Virginia Democrats, who currently hold six of the state’s 11 congressional seats, have their sights set on winning 10 in this year’s midterm elections.
The way they envision doing this is both complicated and controversial: to hold a spring referendum on a proposed constitutional amendment to temporarily set aside the bipartisan commission that Virginians voted for in 2020, then draw new congressional lines that would all but guarantee Democratic victories. The common word for that is “gerrymandering.” That’s the controversial part; the complicated part is making all this work time-wise with various state election laws that specify certain dates for candidate petitions and early voting.
What if Democrats could win 10 of Virginia’s 11 seats the old-fashioned way — by winning elections in the current districts?
That has seemed an absurd question. The Democratic Congressional Committee has deemed only two of the five Republican-held seats in Virginia to be worthy of being “targeted”: the 1st, now occupied by Rob Wittman, and the 2nd, represented by Jen Kiggans.
The 2nd, in Hampton Roads, has historically been a swing district, but for Democrats to entertain thoughts of winning the 1st seems a stretch: Wittman has never won less than 56% of the vote.
However, President Donald Trump’s sinking approval ratings could put both the 1st and potentially other districts in play. Some recent number-crunching by data journalist G. Elliot Morris raises the prospect that Democrats could win 10 of Virginia’s 11 congressional seats as they’re currently configured.
Morris, who has worked for The Economist and was editorial director of data analytics at ABC News, is one of the foremost data-driven journalists in the land. He now writes a Substack newsletter, Strength in Numbers, which I consider mandatory reading (and you should, too!).
One of his recent newsletters was headlined: “What voters in every state think about Trump and prices.” In it, he assembled approval polls about Trump from every state to put together a state-by-state picture. His finding: “Trump’s overall approval is underwater in 39 states — and his inflation numbers are negative in 49.”
There’s a technical term for this in politics: not good. Well, not good if you’re a Republican. If you’re a Democrat, this is where things start looking up.
The most intriguing part of Morris’ report was where he used some statistical wizardry to translate Trump’s approval rate in each state by “Public Use Microdata Area.” That’s a census-based designation that divides each state into sections so that it can publish more detailed data without identifying specific localities. Virginia has 60 PUMAs, as they’re called. Since we know demographically what types of people like Trump and what types don’t, someone with more computer skills than I (someone such as, say, G. Elliot Morris) can crunch all the approval ratings with census data at the PUMA level to figure out where Trump is strong and where he’s not.
The result is this map, which Morris graciously gave me permission to republish:
The green areas are places where Trump has approval ratings of 50% or more. The orange areas are places where he’s lower. (Sorry, Democrats, don’t count on winning Wyoming anytime soon.)
When I look at Virginia, what I notice at first glance is that the only distinctly green part of the state is Southwest Virginia, which comprises most of the 9th District, represented by Republican Morgan Griffith of Salem. Even in all the possible maps bandied about for a Virginia congressional map that’s 10-1 Democratic, Southwest Virginia is that lone Republican district.
However, on this map, even the 6th District, now held by Republican Ben Cline of Botetourt County, is iffy. This is presently the second-most Republican congressional district in the state — Cline won the last two elections in this configuration with 63% and 64% of the vote; even the Republicans’ weak candidate for governor last year, who got shellacked statewide, carried the 6th with an estimated 58% of the vote. When we talk about the 6th being rock-ribbed Republican, the only question is whether the rock is igneous or metamorphic.
Yet this map shows most of the 6th as light orange, meaning Trump is under 50% approval. There’s a light green PUMA in the northern Shenandoah Valley, but no bright green ones. There is, however, a bright orange one — in Roanoke (no surprise). Morris sent me a statistical analysis based on these numbers that showed Cline a slight favorite to win the 6th, but only giving a Republican a slight edge in the 6th is still pretty shocking.
Virtually all of the 5th District, now held by Republican John McGuire of Goochland County, is orange. So is everything else.
If Trump’s low approval rates really do transfer themselves to Republican congressional candidates — we’ll get to that “if” shortly — then Kiggans, McGuire and Wittman are already toast, and Cline is in the political fight of his life. That would be the way toward a 10-1 map without the need to redraw lines at all — or, at worst, for Democrats, a 9-2 map with Cline squeaking by. That means the question for Democrats is whether it’s worth the hassle — and opprobrium — of gerrymandering just to guarantee one seat that they might win anyway.
For what it’s worth, Morris is skeptical that Trump’s low approval rates would really translate into a 10-1 result for Democrats. “They can get to 8 without gerrymandering if they win nationally by 7+ points,” he told me by email, with those two extra seats being Wittman’s in the 1st and Kiggans’ in the 2nd. For Democrats to oust McGuire “would require pretty abysmal turnout among Rs in VA-5, plus a national equivalent outcome around D+8. Possible but unlikely.” He thinks the natural conservatism of the 6th allows Cline to hang on. Still, he winds up with the same question I posed above: “So, Q for statewide Dems is do you go down the rabbit hole of democratic illegitimacy for a guarantee of one extra seat . . . ?”
