Virginia Supreme Court Overturns Democrats' Redistricting Measure

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday overturned the state’s redistricting ballot measure that would have given Democrats an edge in four House districts, dealing the party a massive blow ahead of the midterms.

The ruling now gives Republicans a clear lead in the gerrymandering efforts over the last year, which were further inflamed by the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act decision last week, bolstering the party’s chances of holding the House in an unfavorable political environment.

Virginia voters passed the measure last month. But the state’s top court ruled that legislative Democrats did not follow the proper procedure when rushing the referendum to the ballot.

Virginia Justice D. Arthur Kelsey, writing for the majority, said Democrats “submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to Virginia voters in an unprecedented manner” that violated state law.

The 4-3 decision means that the map used by Virginia in the 2024 elections will be used later this year. The state’s congressional delegation is currently split between six Democrats and five Republicans, with several battleground seats. The now-overturned map would have likely resulted in a 10-1 split of the delegation in favor of Democrats.

In a statement, Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott, a Democrat, said his party respected the state Supreme Court’s ruling but was disappointed in the ruling.

“Three million people voted in a free and fair election,” he said. “We gave this decision to the voters — exactly where it belongs — and they spoke loud and clear. They voted YES because they wanted to fight back against the Trump power grab.”

The decision means that Republicans will likely net seats in the nationwide gerrymandering battle that President Donald Trump kicked off last year when he urged Texas Republicans to redraw congressional lines there to give the GOP more seats. In a maximalist scenario, Republicans could net more than 10 seats from redrawn lines alone — with several Southern states in the midst of redrawing their own districts following a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that gutted much of the Voting Rights Act.

Trump celebrated the decision in a social media post on Friday. "Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia," he wrote on Truth Social.

Virginia was one of Democrats’ biggest prizes in the back-and-forth redistricting fight, and its invalidation takes what could have been close to a nationwide draw into a territory that clearly favors the GOP.

Virginia Democrats, led by Gov. Abigail Spanberger, had celebrated what appeared to be a major win in the redistricting wars when voters passed their referendum in late April by more than 100,000 votes.

The effort to pass the maps brought together party standard-bearers, including former President Barack Obama, long an advocate of major redistricting reform. And it drew tens of millions of spending, the majority of it from Democrats — a clear sign of the map’s importance to the battle for the House.

Republicans’ biggest prize outside of Texas — where they could flip as many as five seats in a best-case scenario for the party — is Florida. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed into effect a new congressional map in the Sunshine State that is expected to net up to four more seats for Republicans in early May.

Litigation continues there as well, with Democrats contending the new Florida maps violate the state’s anti-gerrymandering standards.

The late-April Supreme Court decision severely limiting the VRA has allowed Republicans to make a late play for yet more Democratic seats in Southern states. Tennessee Republicans just passed a new gerrymander, and other states including South Carolina, Louisiana and Alabama are currently rushing to redraw their lines.

Republicans were bullish after the court’s oral arguments that the ruling would go their way, and the party immediately hailed the decision.

“Virginia Democrats’ corrupt scheme to rig the map has been crushed in court, restoring fairness and protecting the future of the Commonwealth,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) said in a statement. The NRCC funded the legal challenges in Virginia.