To avoid Congressional oversight and accountability, Donald Trump ignited a gerrymandering arms race that is redrawing districts in many states around the country. Republican legislators in Texas, North Carolina and Ohio have all bent the knee in fealty to the wanna-be-king. To protect our democracy, Democrats are fighting fire with fire where they can. That is why mid-decade redistricting is under consideration in Virginia.
America, as we know it, depends on Democrats winning back the House of Representatives. Redrawing district lines may help achieve that goal. But in the case of Virginia’s Sixth Congressional District, it is unnecessary and counterproductive.
Evidence from the 2025 election reveals that a qualified Democrat who takes rural issues seriously can send Ben Cline packing without relying on redistricting. The Sixth District reported significant gains for Democratic candidates. Republican turnout for the Governor’s race was depressed (-17,380), while Democratic turnout and Republican swing voting increased (+24,903). Democrats running here posted gains between +8.2 and +19.5 points (with an average of +14.7) in every voting district.
The disastrous policies of Donald Trump and the Republican Congress are the principal cause of those gains. Sixth District residents realized they didn’t vote in 2024 to gut rural health care, slap tariffs on farmers, give billionaires tax cuts and undermine Congress as a coequal branch of government. So Republicans and Independents who have voted Republican in the past switched sides or stayed home to send that message to Washington. These gains were built by local activists and volunteers who have been building coalitions and coordinating their activities since the Sixth District was drawn by a bipartisan commission in 2020.
The Sixth District is a rural region dotted by small and mid-sized cities. Within its current electoral boundaries, the District reflects the economic and cultural realities of the Shenandoah Valley, the Roanoke River Valley, the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Alleghany Highlands. The mountains and valleys shape trade and travel patterns. The local economies are sustained by agriculture and tourism that rely on shared watersheds, forests and mountains. Relationships are strong and deep, rooted in long histories of mutual aid and cooperation between rural communities and cities, such as Winchester, Harrisonburg, Staunton, Waynesboro, Lexington and Roanoke, along the north-south corridors in the center of the district. And, in the more mountainous areas, cities like Front Royal, Luray and Covington.
Redrawing the Sixth District would fragment this coherent rural region, separating communities that share common problems and opportunities. In some potential redistricting maps, residents here would be relegated to the hinterlands of metropolitan-dominated districts that run from the West Virginia line to the D.C. Beltway. Redistricting in this manner will dilute the voices of rural voters, whose needs can only be effectively championed by a rural representative.
We need investments in local dairy production facilities so that Shenandoah Valley producers no longer have to pay high transportation costs to facilities hundreds of miles away.
Developing a farm-to-factory industrial hemp economic sector that diversifies crops for farmers and supports small businesses in creating manufacturing jobs with fair wages would benefit the entire district.
We need new investments in programs to help preserve farmland and pass it on to the next generation of aspiring farmers.
We also need support for rural broadband and investments in rural schools and healthcare. These are specifically rural issues.
Improvements to I-81 — one of the busiest and most dangerous highways in the country, running the entire length of the district — are urgently needed for the trucking industry as well as local residents.
This rural district deserves to be represented in its entirety, not chopped up into pieces and tacked on to multiple metropolitan districts.
A wave election is coming in 2026. It will sweep many Republican incumbents out of districts like the Sixth. People out here are fed up with Ben Cline. Democrats can take America back while also preserving the unique character of this rural congressional district.
And we should. Building a big tent cannot be accomplished by adding insult to the injury of neglect that rural Virginians have sustained for decades. Democrats can win the Sixth, fair and square. The first step is to maintain a district where a responsible member of Congress can prioritize rural needs and concerns.
Pete Barlow, a resident of Augusta County, is running for Congress in 2026.