The political calculus here is fascinating: Republicans, who don’t want gerrymandered lines, need to embrace the argument that they’re likely to lose anyway, so new lines aren’t necessary. Democrats, who want new lines, need to embrace the argument that Trump’s approval rating is stronger than it really is and the only sure way to defeat his supporters in the U.S. House is to change the rules.
Neither of those seems a palatable argument, yet this is where the math leads.
Now let’s look at that “if.” Actually, there are many “ifs” here. Here are some of the variables.
What if approval ratings change? And which way will they change?
Approval ratings aren’t static. Yes, Trump is “underwater” now, but the one constant of politics is that things change. If you’re a Democrat, the concern is that Trump’s approval ratings might rebound — and move some of these districts out of reach. That’s an argument in favor of gerrymandering, so Democrats can guarantee more favorable lines and not worry about a Trump renaissance if the economy improves closer to the election. Of course, if you’re a Republican, the concern is that Trump’s approval rating might get worse and even the current districts become more difficult than they may already be.
How much is the congressional vote tied to presidential approval ratings?
There’s certainly a general connection; when the president’s ratings are high, his party does well. When they’re low, the party doesn’t. This is an iron rule regardless of which party is in power. However, the question is how well that general connection translates to the specifics of 435 congressional districts around the country. Each of these incumbents has their own reputation and their own record. If Trump’s approval ratings are down, Democratic challengers will try to tie those incumbents to Trump and his policies. The Republican incumbents will try to distance themselves from Trump (to the extent they can) and instead emphasize whatever they find most useful to emphasize: seniority on a certain committee, their attentiveness to certain local concerns, their views on certain polarizing issues and, of course, the views of the Democratic challengers on certain issues that might not play well in the district.
Scenario: Maybe a Democratic challenger is successful at portraying the Republican incumbent as a Trump supporter who has helped sink the economy — but maybe the Republican incumbent decides this is a fine time to talk about, say, abortion, or guns, or transgender issues or something else that polls poorly in that district. Democrats will link the incumbent to Trump; the incumbent will link the Democrat to whoever the least popular national Democrat is at that point (Nancy Pelosi used to be the go-to for Republicans, but she’s retiring.)
That’s a long way of saying that just because Trump is under 50% in a district doesn’t automatically mean the Republican House member will lose — but it does mean that they ought to be worried and have a Plan B ready to campaign on.
How strong will the Democratic challengers be?
Many a vulnerable incumbent has won because they had the good fortune of the other party nominating an even weaker candidate. That’s why nomination contests are so important: Just because a candidate is strong with party activists doesn’t necessarily mean that candidate will fare well with the general electorate in November. These choices will be especially important in any Republican-held districts this year because the Democratic nominee will need to be able to appeal to voters who have previously voted Republican — and will be distinctly to the right of the Democratic partisans making those nomination decisions.
Democrats appear to be in a fortunate position because they have well-known candidates available for all four of the Republican-held seats that appear to be in jeopardy (they even have multiple candidates in the district that seems safe for Republicans, the 9th). In each district, they have multiple candidates seeking the nomination, so there’s no guarantee these well-known candidates will prevail, but in the 1st they have Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor (who has Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger’s endorsement), in the 2nd they have former Rep. Elaine Luria (who has the endorsement of Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine), in the 5th they have former Rep. Tom Perriello (who also has endorsements from Warner and Kaine) and in the 6th they have best-selling Roanoke author Beth Macy (who has Kaine’s endorsement). If those wind up being the nominees, that’s a strong lineup for Democrats.
While one argument for Democrats to forge ahead with gerrymandering is to guarantee themselves seats (inasmuch as anything in politics can be guaranteed), one argument against gerrymandering is that they could have all these candidates and not have to choose. Most of the plans for a 10-1 gerrymandered map depend on drawing Roanoke into the same district as Charlottesville and Albemarle County — that would put Macy and Perriello in competition with each other and also likely draw in Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke. That would be a fascinating primary to watch, but these latest Trump approval ratings suggest it might be unnecessary for success in 2026. That date is a key qualifier, which brings us to:
What’s riskier for Democrats: gerrymandering or short-term gains that go away in two years?
Democrats will get some blowback for gerrymandering, but they may not care. Gerrymandering offers near-certainty of congressional victories for not just 2026 but the two elections after that, until the next regular redistricting takes place in time for the 2032 elections. Keeping the current districts avoids criticism that Democrats are undermining the democracy they say they want to protect — and might still produce the same results as gerrymandering. However, those 2026 wins might be short-lived. We have no idea what the political mood will be come 2028 or 2030. A Democratic candidate who narrowly wins one of these existing districts in 2026 could well find themselves losing in 2028. Perriello knows that all too well; he was a one-termer before when the pro-Obama electorate of 2008 turned into an anti-Obama one in 2010.
Viewed that way, a midcycle redistricting may not be about Democrats winning in November at all, but about guaranteeing Democratic wins for several Novembers to come.
Join us for an online legislative preview
Cardinal News is holding an online event Tuesday, Jan. 13, at 6 p.m., where our Richmond-based political reporter, Elizabeth Beyer, and I will be talking up the upcoming legislative session.
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