Virginia voters approve Democrats' redistricting effort

RICHMOND, Va. (CN) — A majority of voters in Virginia approved a redistricting effort Tuesday that aimed to add four additional congressional seats for Democrats.

The vote came after Democrats scrambled to pass a constitutional amendment allowing the redrawing of the congressional map ahead of the midterm elections in November. Democrats argued implementing a map that’s expected to change Virginia from a state with six Democratic and five Republican seats to 10 Democratic seats and one Republican was a necessary response to President Donald Trump’s calls on other states, including Texas and North Carolina, to redraw their congressional maps to help elect more Republicans.

The pro-redistricting effort garnered 50.7% of the vote, with 1,374,544 voting yes and 1,336,737 voting no, according to the Virginia Department of Elections.

“Virginia voters have spoken, and tonight they approved a temporary measure to push back against a President who claims he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress,” Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger said in a statement. “Virginians watched other states go along with those demands without voter input — and we refused to let that stand. We responded the right way: at the ballot box.”

Democratic Delegate Rodney Willett pitched the constitutional amendment containing trigger language that would allow Virginia to modify congressional districts if another state modifies its districts for reasons other than a court order. The state constitution requires the General Assembly to give voters two opportunities to vote on representation before implementing any amendments. Democrats, who control both chambers, recalled legislators in October, where the amendment passed on party lines under the guise of a special session initially called in 2024 to correct a budgetary error.

The referendum drew the attention of donors who spent nearly $100 million combined in support and opposition. The group Virginia for Fair Elections, supporting the referendum, poured in $64 million, while Virginia for Fair Map, opposing the redistricting, contributed close to $20 million, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

The donations resulted in wall-to-wall television and internet advertisements. Former President Barack Obama and Governor Spanberger appeared in several ads supporting redistricting. The anti-redistricting campaign relied on former Republican Governor Glen Youngkin, former Attorney General Jason Miyares and House Speaker Mike Johnson to stump for the cause.

“While these weren’t the results we were hoping for, they were not unexpected. From the start, this process was tilted: misleading ballot language and a massive spending advantage made this an uphill climb for voters trying to make sense of a deeply complicated issue,” Republican minority leader for the House of Delegates Terry Kilgore said in a statement Tuesday.

Trump made a last-ditch effort to rally opposition Tuesday when he joined a tele-rally hosted by Youngkin and appeared on a conservative radio show.

“Nobody’s ever said anything like it. It’s so unfair,” Trump said during the “John Fredericks Show” late Monday night. “They even say it’s unfair. They say, ‘Oh, they’ll do it once, and maybe they’ll go back to what it was.’ The whole thing is ridiculous.”

The referendum comes in the shadow of pending lawsuits in the Supreme Court of Virginia challenging the amendment’s legality. The high court decided on Feb. 16 to allow the vote on the referendum to proceed as it awaits briefs due on April 23. A local judge in Tazewell, Virginia, twice ruled in favor of Republicans in separate lawsuits seeking to halt the referendum.

“Serious legal questions remain about both the wording of this referendum and the process used to put it before voters. Those questions have not been resolved, and they now move where they belong: to the courts," Kilgore said.

State Republican leaders lodged the first lawsuit in January, accusing the Democrats of circumventing legislative procedure when they began the redistricting effort. The second challenge from the National Republican Congressional Committee and Virginia-based Republican U.S. Representatives Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith accused Democrats of offering a misleading ballot question.

The proposed ballot question asks: “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?"

The referendum comes six years after Virginia voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment banning partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court of Virginia drew the current map.

Democrats relied heavily on painting the referendum as a way to stop Trump from a “power grab.” Trump lost to Kamala Harris in Virginia by more than 5 points and by over 300,000 votes in 2024. Democrats rode the high of the 2025 election, which saw them take control of the governor’s mansion and the attorney general’s office and flip 13 seats, giving them a 64-to-36 advantage in the House of Delegates.

The proposed map disperses slivers of Northern Virginia, a densely populated, wealthy liberal suburb of Washington, D.C., throughout the state. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, the only remaining safely Republican seat is in the southwestern part of the state.

“Virginians just delivered a massive blow to the GOP plot to rig control of Congress through unfair maps in 2026 and beyond,” Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Heather Williams said in a statement. “We applaud voters in Virginia for answering the national call to protect our democracy, yet the fight is far from over.”Six states, including Texas and California, have already implemented new congressional maps. Virginia’s neighbor, Maryland, failed to pass a similar redistricting amendment through the state Senate. The Supreme Court blocked the redraw of a Republican congressional district in New York in March.

“Let’s be clear about what this means: Virginia just changed the trajectory of the 2026 midterms. At a moment when Trump and his allies are trying to lock in power before voters have a say, Virginians stepped up and leveled the playing field for the entire country,” Democratic Speaker of the House of Delegates Don Scott said in a statement. “Virginia has done this before — and tonight, we did it again. When the stakes are highest, we lead.”