Texas got us into this mess.
Will Texas also get us out of it?
Probably not, but the question does need to be asked, so here goes.
The nationwide scramble for states to redraw their congressional lines mid-decade to gain a partisan advantage in this fall’s congressional midterms started in Texas, where Republicans (egged on by President Donald Trump) got greedy and pushed for a new gerrymander to squeeze out five new seats.
California, not to be outdone, responded in kind, looking to counter that with a gerrymander of its own to produce five new Democratic seats. Other states followed, and now here we are in Virginia, with the Democrats who control the General Assembly trying to do the same. That would require three things: for the legislature to approve the amendment, for voters to follow suit in an April 21 special election and, of course, for the creation of a new map that many Democrats hope will eliminate four of the state’s five Republican House seats.
The first has happened, but the second is on hold, held up by a court ruling out of Tazewell County that’s being appealed. The third, a new map, has yet to be presented, apparently because House Democrats and Senate Democrats in Richmond can’t agree on what they should look like — or, more precisely, which candidates they should be drawn to favor. I wrote some about that in a special weekend column. Now we have more information, some of which confirms what I wrote, some of which advances our knowledge of the situation.
The Democratic plan all along has been to knock out four of the state’s five Republican U.S. House members: Rob Wittman of Westmoreland County in the 1st, Jen Kiggans of Virginia Beach in the 2nd, John McGuire of Goochland County in the 5th and Ben Cline of Botetourt County in the 6th. Only Morgan Griffith of Salem in the 9th District would be spared because Southwest Virginia is so Republican that there’s no way to draw a Democratic district there.
Federal campaign finance reports released over the weekend show that all four of those targeted Republican districts have Democratic challengers who have proven to be strong fundraisers: Shannon Taylor in the 1st, Elaine Luria in the 2nd, Tom Perriello in the 5th and Beth Macy in the 6th. One scenario advanced for a redistricting map was to draw districts that would specifically benefit those candidates who are already in the field and, according to the finance reports, outraising their Republican opponents.
Punchbowl News now reports that scenario has apparently been passed by, and instead the House and Senate are advancing rival plans that would benefit some of their own members who wish to run for Congress — perhaps the ultimate “insider dealing.”
Punchbowl had previously reported that the House map draws a new district in Northern Virginia and the northern Shenandoah Valley that would benefit Del. Dan Helmer of Fairfax County, the chief fundraiser behind the current House majority. That would most likely involve casting Macy aside or, more practically, putting her in the same district as Perriello, whose geographical base has twice as many Democratic voters as Macy’s base in the Roanoke Valley.
Punchbowl reported Tuesday that the Senate version would instead draw maps specifically to create seats for Sen. Lamont Bagby of Richmond, the state Democratic Party chair, and Sen. Russett Perry of Loudoun County. It said to do that, the Senate would draw a district that puts Perriello and Taylor into the same district, which would eliminate one of them. It did not address other candidates, but, by process of elimination, that Bagby-Perry-Perriello vs. Taylor district would leave out Macy because presumably the fourth Democratic seat in that scenario would be for Luria in Hampton Roads.
This raises some questions that are fascinating to me as a political analyst but awkward for some of the actual politicians involved. Namely, how would Democrats feel about any maps that intentionally disadvantage one of their best fundraisers this cycle (Macy)? At the risk of being blunt, how would Democratic women feel about a map that slighted a female candidate (Macy) to help a male candidate in a different part of the state (potentially Helmer, although there are other candidates lining up for such a district)? The House map does all that. The Senate map apparently still sidelines Macy and disadvantages another female candidate (Taylor) but advantages one of the women already in the Senate (Perry). While it’s true that candidates don’t have to live in their district, just in the state, running in a different district is politically difficult, so I find it difficult to consider that as an option for any of these candidates.
For a party that promotes diversity, it seems odd that the legislature would produce maps that, on balance, would likely reduce the number of strong female candidates. And for a party that says it’s drawing new lines to create “fair elections,” it seems curious that Democrats are slighting some of the candidates already in the field to create districts that benefit party insiders — the legislators actually drawing the lines. As Capt. Louis Renault cynically said in “Casablanca” when confronted by evidence of gambling: “I’m shocked — shocked!”
Now comes Texas, complicating things further — or, depending on your point of view, simplifying them.
