The Virginia Gerrymander: The More You Look, the Worse It Gets

One downside (among many) of the age of Trump is the tendency of his opponents to stoop to his level, adopt his tactics, and join him in a race to the bottom. Virginia’s radical gerrymandering proposal is a case in point:

• • It would debase Virginia’s redistricting process from one of the fairest in the Nation to the least fair.
  • It would make Virginia the most extremely gerrymandered of all states.
  • While promoted as a “temporary” measure to counter Trump, it would remain in effect for at least three election cycles, well after Trump leaves office, and perhaps longer.
  • It’s unlikely to significantly impact the net outcome of the 2026 House elections.
  • What it’s certain to do is devalue the constitutional voting rights of hundreds of thousands of Virginians and further degrade our already abysmal politics.

The official explanation for the proposal on the April 21 ballot is a Trump-worthy masterstroke of misinformation. The claim that its purpose is “to restore fairness in the upcoming elections” is patently false. The proposal would do precisely the opposite by restoring the unfairness of gerrymandering that the independent redistricting process it overrides was designed to prevent. Indeed, it would change Virginia’s grade on the nonpartisan Princeton Gerrymandering Project’s Redistricting Report Card from an A to an F.

The other claim in the official explanation, that the proposal would only “temporarily” supersede the independent process, is highly misleading. The gerrymandered districts would remain not just for the 2026 elections but for at least the following two election cycles reaching into the next decade. By then, those districts and their incumbents would be entrenched. If Democrats still control the state government, they will almost surely try to keep their advantage by putting off the independent process again. Conversely, if Republicans control the state, they will be itching for payback and anxious for a gerrymander of their own, invoking the Democratic “precedent.”

The new map that has already been enacted by Virginia Democrats is extreme even by gerrymandering standards. If it works as intended, it would flip one-third of the state’s U.S. House seats from a fairly balanced 6-5 split in favor of Democrats (reflecting Virginia’s political makeup) to 10 Democrats and only one Republican. This would make Virginia the most gerrymandered state in the Nation, with Republican-leaning voters more underrepresented than minority party voters in any other heavily gerrymandered state, red or blue. For example, Republicans would hold a higher proportion of House seats in deep blue Illinois than in Virginia; Democrats would be more proportionally represented in deep red Texas (even with its new gerrymander) than Republicans in Virginia.^[1]Virginia Republicans would have about the same minimal proportional  representation as California Republicans (taking California’s new gerrymander into account), but of course Virginia has a far … Continue reading 

Even proponents find the proposal distasteful but justify it as necessary to counter Trump’s mid-decade gerrymander push. Democratic Congressman Don Beyers conceded that while the proposal “seems unfair in Virginia,” voters should “hold their nose” and support it. But the justification that this is only a defensive measure to counter Trump is belied by the fact that Virginia’s gerrymandered districts would continue for at least four years after Trump leaves office.

Moreover, it’s doubtful that the proposal would significantly affect the national election outcome in 2026. Trump’s gerrymandering push lost steam after Texas and California cancelled each other out. Even if other states belatedly join in, most experts think the most likely nationwide outcome from any additional gerrymandering will be a wash or at most a net gain of only a seat or two for one side or the other. Whether Democrats win a House majority in 2026 depends on many factors that are much more influential than newly gerrymandered districts.

In sum, there is no substantive or high-minded justification for this major assault on the constitutional voting rights of Virginians. Approval of the proposal would be a huge step backward for Virginia and yet another step lower in our national politics.