In a stunning turn of events, Virginia Democrats are discovering that their effort to gerrymander their state could blow up in their faces.
The April 21 special election referendum is one month away, and Democrats who once crusaded against partisan map-rigging are sweating bullets, because it looks as if voters won’t approve their plan to eliminate four Republican-held seats and make Virginia one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the country. They assumed this would be easy.
Even Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed on to the effort, despite her past opposition to gerrymandering. Back in 2019, she said, “gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy, and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates,” and insisted that “opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority.”
That quote hasn’t aged particularly well, and it could prove to be her major defeat as governor.
“Some supporters of the Virginia referendum acknowledge the challenge of convincing voters to back a gerrymandered map when Democrats, who several years ago backed the formation of the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission, have criticized Republicans for similar moves,” NBC News reports. “Virginia voters are also not accustomed to going to the polls in April, when Democrats scheduled the special election, making turnout particularly unpredictable.”
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Making matters worse for the Democrats, polling shows that voters aren’t backing the referendum, and early voting numbers actually benefited Republicans.
A Roanoke College poll of Virginia residents conducted in mid-February found that 62% supported the state’s current method of drawing congressional maps. Asked about the constitutional amendment, 44% said they’d vote to approve it, while 52% said they’d prefer to keep the current process.
A mid-January poll of Virginia registered voters from Christopher Newport University similarly found that 63% were in favor of the current map-drawing process. But this survey showed a slight majority, 51%, also backed the temporary constitutional amendment, while 43% opposed it.
Threading the needle of not completely dismissing the commission while pushing for a more partisan map represents a big hurdle for the referendum’s supporters — one underscored by the fact that some Democrats are aggressively opposed to the amendment.
“It’s not a done deal by any means,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said. “We have to effectively make the case that even though this seems unfair in Virginia, it’s totally fair for America, for those of us who believe that taking back the House is the most significant thing we can do to stop Donald Trump.”
Brian Cannon, a Democratic operative who championed the bipartisan redistricting commission, is openly skeptical. “There’s a big group of people that don’t like Donald Trump — like me — that are worried about him stealing the midterms and ruining our democracy — like me — but who don’t think this is a smart way to fight back, or that we even need to do this in Virginia,” he said.
Anything can happen, of course, but it looks as if Virginia Democrats may wind up with egg on their faces.
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