Virginia voters to decide on new House map with major midterm implications

(CNN) — Virginia is the latest front in an unprecedented coast-to-coast redistricting war, with voters on Tuesday set to determine whether to accept or reject a Democratic plan to dramatically redraw the state’s congressional maps and help shape the midterm elections.

Nearly 1.4 million Virginians have already cast early ballots, a sign of remarkable interest for an April special election. The final day of voting is Tuesday, with polls open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET, on a plan that could help Democrats win 10 of the state’s 11 congressional districts – a major shift from the current balance of six seats held by Democrats and five by Republicans.

“We didn’t start this fight, but I’m saying to Virginia, we need to finish it,” Delores McQuinn, a Democratic member of the House of Delegates, told CNN at a rally in the final days of the redistricting campaign. “We can help level the playing field.”

Virginia is one of the final chapters in a redistricting arms race that President Donald Trump started last year in Texas when he said Republicans were “entitled to five more seats.” California Democrats responded, along with a handful of other states, in a tit-for-tat that has ultimately yielded nine more Republican-friendly seats and six that favor Democrats.

“What’s happening now is the most blatant power grab that has ever been demonstrated,” said Glenn Youngkin, a former Virginia governor and a leading Republican voice against the measure, who avoided mention of how Texas kicked off the rare mid-decade redistricting fight.

Democrats have raised more than twice as much money than Republicans in the closely watched contest that could help determine which party controls Congress after the fall elections. On advertising alone, Democrats have spent $55 million, according to AdImpact, compared to $23 million for Republicans.

Despite the wide disparity, Democrats acknowledge that victory is far from certain, saying turnout on Election Day will be critical. Republicans share that sentiment and believe creating a 10-1 advantage for Democrats is at odds with the electorate in a state former Vice President Kamala Harris won with nearly 52% of the vote in 2024.

Here are a few dynamics at play – for Virginia and the nation.

High stakes for Democrats

For Democrats, the stakes in Virginia are remarkably high. So, too, are the rewards.

If the referendum succeeds Tuesday night, the party suddenly has more breathing room in its quest to win control of the US House in the midterm elections. The national political winds already favor Democrats this year, but a Virginia victory would super-charge their prospects.

“They thought that Democrats were going to step back,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told supporters during a rally in the final days of the campaign. “Well, we’re making clear we’re not here to step back. We’re here to fight back.”

On the eve of the election, Jeffries told reporters: “It’s gonna be close because Virginia is a purple state.”

Jeffries has been at the center of the Democratic strategy in Virginia, a plan that has long worried some state party leaders as a potential overreach. His comments Monday underscore how cautiously Democrats are eyeing — and lowering expectations for — the special election, which comes five months after the party swept the Virginia governor’s race by 15 percentage points last fall.

But if Democrats win in November, Jeffries stands the most to gain – likely becoming House Speaker, a fact he rarely mentions, but one that his Republican rivals point out again and again.

“Do you want to see Speaker Hakeem Jeffries?” Speaker Mike Johnson said as he rallied Republican opposition to the referendum, trying to use Jeffries as a motivating force by sounding the alarm about the prospect of the GOP losing its majority next year.

Trump, Obama loom large

The president has been a dominating factor in the race, but nearly an absent one.

Aside from a tele-rally on the eve of the election, Trump played little hands-on role in the GOP campaign urging Virginians to vote against the referendum.

“The whole country is watching it’s so important and so unfair what they’ve done,” Trump said in brief remarks Monday evening. “We need every Virginia patriot to get out and vote no, no, no on the radical Democrats’ unfair ballot referendum.”

Yet he played a central part on the Democratic side, with his name repeatedly invoked to raise enthusiasm among Trump critics.

“Voting yes will stop Donald Trump’s scheme to rig the midterm elections,” Rep. Jennifer McClellan, a Virginia Democrat, told supporters at a rally in Richmond. “Voting yes will stop the MAGA power grab.”

With the midterm elections a little more than six months away, Tuesday’s outcome could offer fresh clues for which side Trump motivates more – Republicans or Democrats.

Former President Barack Obama has also been at the center of the Virginia race – featured in ads on both sides – as Democrats have called on him to rally the party’s base even as Republicans have seized on his previous comments speaking against gerrymandering.

“By voting yes, you can push back against the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms,” Obama said in a video released Friday, which aides said was intended to clear up any confusion. “By voting yes, you can take a temporary step to level the playing field.”

Groups opposing the redistricting effort have featured some of Obama’s past criticisms of gerrymandering, including this sentiment aimed at independent voters in TV ads and mailers: “Because of things like political gerrymandering, our parties have moved further and further apart and it’s harder and harder to find common ground.”

National implications, but local elections

The national implications of the Virginia referendum are clear, given the narrow GOP majority in the House and the redistricting battle playing out across the country for nearly a year.

But the race could also hinge on far more local concerns, including those of rural voters like Tara Bowman of Woodstock. She lives about 90 minutes away from the Washington suburbs of Fairfax and McLean, with whom she has no interest in sharing a member of Congress.

“I think the new map is absolutely horrible,” Bowman said. “I do not want my congressman to be from Fairfax. No, no, no, no.”

To produce a 10-1 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation, Virginia Democrats are proposing a new map that would carve up deep blue districts in northern Virginia and around Richmond, while creating a new district along the Blue Ridge Mountains that connects several college towns.

The constitutional amendment on the ballot Tuesday would allow lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional map before the November elections, returning the authority of drawing districts to a redistricting commission in 2031 following the next census.

If voters reject the referendum, the current map with its 6-to-5 split in favor of Democrats remains in place – and campaigns for those seats will begin in earnest.

For all the national implications hanging over the race, including a question of which party should control Congress in November, the decisions voters make on Tuesday will be done far closer to home.

CNN’s David Wright contributed to this report.

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