Over the weekend, Texas held a special election for a state legislative seat in a strongly Republican district. Normally, that wouldn’t matter to us at all, even despite the fact that Trump personally endorsed the Republican candidate. After all, this was a district that Trump carried by 17 percentage points, and the Republican candidate outspent the Democrat by more than 10-1.
Somehow, though, the Democratic candidate won — with 57% of the vote. Fox News called this a “major jolt” and “shocker.” The Hill and Wall Street Journal quoted Republicans calling it a “wake-up call” for the party. Could it be a wake-up call for Virginia Democrats, too?
It probably won’t be — they seem too far along with their redistricting push, despite the legal setback and lack of a map — but the Texas result does raise the question of whether Virginia Democrats even need to redistrict to pick up four seats.
There are good reasons to be wary of reading too much into a single special election. Special elections are just that — they’re special. They take place off-cycle, with a much smaller electorate, so are more prone to unusual results.
On the other hand, we’ve now seen a string of special elections where Democrats overperformed in Republican districts. In each, the general trend has been for the Democratic base to be more excited than the Republican base, and for independents to either break Democratic or melt away entirely. While actual election results are always preferable to a poll, the recent Christopher Newport University poll showed these trends present in Virginia, with independents taking a dim view of Trump — 66% of independents disapprove of his handling of the presidency, only 28% approve.
Polls consistently show that the top concern voters have is the economy — the CNU poll shows that independents (and voters overall) rank that as their top issue. That helped Abigail Spanberger and Virginia Democrats win last year on an “affordability” agenda; Republicans are now trying to take that issue back, but Trump keeps getting in their way. Trump lacks the discipline to stay on message, at least a message he doesn’t seem interested in communicating — not when there are triumphal arches to be built or a Kennedy Center to be shuttered. Republicans would be better off if they could run on their own version of an affordability agenda, but that’s almost impossible when Trump commands outsized attention for anything other than affordability. Given the historic trends that midterms benefit the party out of power, Republicans would seem to have good reason to worry, but now they have added complications.
Now, let’s bring this home to Virginia, but first, let’s start in Texas. Trump won that legislative district by 17 percentage points, which Bradley Wascher of Inside Elections says is right on target for a Republican: “Republicans typically carry Texas SD-9 by ~18.8 points (58.6% Rep – 39.9% Dem), per @InsideElections Baseline average of 44 statewide and federal races since 2018,” he posted on social media.
What would happen if a 58.6% Republican congressional district in Virginia went Democratic? Democrats would pick up three seats: the 1st, 2nd and 5th districts. Republican Rob Wittman won the 1st two years ago with 56.31% of the vote, Jen Kiggans won the 2nd with 50.74% and John McGuire won the 5th with 57.26%. If a Democratic wave really ran that high, Kiggans would be swamped immediately; Wittman and McGuire would be close but still submerged.
Only Ben Cline in the 6th (63.12% of the vote two years ago) and Morgan Griffith in the 9th (72.49%) would survive.
However, that’s not the only way to look at these results. What we really have here is a swing from 39.9% Democratic to 57%. That’s a gain of about 17 percentage points. If we go back to those 2024 results and apply that same swing, then Cline loses, too.
That means Virginia Democrats might be able to get a 10-1 result without redrawing maps at all. They’d have to work harder at it, and the results wouldn’t be foreordained the way a gerrymandered map would be, but it still theoretically could be done.
I’m not sure how much I believe this. I know the Shenandoah Valley; I grew up there. I’m sitting there right now as I write these words while visiting family in Rockingham County. When I look at the numbers for the 6th District, as currently drawn, it’s hard for me to believe any Democrat could defeat Cline in such a bright red district. On the other hand, I try to put more faith in math over my own feelings, and the Texas math says it’s very possible. That Texas math may not be Virginia math come November, but it’s definitely Texas math right now.
That could leave both parties in an awkward spot. Virginia Republicans ought to cheer this Republican wipeout in Texas and say in Virginia: See, you don’t need redistricting at all. Meanwhile, Virginia Democrats need to argue that those Texas results, while encouraging for Democrats, don’t really apply here — and they need the certainty of a gerrymander, even if that means telling Macy she really needs to run against Perriello, a matchup that knocks out one of the party’s top fundraisers either way. Or, for that matter, a Perriello-Taylor pairing. Perhaps we should rename those maps a Texas Cage Match.
I’ll have more to say about congressional fundraising in this week’s edition of West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter. Sign up here: