WASHINGTON — In a blow to the electoral hopes of Democrats in this year’s midterm elections, the Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a redistricting plan that voters in the state had approved last month.
The plan was expected to help Democrats win as many as four additional congressional seats amid an escalating, nationwide battle for control of Congress, in which political leaders in numerous other states — including California — have redrawn their own legislative maps for political advantage.
Experts said the ruling, reached on narrow grounds, prevents Virginia Democrats from using a redrawn map in their favor in the November midterms, but does not bar them from making another attempt for future elections.
Just last week, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling severely weakened a Voting Rights Act prohibition on racial discrimination in voting, which has set off numerous efforts in Southern states to redraw legislative maps to the advantage of Republicans.
Friday’s ruling in Virginia, taken together with the Supreme Court ruling, gives Republicans the overall advantage in the broader race, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
“They have won the redistricting war, not just in Virginia, but nationally,” he said.
Democrats could still win control of the U.S. House of Representatives, he said, but “we’re not talking about a landslide.”
Amy Walter, publisher and editor in chief of the Cook Political Report, said that while Republicans have gained a structural advantage in November through redistricting, the political climate still favors Democrats.
She likens Republicans’ efforts — kicked off last year in Texas — to building a levee ahead of a storm.
“How tall is that levee and is it strong enough to withstand a medium-level storm?” she said. “A high-level storm?”
President Trump, who initiated the redistricting battle when he pressed lawmakers in Texas to redraw their map last year, cheered the Virginia court’s decision.
“Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. “The Virginia Supreme Court has just struck down the Democrats’ horrible gerrymander. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Virginia Atty. Gen. Jay Jones, a Democrat who defended the election process and results in court, said he was “evaluating every legal path forward to defend the will of the people,” and accused the court of putting “politics over the rule of law” in order to “reach the wrong legal conclusion that fit their political agenda.”
In its decision, the state high court ruled that the majority-Democratic state Legislature had not followed the proper procedures in introducing the plan, which would have replaced existing legislative maps with new ones approved this year by the Legislature.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, in an X post, said she was “disappointed” with the ruling.
“More than three million Virginians cast their ballots in Virginia’s redistricting referendum, and the majority of Virginia voters voted to push back against a President who said he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress with a temporary and responsive referendum. They made their voices heard,” Spanberger wrote of the April 21 vote.
Virginia’s attempt to redraw its maps in favor of Democrats followed a similar, successful one in California.
Following the Trump-inspired move by Texas to redraw its map to better favor Republicans, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced California would fight back.
He then led California Democrats in a successful push to hold a special election last November on a single ballot measure — Proposition 50 — that amended the state Constitution to temporarily sideline the state’s independent redistricting committee and give the power to draw its congressional maps instead to state legislators for the next several years.
California voters overwhelmingly approved the plan, with 64% of more than 11 million votes cast in favor of it.
California Democrats, who hold supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature, promptly introduced maps designed to help the party seize as many as five additional congressional seats, offsetting the five expected to be gained by Republicans in Texas.
After the victory, Newsom touted California’s approach as the fairest possible: giving the choice to voters. And he called on Democratic leaders in other states, including Virginia, to take the same approach.
Prior to the special election, California Republicans asked the California Supreme Court to block it, arguing that the measure had been pushed in violation of procedural rules for new legislation. The court denied the request.
State Republicans and lawyers for Trump later appealed in federal court, arguing the new map was a racial gerrymander to benefit Latinos, and therefore illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court turned down that appeal in February.
In an X post Friday, Newsom slammed the Virginia high court’s ruling by referring back to his argument about the fairness of ballot-approved redistricting plans, contrasting Virginia’s voter-approved plan being thrown out with redistricting plans favoring Republicans moving forward without any votes in five conservative-led states.
“MAGA has rigged the system,” Newsom wrote.
Rebecca Green, a law professor and director of the Election Law Program at William & Mary Law School in Virginia, said the court there rejected the redistricting plan based on narrow grounds pertaining to Virginia law on amending the state Constitution, which doesn’t apply in California.
In Virginia, lawmakers must vote on a change to the Constitution in two successive legislative terms, with an intervening election occurring between them, she said. However, when Virginia’s lawmakers first approved the redistricting language, it was after early voting had already begun in the November election that was supposed to follow that decision.
That rules out Virginia shifting its map to better favor Democrats in the upcoming midterms, Green said, but doesn’t bar them from starting the process over, adhering more closely to the rules, and changing the lines for future races.
