Blue state's Dems steamroll redistricting change that all but erases its GOP from Congress
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Democrats might finally win a civil war in Virginia -- at least for now.
The political party that seceded from the Union to keep American blacks enslaved in defiance of a Republican president in the 19th century is taking a new tack in the Old Dominion to defy a Republican president in the 21st.
And the stakes in next year's midterm elections are getting higher.
In late October, the Virginia Senate passed, on a party-line vote, a congressional redistricting proposal that would likely change the state's congressional seats from a fairly even split of six Democrats to five Republicans to an overwhelmingly Democratic delegation of 8-3, 9-2, or even 10-1, WRC-TV in Richmond reported.
"10-1 is not out of the realm to be able to draw the maps in a succinct and community-based way," Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott, a Democrat, said in a clip published to X on Wednesday by Punchbowl News reporter Ally Mutnick.
"I'm not joking."
The proposal now goes to the House of Delegates where, after the November election, the party of the Confederacy will enjoy a near-supermajority status, with 64 Democrats to 36 Republicans, according to a post-vote report from The Virginian-Pilot .
Then it will go to the governor who, after November's election, is also a Democrat, Abigail Spanberger .
In short, it's a done deal, steamrolling a plan into place to all but erase Republicans from Virginia's congressional representation. (That's assuming all Democrats involved behave like Democrats do these days -- with lockstep party loyalty aimed at destroying President Donald Trump.)
Fortunately, there's one step more Virginia Democrats will have to make, according to WRC -- and that's convincing the state's voters to go along, after the same electorate decided only five years ago that redistricting maps should be drawn by a commission rather than the state legislature.
That might be a tougher fight than a similar effort in California -- where a November referendum shafted the state's redistricting commission to support Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's efforts to redraw the Golden State's congressional lines to favor Democrats.
Virginia is not California, thank the Lord. Still, it would be an unwise conservative who'd bet that the Democratic Party wouldn't be able to pull off the same trick on the East Coast.
The heart of all of this is, of course, the upcoming midterm elections and the partisan control of Congress that will determine the course of the remainder of the second Trump term.
It started in Texas , with Republican lawmakers redrawing maps to enlarge the Lone Star State's GOP delegation. Newsom's California jumped in to increase its number of Democratic seats. Other Republican-led states are in the game .
These decisions count everywhere. After a GOP victory in a special election in Tennessee, Republicans hold a 220-213 majority in the House that will become a 219-213 majority again with the January departure of Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene .
That means a change in control of a handful of seats in the midterm elections could determine whether Republicans or Democrats are in control of the House.
(In the Senate, Democrats would have to pick up four seats to change the balance of power. But senators are elected on a statewide basis, so redistricting is not an issue.)
So congressional redistricting matters in every state, but if for history's sake only, the case of Virginia is particularly compelling. Once firmly red, it now has a northern half stuffed with liberals from the Washington, D.C., metro area, which accounts for its incoming Democratic trifecta of the governor's office and both chambers of the legislature.
This is the state where the Confederacy made its capital. And Virginia saw more bloody battles within its borders than any other state , by far.
Thanks to its Democratic lawmakers -- and if enough northern Virginia Democrats play ball at the voting booth when referendum time rolls around -- it could be playing a key role in determining whether Donald Trump's last two years in the White House are spent with a supportive Republican Congress or a Democratic House dying to impeach the president .
Just one more time .
But there's one more interesting thing about Virginia that could be worth remembering.
In the end, it was also the state where the Army of the Confederacy -- an army of, by, and for the Democratic Party of its day -- surrendered in defeat .
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The GOP needs to make their case to the people of Virginia otherwise Virginia Republicans will lose all their representation.
What's good for the goose....
Not quite in equal measure. Even with 5 new seats, Texas Republicans are still underrepresented. The new maps in California and Virginia completely disenfranchise Republican voters.
Are you suggesting there should be zero Democratic representatives from Texas?
All gerrymandering disenfranchises someone. Texas was already rated as one of the most gerrymandered states in the country before their recent redistricting. Now it’s even worse.
Far from it. If it was up to me, I would have AI construct competitive districts for every state in the nation.
Texas was already rated as one of the most gerrymandered states in the country before their recent redistricting.
I think you have that backwards. It is the blue states that have perfected the art of redistricting. For example: I live in MA. In the last election Donald Trump got about 40% of the vote here, yet this state does not have a single Republican representative.
It’s not my personal opinion. I get that idea from people actually doing the work of looking at the problem.
Gerrymandering Project
This link gives each state a report card grade on gerrymandering. Texas gets an F , and that grade was as of 2021 - so, before their latest redistricting, which was openly intended to be more partisan than it already was.
Massachusetts gets an A .
Additionally - getting back to Texas - according to this source:
The 10 Worst Gerrymandered States in the Country
Texas was already the 5th worst gerrymandered state in the country.
Then there is this source:
The worst congressional gerrymanders of the 2020s
This article lists what they say are the 12 worst gerrymandered districts in the country, and three of them are in Texas.
So, if I have it backwards, understand that it is not a partisan opinion I pulled out of my ass. I am relying on actual data and analysis.
And with that, your source is exposed as a joke.
When a state has a 36 percent voting record for Trump in 2024 and have zero representation, many leftists rate that as an A
You are free to refute it with evidence, but not with empty, partisan bullshit. The analysis is not faulty solely because you personally don’t like the result.
And your evidence that leftism shaped the grade is where?
It is faulty for the same reason that Biden defenders failed trying to tell us the economy was fine during his 9% inflation period: our own eyes told us the truth.
Your own eyes don’t know everything. People insist the Earth is flat because their eyes told them that.
I’m not seeing a single one of you refute my evidence with evidence. If I hadn’t posted links, y’all would be demanding it of me, but not one of you have offered a thing other than your own bias.
Nobody was doing that. What they said was that the inflation was a temporary effect of markets recovering from the effects of Covid. And that turned out to be true. By the time of Biden’s last year in office, inflation was under 3%.
In Virginia, Republicans did not have good candidates in resent election.
Excellent news. We need to keep that push going till not a single Republican remains in leadership anywhere. They are unfit and unhinged as clearly has been shown by their inability to do their job of oversight over this out-of-control executive.
When was the last time a republican attempted to or assassinated a president, attacked and killed people because of their beliefs, destroyed private property because the owner supported a certain president, shot at and killed ICE agents, and threatened to kill a rival and their children?
Again, who is the unfit and unhinged?
here we go with the emotion based opinion nonsense. When was the last time anybody from the GOP called for military to ignore "illegal orders"? When was the last time anybody from the GOP called for a fund for those arrested for looting and arson during a riot? When was the last time anybody from the GOP tampered with evidence during an "investigation" into a protest?
Nope nope nope. Sorry, Republicans, you do NOT get to complain. Trump started this shit in Texas, and his partisan SCOTUS has just signed off on this bullshit. You started this fight, so now you don’t get to whine like little bitches, when the other side pushes back. Too fucking bad for you.