Donald Trump must be simmering with rage at Virginians right now. Yesterday, votes were cast in a state referendum seeking approval for a temporary redistricting plan designed to boost Democrats’ chances of picking up extra Congressional seats in the November midterms.
Trump didn’t exactly keep his position quiet, taking to Truth Social to order Virginians to “VOTE “NO” TO SAVE YOUR COUNTRY”, and appearing at a tele-rally with Speaker Mike Johnson to describe the proposition as a “blatant partisan power grab”, that it’s “unjust”, and that “it’s going to be a disaster.”
Virginia has now spoken, and they’ve ignored Trump’s wailing. The Associated Press called the race at 1:49 am with 97% of votes cast: 51.5% for, 48.6% against.
The explicit point of the new map is to gerrymander Virginia’s district to minimize the Republican vote and amplify the Democratic vote, so you might be inclined to think that, for once, Trump has a point by describing this as a “partisan power grab”.
Virginians approved a new congressional map on Tuesday that would aggressively gerrymander the state in the Democrats’ favor. The party now holds six of the state’s 11 seats in the U.S. House, but the new map could allow the party to win 10 of them. https://t.co/Ypq2BlbqLO
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 22, 2026
However, the real reason is that this referendum is designed as a response to Trump’s own push to redraw electoral maps in red states to boost Republicans. The most high-profile fight has been an effort to stack the deck against Democrats in Texas, a redrawing of the electoral map that went all the way to the Supreme Court.
If you’re going to cheat, so will I
Senior Democrats have simply shrugged and figured that if Republicans are going to rig the election in red states, they may as well do the same in blue states. Barack Obama said Democrats must push back on “Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms” while Hakeem Jeffries billed this as a counter-attack to “stop Donald Trump’s MAGA power grab.”
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 18, 2026
Virginia Dems cooked up some absolute monstrosity districts for this new map
One day you’re in a normal district, next you’re stretched across 3 random regions just to dilute your vote.
From 6-5 to a rigged 10D-1R wipeout.
What a gerrymandering clown show, Virginia!… https://t.co/yZUgElssWI pic.twitter.com/FuUVoMmRY9
Apparently, the GOP didn’t expect Democrats to use their tactic against them, with Fox News’ Ari Fleischer noting that it may have catastrophically backfired. Earlier this week, he pointed out:
“I don’t mind redistricting, I don’t mind a strong gerrymander, but it should happen in accordance with the Constitution, which means it happens once every 10 years. Even politics should have rules, and those rules should not allow any state to have these midterm redistrictings. It just leads to chaos. And Republicans thought they were going to win this one when they went first in Texas. And if Virginia succeeds, it looks like the Democrats are going to have a net pickup in redistricting.”
This is the epitome of dirty politics: drawing lines on a map that make your supporters’ votes worth more and your enemies’ votes worth less. It’s an ugly side of democracy, and there should be strict rules blocking it.
But if Republicans are brazenly going to play dirty with redistricting, the Democrats must do the same. Sure, you might argue that it’s unprincipled, but being honorable and playing nice rarely works out in politics.
