Virginia Supreme Court Strikes Down Democratic Redistricting Plan

The Virginia Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a new electoral map designed to flip four Republican-held U.S. House seats to Democrats, handing a victory to President Donald Trump’s party ahead of the November midterm elections.

The court ruled that the Democratic-controlled state legislature violated procedural requirements in putting a constitutional amendment to a referendum to allow mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment on April 21, but the court ruling voided that vote’s outcome.

“This violation irreparably undermined the integrity of the referendum and renders it void,” the court said in its opinion.

Democratic lawmakers had hoped to pick up as many as four U.S. House seats in Virginia under the redrawn map, part of an effort to offset Republican redistricting elsewhere, driven by President Donald Trump. The ruling, along with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act, cemented Republican gerrymandering advantages ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

The decision could bolster Republican hopes of retaining their U.S. House majority in the midterms. Democrats pursued the measure in Virginia as part of a nationwide fight over redrawing congressional district boundaries, initiated by the Republican president last year.

In its ruling, the Virginia court agreed with Republican complaints that the Democratic-led legislature failed to follow proper procedures in approving the referendum before putting it to voters. A day after the referendum, a district judge blocked certification of the results, calling the ballot language “blatantly misleading.”

Trump reacted to the decision on Truth Social, calling it “a big win for the Republican Party and America, in Virginia.”

“The Virginia Supreme Court just struck down a terrible Democrat Gerrymander. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Advantage for Republicans

The Virginia court ruling adds to the Republican momentum in the redistricting fight. It follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, with its conservative majority, which struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, paving the way for Republican-led Southern states to dismantle majority-Black and majority-Latino districts held by Democrats. Black and Latino voters tend to favor Democratic candidates.

Republican-controlled states such as Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee have taken steps to draw new maps in time for the November elections, even postponing their party primaries to allow lawmakers time.

Last year, Trump pushed Republican lawmakers in Texas to tear up their electoral map and draw new district boundaries targeting five Democratic U.S. House incumbents. After Texas did so, Democratic lawmakers in California adjusted their state’s districts to target five Republican incumbents. Other states followed suit.

Virginia voters approved the Democratic-backed map in a special election on April 21 by a margin of 51.7% to 48.3%, according to Associated Press tallies. The referendum was the final step in a complex legislative procedure designed to bypass a constitutional amendment, approved by voters in 2020, that had handed redistricting to a bipartisan commission.

If the Virginia map remains invalidated, Republicans could ultimately gain an advantage of up to 10 House seats nationwide, depending on outcomes of current Republican redistricting efforts in Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee.

Republicans can lose only a net two seats in the November elections to maintain control of the U.S. House.

The map-drawing process, known as redistricting, normally occurs once per decade to reflect population changes from the decennial national census. The ongoing and recently completed redistricting efforts by Republican- and Democratic-controlled state legislatures are, on the other hand, aimed at gaining partisan advantage.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling only accelerated this fight. Beyond states seeking immediate map redraws, others have declared clear intentions to pursue a maximal partisan approach to redistricting before the 2028 election.

Under Virginia state law, two successive legislatures — with a state election in between — must approve a proposed constitutional amendment before it can go to a vote.

The Democratic legislative majority approved the amendment in October, days before the November state election. Democrats, who gained seats in that vote, then passed the amendment a second time in January and scheduled the referendum for April.

Republicans filed multiple lawsuits, arguing that there was no intervening election because early voting had already begun when the amendment first passed, and that lawmakers violated other procedural steps in advancing the measure.