Virginians begin voting today in an election that may not count.
The Virginia Supreme Court this week cleared the way for the special election on the proposed redistricting amendment to begin today but in its order made clear that the legal challenges to the referendum are “weighty assertions of invalidity” and are “of grave concern to the court” — but for procedural reasons won’t be ruled on until after the votes are counted April 21.
If that seems strange, you’re right, it is, but many things about the circumstances that have brought us to this point are strange, with the legal cloud hanging over this special election being just one of them.
Six years ago, Virginians voted by landslide margins to approve a constitutional amendment that took the power of drawing legislative lines out of the hands of the majority party in the General Assembly and instead handed it to a bipartisan commission — which promptly deadlocked, sending the task of drawing lines to the Virginia Supreme Court.
Now Virginians are being asked to approve a constitutional amendment that would temporarily set aside that previous amendment to allow the General Assembly — now fully in the hands of Democrats — to draw new lines that would be effective until after the 2030 elections, at which point that bipartisan commission would come back into force.
The reason for this is easy to explain: Donald Trump.
The more fascinating way to explain this is through James Blair. He’s a Republican political consultant whose work earned him the nickname “The Oracle.” Politico reports that in April 2025, Blair presented Trump with a way for Republicans to pad their narrow margins in the U.S. House of Representatives: Republican-run states could simply redraw their congressional lines to create more Republican districts.
With Trump egging them on, Texas Republicans were the first to act. By the end of August, the Texas legislature had passed a new map aimed at knocking out five Democrats by gerrymandering districts inclined to elect five Republicans instead.
Democratic-run California moved to counter that by passing its own gerrymander, and now here we are in Virginia. We currently have a congressional delegation that consists of six Democrats, five Republicans, which roughly matches the state’s overall political balance. The map that would go into effect if voters approve the constitutional amendment is aimed at producing 10 Democrats and one Republican, although some districts are so light blue that a Democratic victory in them is not assured.
Let’s try to put this in context.
Here are the maps
For more on the redistricting process, and other information related to the special election, see our Voter Guide. Now let’s move on.
Trump’s push to gain a Republican advantage through mid-cycle redistricting may have already failed
Five states have already redrawn their congressional lines — three in favor of Republicans, two in favor of Democrats. The New York Times puts the overall shift at present as a likely Republican pickup of two or three seats.
If Virginians approve the amendment, and it really did result in a four-seat gain for Democrats, that would be a net gain nationally for Democrats — and a net loss for Trump.
However, Florida (a Republican-run state) and Maryland (a Democratic-run one) may also redraw their lines. If they all do, the net outcome could be anywhere from a one-seat gain for Democrats or a four-seat gain for Republicans, The New York Times estimates.
We have never seen mid-cycle redistricting on this scale, and yet the outcome of all this state-by-state redrawing may only shift a few seats. If Republicans do wind up gaining some seats through redistricting, they are likely to be few in number. Those would matter greatly in a close election, of course, but the point is Republicans are not in a position (at least not yet) to use redistricting to dramatically shift the balance of power. Trump’s push for states to redraw their lines is somewhat akin to the Russian invasion of Ukraine: a lot of effort and energy expended to gain just a little bit of territory.
Virginia’s redistricting may not matter nationally one way or another
Right now, Republicans have just a four-seat margin in the U.S. House: 218 Republicans, 214 Democrats, with three seats vacant. Two of those three seats were held by Republicans, one by a Democrat. Let’s assume each seat gets filled by the party that held it before. That bumps up the Republican margin to just five seats. That’s obviously very close.
Now let’s assume, from the redistricting in progress above, that we wind up with the maximum Republican advantage of four seats. If everything stayed the same, that would give Republicans a nine-seat margin in next year’s House.
However, things rarely stay the same.
Midterm elections typically go against the party in power — that’s why Trump is so concerned — but let’s look at the math. Over the past five midterms, the typical loss for the president’s party has been 31 seats. The smallest loss was nine seats (for Democrats in 2022); the biggest was 63 (for Democrats in 2010). In the midterms during Trump’s first term, Republicans lost 40 seats.
While history is a useful guide, it’s not a prediction tool. However, history suggests that even if you figure the maximum advantage for Republicans under redistricting so far, they will still lose control of the House. Further, it suggests that Republicans will still lose control of the House even if Virginia rejects this amendment because the election probably won’t be so close that our four seats matter.
