After their crushing defeat in the referendum, Republicans have vowed to continue Trump’s fight to reshape Congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
President Trump reacts after Indiana Senate rejects Republican redistricting plan
The Indiana Senate rejected a Republican redistricting bill as President Donald Trump and leaders responded with both sharp criticism and praise.
Virginia voters handed Democrats a narrow victory in a high-stakes special election that will redraw the congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. This war was started by President Donald Trump and could now negatively impact the party’s prospects.
The Associated Press and NBC News cast the referendum in favor of the “yes” side and supported drawing an aggressively Democratic-leaning map for the state’s 11-member U.S. House delegation.
Democrats currently hold a 6-5 advantage, but under the new policy, that would temporarily give them a commanding 10-1 advantage.
“Virginia voters consulted and tonight approved interim measures to push back against a president who claims he is ‘deserving’ of more Republican seats,” Gov. Abigail Spanberger said in a statement to USA TODAY.
“Virginians watched other states comply with these demands without voter input, and we refused to let it go. We responded the right way, at the ballot box.”
Polls show a close race, with both sides spending millions of dollars from secret donors to persuade voters to accept or reject the measure.
There was a noticeable increase in early voting that favored Democrats. But Republicans, fueled by anger from rural voters in the southern half of the state, surged on Election Day to reject the measure, nearly closing the gap.
With more than 95% of the results tallied, the “yes” side had an advantage of about 2.5 percentage points, according to state data.
Here are the key takeaways from the April 21 contest.
“Strong counterattack”: Democratic Party gains the upper hand in national redistricting battles
Virginia’s result, combined with a similar referendum victory for Democrats in California last year, means Mr. Trump is on the back foot in the partisan gerrymandering battle he started.
President Trump last year urged Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s map to protect the Republican House majority from a “blue wave” expected this fall. He encouraged other Republican-led states, such as Missouri and North Carolina, to do the same.
Together, those three states and Ohio added nine Republican-leaning seats to the national map, according to trackers. But the tactic appears to have backfired, as the president’s liberal opponents followed suit in California and Virginia. Both states, along with Utah, adopted new maps, giving Democrats 10 seats.
“A lot of people expected the Democratic Party to roll over and play dead, but we did the opposite,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York told The Associated Press.
“Democrats haven’t backed down,” he added. “We fought back. When they got behind, we fought back hard.”
Virginia referendum turned into a proxy war between Obama and Trump
President Trump put considerable political weight on the “no” side, calling on Republicans to vote by phone on April 20 and criticizing the proposal as a “shameful” attempt to “disenfranchise” conservatives.
In the other corner was former President Barack Obama, who cut a 30-second ad for the “yes” side that said Republicans were trying to “steal” seats in Congress and “rig the next election” this fall.
The special election marked a rare direct showdown between the two men, who are good friends in public but have fiercely attacked each other since Trump returned to power last year.
In February, President Trump came under fire after his Truth Social account shared a video depicting President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as monkeys, with many calling him racist. He has also mused about running against Mr. Obama in 2028 if both men seek a third term, which is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.
President Obama has not responded to such challenges, but he has launched subtle and overt attacks on the current administration amid growing criticism from some progressives that the Democratic Party needs to get more involved in the resistance movement.
The “no” side is fueled by anger at anticipated losses.
Early voting in Virginia showed high turnout, which typically favors Democrats. But the Republican-backed “No” side fared better than expected in motivating its base, driven largely by anger among rural voters in the southern half of the state.
The state has some of the fairest maps in the country, and conservatives were able to increase poll-based turnout on Election Day, according to Princeton University’s Gerrymandering Project.
Many on the “no” side emphasized how unfair the new maps would be, even temporarily until the 2030 Census, and urged independent voters to think twice about supporting the measure.
Former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) said in an April 21 post on the
“The race was much closer than the left expected because Virginians know a 10-1 map is not Virginia,” he added. “I urge the Virginia Supreme Court to rule against this unconstitutional process that disenfranchises millions of Virginians.”
Confused voters and dark money rule
Spending totaling about $100 million from both sides, largely fueled by similarly named groups of secret donors, helped confuse Virginia voters through the special election.
Virginians for Fair Elections, the main group supporting the ballot issue, has raised about $64 million, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Meanwhile, Virginians supporting FairMap, which opposed the referendum, received about $19 million.
Both rely heavily on donations from so-called “black money” and are not required to reveal the source of their funds.
Some people reported receiving materials in their mailboxes that are commonly used to deceive voters, including newspaper-like publications supporting the bill. And both sides appear to have used images of Trump and Obama to spread a bit of misinformation.
Obama has previously opposed partisan gerrymandering, and opponents of the new maps ran their own spots featuring similar remarks from the former president. A local Democratic Party in Virginia was caught using an image of Trump on a misleading billboard falsely claiming support for the referendum.
What’s next? Republicans seek rebuttal in Florida court
The final tally will not mark the end of the redistricting battle, which is likely to continue into the fall.
Virginia House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, who heads the state’s Republican caucus, filed a lawsuit against the amendment, arguing that the referendum question lacked a “neutral framework.” He said in a statement that the matter “will now be referred to the courts.”
“It’s still possible that this map won’t go into effect this November,” said Kyle Kondik, executive director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, about the redistricting map that could change Virginia’s 11-member congressional delegation from a slim 6-5 Democratic advantage to a much larger 10-1 advantage.
Kondik said there are serious questions about whether Democrats followed the proper process to amend the state constitution.
The Virginia Supreme Court allowed the referendum to take place while it reviewed claims from Kilgore and other plaintiffs who argued that the bill would “restore equity” in the new districts and was unfair and misleading. The legality of the referendum is expected to be reviewed in the coming weeks.
Trump’s allies could also get a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court, potentially striking down key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that prohibit racial gerrymandering. Several southern states are expected to rush to draw new maps that favor Republicans in the midterm elections.
The redistricting battle between President Trump and Democrats has now shifted to other states, including Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has convened a special legislative session to consider maps that could add three to five Republican-leaning seats.
Contributor: Terry Collins
