The National Conference of State Legislatures says the partisan upheaval to redraw Congress is the largest in mid-decade since the 1800s.
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 will have their say on April 21 in a nationwide redistricting battle launched last year by President Donald Trump to change Congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
If approved by voters, after clearing legal and administrative hurdles, the referendum would temporarily change the state’s congressional district boundaries. The move would eliminate all but one Republican-leaning district in the Old Dominion state and change the composition of Virginia’s House of Representatives from the current 6-5 Democratic split to up to 10 Democrats.
If successful, it could give Democrats an edge in the race for control of the House, which is currently split 217-213 among Republicans.
President Trump has twisted Republican-led Congresses from Texas to Missouri to redraw their own maps to tilt the congressional delegation even more toward Republicans. This is an unusual move, as redistricting is typically done once every 10 years after the census.
“The whole country is watching,” the president said in an April 20 conference call, trying to persuade Republican lawmakers to go to the polls the night before the vote. He criticized Democrats as “extreme” and called the proposal a “shameful” attempt to “disenfranchise” Republican voters.
“If this referendum passes, conservatives in Virginia will be silenced,” Trump said.
The new maps being considered in Virginia would revert to maps created by a 16-member bipartisan commission after the 2030 census.
Polls show the Virginia referendum will be much closer than similar campaigns in Democratic-led states such as California, where voters supported changing the map by a margin of more than 2-1 ahead of the fall campaign.
Most polls show harsh results near or within the margin of error, with the “yes” side holding a slight edge in favor of map change. An April 15 poll by Quantus Insights found that about 51% of likely Virginia voters said they would approve the amendment, while about 47% said they would reject it, with a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.
The state has been rated by Princeton University’s Gerrymandering Project as having the fairest congressional maps in the country, and Republicans hope this will encourage independent voters and others to think twice about supporting the bill.
President Obama: Republicans are trying to steal the midterm elections
To demonstrate how important this initiative is to Democrats and their fear that it might not pass, the “yes” side asked former President Barack Obama to cut ads supporting the ballot initiative. President Obama has previously opposed partisan gerrymandering, and the “No” side ran its own spot where the former president made similar remarks.
But President Obama responded in sharp terms, saying the Virginia initiative would “level the playing field” given recent redraws favoring Republicans in other states.
“Virginia, we’re counting on you,” President Obama said in a 30-second spot released over the weekend. “Republicans are trying to rig the next election and steal enough seats to give them unlimited power for the next two years.”
Early voting turnout was reportedly high, likely reflecting the high level of anti-Trump fervor that has benefited Democrats in special elections and other campaigns since the president returned to power, which bodes well for the “yes” side.
Another indicator of the measure’s national importance is that most of the roughly $100 million in total spending from both sides was financed by secret donors.
The main group supporting the ballot issue, Virginians for Fair Elections, has raised about $64 million, much of it from groups that are not required to disclose the source of their funds.
The “No” side, made up of groups such as Virginians for Fair Maps, has raised about $20 million and cast the ballot question as a “power grab” by Democrats. This is a U-turn compared to reforms in 2019, when lawmakers overwhelmingly approved creating a bipartisan commission to draw legislative and congressional maps.
“Protecting the integrity of elections and confidence in Virginia’s government is one of the most important responsibilities of public office,” said former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican and co-chair of the group, in a Jan. 28 post on X. “The redistricting reforms that voters approved in 2020 were a promise. Political power should never exceed the will of the people.”
Mr. Spanberger Spent Capitol Hill on Ballot Initiative After Flip-Flop
Moderate Democrats like Gov. Abigail Spanberger are in a difficult position in the partisan redistricting battle. Because she wanted to keep the focus on affordability and other food issues.
Spanberger, who won in 2025 with a centrist record in Congress, became the face of the Democratic Party in response to the president’s State of the Union address in 2026.
In a 2019 post on X, Spanberger said gerrymandering is “harmful to democracy and weakens individual voices” in states, but defended the ballot initiative as a “response” to President Trump’s efforts.
Despite an easy victory last November, Spanberger’s poll numbers have taken a hit, according to polls. A poll released this month by The Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy found that 47% of people approve of her work, while 46% disapprove.
After less than three months in office, 45% of respondents said she had been “too liberal” during her time in office. The same poll found that 52% of likely voters were in favor of changing the direction of the state Legislature, compared to 47% who opposed it, with a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
Mr. Spanberger’s office did not respond to requests for an interview for this article.
“This is temporary, and a ‘yes’ vote is a way for us to stand up and ensure that other states’ efforts are not unmatched,” Spanberger told host Lee McGowan on the April 18 episode of the “Politics Girl” podcast.
‘Gerrymandering’: Virginia’s map already praised by experts
Both sides have stepped up their messaging about the bill, as political observers say it will be difficult for both sides to get voters to the polls in spring special elections.
Republican naysayers insist that Virginia voters should stay out of the fray.
Former Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a potential Republican candidate for the 2028 presidential nomination, described the race as a “gerrymander election” in an April 20 online message. He said the new map would result in about 60 counties in the southern half of the state losing their say.
Reacting to a rally in support of the bill headlined by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the former Virginia governor slammed the idea that outsiders are trying to change the state’s representation.
“Absolutely shameless…This is not California or Massachusetts. This is Virginia,” Youngkin said in an April 15 post on X. “But they are the ones that Abigail Spanberger is being coached by.”
Opposition Republicans are primarily betting that voters will ignore the broader political battle and instead focus on the state’s process, which has earned high marks for how fair its policies are.
For example, the redistricting report card produced by Princeton University shows only 18 states receive an A grade based on criteria such as partisan composition, geographic consistency, and minority representation.
Virginia is one of the best-performing states based on that scorecard.
“Democrats’ argument is that this temporary measure is a ‘fix,’ but whether it ultimately gets that message across is an open question,” Jennifer Lawless, a politics and public policy professor at the University of Virginia, told USA TODAY.
“It’s going to depend on turnout, but I don’t think either side can accurately predict what turnout will be because the circumstances are so unusual.”
Republicans could gain seats in Florida and other states.
The breakneck pace of legislative redistricting is the biggest mid-decade disruption since the 1800s, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. So no matter what happens in Virginia, President Trump is expected to continue bulldozing his strategy into other Republican-controlled states.
However, it did not necessarily go as the president expected. In Indiana, for example, the Republican-controlled state Senate reprimanded the administration and refused to accept new maps. ohio, utah
Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas heeded the president’s call and adopted new maps that added Republican seats. California became a Democratic mouthpiece, while Ohio and Utah legally required redistricting, which had a small impact on the map’s partisan tilt. As a result, the Republicans gained two to three seats.
If Virginia passes the ballot measure on April 21, Democrats could gain four seats and take the overall lead.
But several other Republican-controlled states have already announced they will consider drawing new maps. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis called a special legislative session for redistricting that could add three to five seats to Republican-leaning states.
Democrats are threatening legal action because Republicans control 20 of the 28 House seats in the Sunshine State, and partisan gerrymandering is currently illegal under Florida law.
The special session was scheduled to begin on April 21, but was rescheduled to begin on April 28 because Mr. DeSantis seemed perplexed and expanded his agenda to include other topics, such as an artificial intelligence “bill of rights.”
Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature did not advance its own redistricting plan during its regular session, choosing instead to wait for Mr. DeSantis, who indicated a week ago that he was not ready to propose new lines.
“The answer is, we haven’t made any decisions about that, but we may be able to make some adjustments, but we can’t go that far,” DeSantis said on April 14. “We’ll probably have to get it done in the next few weeks.”
Contributor: Nicole Fallert, james powell