A “yes” vote for the amendment might be satisfying to Democrats as a way to send a message to Trump, and a “yes” vote would certainly produce more certainty in November for Democrats, but the odds that control of the U.S. House depends on how Virginia draws its lines are quite small.
Virginia’s redistricting may really just be about one seat
The redistricting map that the General Assembly has adopted is intended to squeeze four Republicans out of the U.S. House and install Democrats in their place: Rob Wittman of Westmoreland County in the 1st District, Jen Kiggans of Virginia Beach in the 2nd District, John McGuire of Goochland County in the 5th District and Ben Cline of Botetourt County in the 6th District.
What would happen if the amendment failed and the current lines stayed in place? Three of those four Republicans might be vulnerable anyway. Kiggans is undeniably vulnerable; the 2nd District has long been a swing district, and whoever the incumbent may be is often vulnerable when things turn sour for their party. Wittman and McGuire are in more comfortably Republican seats, but the Democratic Congressional Committee has felt confident enough that it’s labeled both as “target” districts. If you add up last year’s Democratic vote in the localities that comprise Wittman’s district, Democrats won the 1st last year. They also have a potentially strong candidate in Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor. Between the 1st and the 2nd, that could easily be two Democratic pickups.
The 5th District is more of a long shot for Democrats, but former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello of Albemarle County is well-funded and knows how to run in rural areas, while McGuire is in his first reelection campaign. A blue wave could potentially sweep Perriello in and McGuire out. That’s no sure thing, but it’s possible.
If Democrats think they can win three seats the old-fashioned way, that means redistricting is really just about whether they should be guaranteed one more — Cline’s seat in the 6th District. That’s a district that’s two-thirds Republican; it might take a tsunami to dislodge him, even with a well-funded Democratic challenger such as Roanoke author Beth Macy.
If you look at the calculations this way, then redistricting is really about whether Democrats should be all but guaranteed four extra seats or whether they should be forced to work hard to pick up two, maybe three. Who among us wouldn’t want to take the easy route? Still, this amendment, in practical terms, might just be about one seat — and the ability to hold it for several years.
The Virginia Supreme Court could throw the whole election out
After the Virginia Supreme Court said Wednesday that the election could go forward, one of the pro-redistricting groups celebrated that Virginia voters “will have the final say.”
Not so.
The seven justices of the Virginia Supreme Court will have the final say. The court did not reject the multiple legal challenges to the referendum (which can be very generally summarized as “the General Assembly botched the process of sending the amendment to voters in multiple ways”). On the contrary, the ruling said “these issues are of grave concern to the court.”
However, the court cited a 1912 decision that said it should decide these legal challenges to the referendum after the vote and not before. That may not make sense to some people, but it makes sense to those who value legal precedent. The Virginia Supreme Court, in that 1912 case, faced a legal challenge to how a constitutional amendment was being sent to voters. The court declined to intervene, saying that judges don’t interfere in legislating. They don’t weigh in to tell the General Assembly that a certain bill might be unconstitutional; courts wait until that bill is signed into law and then, if someone challenges it, courts rule on whether the law is or is not constitutional. The court in 1912 held that passing a constitutional amendment was simply another form of legislating, so it should wait, let the people vote and then, if someone challenges the process, the justices would rule. (Apparently, no one in that 1912 case ever did.)
Judges often declare ordinary laws unconstitutional. If the justices were to later rule this referendum was procedurally flawed and therefore the results don’t count, that would be unprecedented — but justices would also say it’s no different from some random law being found constitutionally deficient. The only difference is that here we voters are the lawmakers, not 140 solons in Richmond.
That means we’re going to have an election, the votes will be cast and counted, and then the justices will tell us whether it was legit.
Even if the amendment passes, and the procedure is upheld, there will be legal challenges
Republicans would love to file a legal challenge to the new map, but they can’t unless and until it becomes law. If the amendment passes on April 21, Republicans will surely challenge the map on the grounds that some of the districts are not compact, as the law usually expects. There’s plenty of latitude to argue that both ways; we’ve certainly seen weirdly shaped districts in the past, so the so-called “lobster district” (the proposed 7th District) is not an unknown creature.
Still, the point is, even if the “yes” side prevails, and the Virginia Supreme Court finds there were no problems with the process, there will still be legal challenges.
I can tell you right now who will win this election: the lawyers.
For more on the special election, see our Voter Guide. Meanwhile, I’ll dig deeper into the Supreme Court’s rulings, in both 1912 and 2026, in this week’s edition of West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter. Sign up here: