Proposed redistricting map splits Christiansburg between two congressional districts. Here are some other splits.

In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip’ 
— The “Battle of New Orleans” by James “Jimmy Driftwood” Morris, popularized by Johnny Horton

Today we’re going to take a little trip, not down the mighty Mississip’ but up and down the Blue Ridge as we explore the boundaries of some of the proposed congressional districts.

You’ve seen the map — if not, I’ll show it off again below — but our mission today is to take a close-up view of where some of those lines run. What’s of most interest are the localities that are split between two (or in some cases three) congressional districts because those aren’t always clear on a statewide map, so you might say that today we’re going to visit Splitsville.

It’s impossible to avoid splitting some localities between congressional districts; districts have to be the same size, population-wise. However, splits can be minimized if that’s the mapmakers’ goal. That was the case with our current congressional map, which was drawn by two mapmakers (one from each party) appointed by the Virginia Supreme Court in 2021. Those mapmakers sought not to “needlessly” split localities, they explained in a memo to the court, unless they had to for either population purposes or to meet certain legal standards intended to prevent minimizing the influence of minority voters. That means most of the splits under the current map are on the eastern side of the state, in or around Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads.

In the western part of the state, only two localities involving the 6th or 9th districts (the ones now held by Republicans Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith) have splits, and both are because that’s where mapmakers hit their population totals in each district. The mapmakers started drawing the 6th at the northern end and filled their population quota in Roanoke County, so Roanoke County is currently split between the 6th and the 9th. As mapmakers drew the 9th and worked their way eastward, they hit their population quota in Bedford County, so Bedford is split between the 9th and the 5th (now represented by Republican John McGuire).

That’s one locality split in the 6th (Roanoke County) and two in the 9th (Roanoke County and Bedford County). The 5th currently has three splits (Albemarle County, where a single precinct went to another district, Bedford County and Hanover County).

The proposed map is not so respectful of city and county lines, because it was drawn with other purposes in mind: to achieve a desired political outcome. The proposed map increases the 5th District splits from three to six (Buckingham, Chesterfield, Cumberland, Hanover and Henrico counties), the 6th from one to six (Augusta, Bedford, Buckingham, Montgomery, Roanoke and Rockingham counties) and the 9th from two to four (Augusta, Bedford, Montgomery and Roanoke counties). 

The proposed district with the most splits is the 7th District, the one often called “the lobster district” because of its distinctive crustacean-like shape. It splits eight localities on its way from Arlington County to a western claw in Augusta and Rockingham and an eastern claw in Buckingham and Cumberland.

Fairfax County and Prince William County would be split between five districts. Arlington County would be split in two, although that’s been enough to inspire a “Don’t Divide Arlington” campaign on the “no” side.

Other than voters in two precincts in Buckingham and one precinct in Cumberland, Southside voters don’t have to deal with any split localities on the proposed map. Those voters may or may not like the districts they wind up in, but at least those localities aren’t split. Instead, we’ll focus on the 6th and 9th districts.

For all these places, if you want a more detailed look, the best way to zero in on things is to look at the interactive maps from the Virginia Public Access Project and State Navigate, or look at the local precinct maps that each locality generally posts somewhere. Where localities have ones that are easy to read, I’ve copied them here, but others are more difficult to reproduce at readable scale. None of this is particularly easy. The redistricting language lists precincts, but then you have to look up precinct maps to figure things out, and in some places, that’s easier to do than others. VPAP and State Navigate have done a good job mapping the districts, but even their excellent maps are difficult to figure out when you’re trying to find a specific street or other landmark.

Get in, buckle up, crank up the tunes. We’re going to take a ride.

Montgomery County

We typically describe the proposed 6th District as running from Radford to Charlottesville to Harrisonburg, which is true enough for shorthand. For our purposes today, though, we want to start in southwestern Montgomery County, in District D, the one represented on the county board by Supervisor Todd King. Precinct D-1, which votes at Christiansburg Middle School, would be in the 6th District. Precinct D-2, which votes at Auburn High School, would be in the 9th. The dividing line is Graysontown Road (people on the west side would be in the 6th, those on the east side in the 9th) until it hits Tyler Road, which then becomes the dividing line until Tyler crosses Interstate 81, then I-81 becomes the dividing line on the way north to the Christiansburg town limits.

You can look up these precincts on the Montgomery County voter site, so I won’t give a road-by-road travelogue except in places where such an account becomes more interesting. That first place is called Christiansburg.

The proposed map splits Christiansburg between the 6th and 9th districts. North Franklin Street, from the railroad tracks just north of Railroad Street to the railroad tracks just north of the recreation center, is one dividing line. Those on the recreation center side would be in the 6th; those on the other side of the street would be in the 9th. If you think in terms of voting precincts, those who vote in B-4 at the Christiansburg Recreation Center would be in the 6th, those who vote in B-5 at Trinity Community Church would be in the 9th.

Once North Franklin Street crosses Peppers Ferry Road, the border between the districts is close to U.S. 460, with U.S. 460 being just inside the 9th District. The B-2 precinct to the east of 460 would stay in the 9th; the B-1 precinct west of 460 would go into the 6th. Put another way, those who vote at Belmont Christian Church (B-2) are in the 9th; those who vote at North Fork Baptist Church (B-1) become 6th District voters.

Got all that? If you don’t live in Christiansburg, this may not matter, but the point is, the town gets split between congressional districts. This appears to be the first time that Montgomery County has been divided between two congressional districts. The intent with this map is to draw the 6th as a Democratic-leaning district, which requires putting the county’s Democratic precincts (such as Blacksburg) into the 6th and leaving others in the 9th. Christiansburg is politically divided, and the proposed congressional line puts the town’s Democratic precincts in the 6th and its Republican ones in the 9th, a division made with surgical precision. 

I can’t claim that my eyeballing of the map is perfect, but it appears that Christiansburg is the only town in Virginia that’s divided between congressional districts. The lines between the 7th and 11th districts skirt the southern edge of Warrenton in Fauquier County, and there are multiple counties and cities that are split, but I haven’t spotted any other towns. If I’m wrong, let me know. Even if I am, the Christiansburg split is unusual, even if it may not be unique.

Is splitting a locality a good thing or a bad thing? Democrats on the 6th District side of the line might like this; they get the chance to have a Democratic representative while their Republican neighbors on the other side of the street get to have a Republican one. Some argue that splitting a locality actually helps because it gives a community two different representatives to look to. On the other hand, it diminishes the community’s influence in each district. Montgomery County represents 11.51% of the current 9th District; it’s the biggest locality in that district. In the proposed 6th District, Montgomery County would be 9.28% of the district and the fourth biggest locality in the district. In the proposed 9th, Montgomery would constitute 3.88% of the voting age population, a smaller share than even Roanoke County, which itself would be split between two districts.

Roanoke County 

Roanoke County has been split between the 6th and 9th since the 1990s, so the only thing that has changed here is where the line is. Roanoke County has no Democratic precincts, but some of Roanoke County has to go into the 6th for purposes of drawing a contiguous district. The western and northern parts of the county go into the 6th. Most of southwest Roanoke County goes into the 9th, although the lines are drawn so that the Windsor Hills, Garst Mill, West Cave Spring, East Cave Spring and Hunting Hills precincts are in the 6th. While Republican-voting, these precincts now have some of the lowest Republican vote shares in the county, so the Democratic mapmakers took the least hurtful districts for their party. They might also hope that realignment will someday tip those districts their way. In terms of what would happen if redistricting is approved, the town of Vinton would go into the 9th, but the Orchards, Bonsack and North Lindenwood precincts along U.S. 220 alternative or U.S. 460 East would be in the 6th — again, connecting tissue so the district can continue northeastward into Botetourt and Bedford County.

Botetourt County

Almost all of Botetourt County gets moved into the 9th District, except for one and a half precincts that would stay in the 6th. The whole precinct is Rainbow Forest; the partial precinct is the western portion of the Blue Ridge precinct. Both are along U.S. 460 in that eastern leg of the county between Roanoke County and Bedford County. It’s hard to tell where the dividing line is in that split Blue Ridge precinct, but it appears that U.S. 460 and everything to the west in that precinct would be in the 9th District, with the eastern portion in the 6th.

I can discern no reason why this precinct would be split. There’s no political advantage to Democrats, and if they needed to pick up (or discard) people to make the population balance out, you’d think they could have done it somewhere else. This is a mystery that’s likely to cause some confusion for Blue Ridge voters if the plan is approved.

Bedford County

Like Roanoke County, Bedford County has been split between congressional districts since the early 1990s for population purposes, so these splits aren’t new, just different. The easiest way to describe the Bedford split is to say that most of the county would be in the 6th District, with the southeastern part of the county — along Smith Mountain Lake — in the 9th. The specific precincts that would go into the 9th are the precincts that vote at Chambliss Baptist Church, Diamond Hill Baptist Church, Eastlake Community Church, Saunders Volunteer Fire Company, Huddleston Elementary and Forest Fire Station #2 (working west to east on the map).

I couldn’t find a map to show off, but you can explore the county’s voting website here to find out where you are.

Augusta County

Based on my research, Augusta County appears to have never been split between congressional districts. The proposed map would divide it up among three different congressional districts, a consequence of Augusta being such a reliably Republican county and Democratic mapmakers seeking to minimize the Republican vote. The northeastern part would be in the 6th, the southeastern part in the 9th and the western part in the 7th, the “lobster district” extending out of Northern Virginia. 

Now let’s take a closer look. 

From Bedford, the 6th District heads north and takes in all of Amherst, Nelson and Albemarle counties, plus the city of Charlottesville, so we have no splits there. Then the 6th would jump back over the Blue Ridge to pick up part of Augusta County and all of Staunton and Waynesboro. Those two cities are the prize, the parts of Augusta that would be in the 6th are just filler, from a Democratic mapmaking point of view.

The 6th District portion of Augusta would generally be a neat rectangle — anything east of Interstate 81 and north of U.S. 250 (the Crimora, Dooms, New Hope, Veronia, Weyers Cave and Wilson precincts), with one curious exception. The Fishersville precinct, which juts north of U.S. 250, would be in the 9th. That means if you’re driving west from Charlottesville on Interstate 64, you’d be in the 6th District, then pass through a northern protrusion of the 9th District between Waynesboro and Staunton, then you’d go back into the 6th again. 

The 9th District would generally take the portion of Augusta County east of I-81 and south of U.S. 250 — so Greenville and most of the Stuarts Draft area — with a few exceptions. One exception is that Fishersville precinct that sticks up north of U.S. 250. Another exception is a weird eastern protrusion out of the 7th District that picks up the Jollivue and Stuarts Draft Elementary precincts. 

Otherwise, the 7th District portion of Augusta is generally west of I-81 (the Middlebrook precinct, and everything brown and yellow in the map above, plus those two pink precincts mentioned above). The precinct lines don’t line up precisely with some of these roads, so consider them guidelines, not specific geography. 

Rockingham County

Rockingham County is also split three ways. Rockingham was split two ways in the 1990s, so this isn’t a first, but it is a record.

The goal of mapmakers was to bring blue-voting Harrisonburg into the 6th District, which meant including part of Rockingham County, just enough to draw a contiguous map. In practical terms, that means five precincts — Deep Run, Grottoes, Port Republic, Crossroads and Massanetta Springs — would be in the 6th. If you know Rockingham County (and I grew up there), that basically means follow Port Republic Road (or just “Port Road” to us locals) from U.S. 340 to the Harrisonburg line, and you’re in the 6th.

The rest of Rockingham would be split between the 7th District (aka, the lobster district) and the 11th District, another district that snakes out of Northern Virginia into the Shenandoah Valley but hasn’t earned a fancy name yet. The 11th would take six precincts along the county’s northern border: Lacey Spring, Lone Pine, Broadway, Timberville, Fulks Run and Bergton, all the ones in green on the map above. Back in the day, tiny Bergton, wedged up against the West Virginia line, was always one of the first precincts to report and served as a good bellwether. 

The rest of Rockingham would go into the lobster. In fact, 63% of Rockingham’s voters would go into the 7th District, making it the third most populous locality in that district.

Lynchburg

But wait! There’s one more locality we ought to talk about — it involves a split that didn’t happen.

Lynchburg is currently in the 5th District. The proposed map would return it to the 6th District, where it’s historically been.

What’s curious is that the Democratic mapmakers didn’t excise Third Ward Second Precinct, aka, the Liberty University precinct. This is the most Republican precinct in the state. In last year’s fall elections, it voted 96.31% for the Republican candidate for governor — a margin of 1,462 votes for Winsome Earle-Sears to just 51 for Abigail Spanberger.

The mapmakers were so precise in splitting Christiansburg to get the Democratic precincts into the 6th, I’m surprised they didn’t draw a line through Lynchburg to get this precinct out. Any other precinct they had to add to balance out the numbers would have still been a net improvement for Democrats. It borders Campbell County, which would be in the 5th District, which is designed to be a Democratic district anchored in the Richmond suburbs. That district could have absorbed those Republican numbers. Or mapmakers could have figured out a way to draw this precinct in the 9th District, which would be the only Republican-dominated district in the new configuration. They didn’t. If redistricting passes, and if a Democratic candidate loses in the 6th by, say, about 1,400 votes or so, the inclusion of this Lynchburg precinct will be the reason.

So, got questions on redistricting? Let us know, and we’ll try to get them answered. I write about the early voting trends each week in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out on Fridays. You can sign up here: