could still easily win the needed votes and donors elsewhere.
Under Spanberger’s plan, however, this pattern of shoveling urban centers into previously rural districts to overpower the voices of rural constituents would not just happen in my district, but in districts across the state. Fairfax County alone would be split into five separate congressional districts, with each exclusively sending northern Virginia Democrats to Congress. Why any county should have this many districts is beyond me. The clear design of this plan by the Virginia Democrats is clear: to gerrymander a state from leaning slightly blue to being a solid blue state for years to come.
As frustrating as this is for me as a rural voter, it is far more disappointing how low my state’s Democrats will stoop to manipulate voters into passing this blatant power grab. Democrats have shaped the question that will appear in front of voters on the next ballot from March 6th to April 21st to ask, “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?” This question is inherently manipulative and framed with false premises. In no way does this amendment ‘restore fairness’ to Virginia’s elections; they’re already fair! The wording of this amendment was specifically crafted by the Democrats of Virginia to make voters think they are making elections fairer, when they are actually achieving the opposite.
My state also already has a specific non-partisan commission that is meant to draw up our districts, which was approved by the state’s voters. Yet this commission is on hold until 2030 under this proposed amendment. By creating new districts where elections are decided only by major cities, the Virginia Democrats are effectively disenfranchising the Virginians who live in roughly 88% of the state’s rural land. Under these new districts, 52% of the commonwealth’s voters will control 91% of our congressional delegation. Even a complete political novice should be able to understand how unfair this is.
Closing thoughts
82-year-old Virginia State Senator L. Louise Lucas, who leads the Democratic Party in that legislative body, proclaimed that with their redistricting initiative, “Today we are leveling the playing field.” Now, I ask you, does the Democrats’ amendment actually sound like a tool to level the playing field? Or does it instead sound more like a party usurping control of a balanced and non-partisan process in the name of extreme political gain? State Sen. Lucas and the other Democrats trying to ram this gerrymandering through have justified their efforts with claims like “We are only doing this to respond to redistricting in states like Texas,” but where I’m from, two wrongs don’t make a right. When rightfully criticized by Sen. Ted Cruz for her clear endorsement of Virginia gerrymandering, Sen. Lucas tweeted, “You started it, and we fucking finished it.” Thus, it can be completely concluded that the President Pro Tempore of the Virginia Senate has no qualms with stating the obvious: Democrat redistricting efforts have absolutely nothing to do with making Virginia districts more fair, and everything to do with trying to stick it to Republicans and voters in Republican-leaning areas. The bottom line is simple: gerrymandering is an ugly tactic no matter who does it, and the Democrats clearly have no qualms with taking advantage of a fair system and bending it to their benefit. If you live in Virginia, I implore you to vote “No” on the April 21st proposed constitutional amendment. In doing so, you are telling our elected officials that we reject gerrymandering in the Old Dominion and support our non-partisan redistricting commission that is already in effect. Use your voice; make sure everyone you know gets out to vote against this amendment; it is so important that you do so. If you are interested in an organization that is fighting to stop this blatant usurpation of power by democrats, consider supporting or getting involved with either No Gerrymandering Virginia, which is supported by a coalition of Virginia Voters, or Virginians for Fair Maps, which is co-chaired by former State Attorney General Jason Miyares.