Dem
47
GOP
53
The Great Redistricting Follies of 2026 are almost over. There are only two more acts and one of them is tomorrow, when Virginia voters will vote on this ballot question:
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?
If the question gets 50% +1 votes, the Democratic-controlled Virginia General Assembly will pass a new map for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 House elections. The map is ready to go, so it will only take a few days to pass it. The new map is expected to send Republican Reps. Rob Wittman, Jen Kiggans, and maybe John McGuire to the unemployment office on Jan. 3, 2027. In a monster blue wave, maybe also Reps. Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith, although their districts are currently R+12. Still a three-seat pickup is a lot when the House is currently 214D, 218R, with two vacancies in deep red districts and one in a deep blue district. After the vacancies are filled, a flip of three seats yields 218D, 217R. So if Virginians OK the gerrymander and everything else remains the same (which it most certainly won't), the Democrats would have a 1-seat margin in January. That would give every Democrat a veto over everything. Don't count on everything else remaining the same though.
Early voting in Virginia is approaching the record level set in the 2025 gubernatorial election. Early voting ended on Saturday. High turnout doesn't show which way the votes are going, though, just that there is a lot of voter enthusiasm.
Democrats called out their big gun (Barack Obama) to help with turnout:
They didn't call on the Big Dog (Bill Clinton), probably because they feel he might inspire more Republicans to vote than Democrats.
Tens of millions of dollars are being poured into this election. The amounts are unknown because there is a lot of 501(c)(4) dark money being spent. Virginians for Fair Elections has announced that it has spent $65 million supporting the ballot question. It is a 501(c)(4) and as such does not have to report where the money came from. Neither does Virginians for Fair Maps RC, which has spent $22 million opposing the measure. The total spending from all groups is probably north of $100 million. This kind of spending used to happen only in presidential races. Now it is happening all over the place. It happened in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race last year and will almost certainly happen in the North Carolina Senate race this year and probably others (especially the Texas Senate race if Ken Paxton wins the primary). Of course, as we have seen many times, the side with the biggest piggy bank doesn't always win.
There have been six polls on the ballot question. It is close. Four times "Yes" was ahead and twice "No" was ahead. The three April polls were No+1, Yes+5, and Yes+4. It could go either way.
The last act in the Redistricting Follies is Florida. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is probably waiting to see how things go in Virginia before deciding whether to push for a new map in Florida. In order to win some more seats, he might be forced to create some districts with a 55%-45% Republican majority, and in a Democratic landslide, those seats could be washed away. Virginia is not Florida, but a huge victory for the Democrats tomorrow could be a harbinger of trouble ahead. (V)