Virginia Supreme Court strikes down state's new gerrymandered map in blow to Democrats

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Friday, May 08, 2026

The Virginia Supreme Court has struck down a new congressional map designed to favor Democrats as multiple states continue redrawing U.S. House districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

In a 4-3 opinion on Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the Democratic-controlled Virginia legislature “submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to Virginia voters in an unprecedented manner that violated the intervening-election requirement in Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia.”

The majority opinion was written by Justice Arthur Kelsey, an appointee of former Democratic Gov. Mark Warner, who wrote that the commonwealth's arguments are "wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history."

The amendment, which voters narrowly approved in an April 21 referendum, authorized replacing the state’s current congressional map with one designed to favor Democrats.

The intervening-election requirement at issue in the decision requires the state legislature to approve a constitutional amendment in one legislative session and then approve it in another legislative session, with an election in between, before it can go before voters. The legislature approved the amendment for the first time on Oct. 31, 2025, four days before Election Day and six weeks after early voting in that year’s general election had begun. The legislature approved the referendum for a second time earlier this year.

"In other words, under the Commonwealth’s view, the four-day period (which included a
weekend) was the 'intervening' period during which Virginia voters could find out what the
proposed amendment actually said, whether their preferred candidate supported or opposed it, and whether they wanted to use their vote to express a view on the subject," Kelsey wrote. "This view appears to be wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history."

Friday’s decision has immediate ramifications for the ongoing mid-decade redistricting battle in the United States. It means that the existing congressional map in Virginia, which consists of six districts represented by Democrats and five by Republicans, will remain in effect for the 2026 midterm elections, which will determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the next two years.

Under the current map, two Republican-held districts in Virginia, the 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts, are seen as possible Democratic targets because President Donald Trump carried them by margins of 4.9 percentage points and 0.2 percentage points, respectively. The other three backed Trump by double digits.

The replacement map would have made four of the five Republican-held seats more favorable to Democrats by transforming them from districts carried by Trump in the 2024 presidential election to seats that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris would have carried. Friday’s decision marks a setback for Democrats in their effort to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Heading into the midterms, several states have redrawn congressional maps, and more may soon follow. Last summer, Texas replaced its congressional map, which currently yields a delegation of 25 Republicans and 13 Democrats. The new map transforms five Democratic-held seats into districts that backed Trump by double digits.

Redraws also targeted individual Democratic-held districts in Missouri and North Carolina by converting them into seats that favored Trump by double digits. In Ohio, one Democratic-held seat was transformed from a district Trump carried by 6.5 percentage points to one that backed him by 10.5 percentage points, while another district held by a Democrat went from backing Harris by 6.5 percentage points to favoring Trump by a narrow margin of 2.6 percentage points.

While the courts struck down Virginia’s voter-approved redraw, California’s remains in place. The new map in California is designed to make five Republican-held seats more favorable to Democrats. Three of the newly created districts transformed from districts that backed Trump to seats that backed Harris by double digits. A fourth district was redrawn to give Democrats a narrow edge, while a fifth saw Trump’s margin of victory shrink. In Utah, court-ordered redistricting is expected to yield an additional Democratic seat.

The most recent developments involve the transformation of four Democratic-held seats in Florida into Republican-leaning districts and the U.S. Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision, which held that Louisiana’s congressional map, consisting of four Republican-held majority-white districts and two Democratic-held majority-black districts, constituted an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

So far, only one state has adopted a new congressional map following the Callais decision: Tennessee. Tennessee’s sole Democratic seat in the U.S. House was eliminated in legislation establishing new congressional districts signed by the state’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday. The new map consists of nine districts that backed Trump by double digits.

The governors of Alabama and Louisiana have called special sessions for the purpose of drawing new maps, while the governor of South Carolina has also encouraged the state legislature to take action. New maps in those states could see multiple Democratic-held districts become more favorable to Republicans.