{"id":14186,"date":"2026-04-22T03:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/14186\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T03:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:06:10","slug":"virginia-approves-redistricting-giving-democrats-edge-in-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/14186\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia approves redistricting, giving Democrats edge in midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virginia voters have approved a redistricting measure that could hand Democrats control of the thinly-divided US House of Representatives in the midterm elections later this year.<\/p>\n

The ballot measure will redraw the state’s congressional map to help Democrats flip as many as four House seats held by Republicans.<\/p>\n

The state is the latest in a national redistricting arms race that was launched after President Donald Trump urged conservative states to re-examine voting maps to help Republicans keep the party’s slim congressional majority.<\/p>\n

Control of Congress will be decided in the November midterm elections and each of these newly drawn districts could decide what political party takes the House.<\/p>\n

Historically, the party of the current president would lose House seats during this congressional election. If Democrats win in the November race, it will not only serve a blow to Trump’s political agenda, but it could open him up to Democratic-led congressional investigations.<\/p>\n

In the US, gerrymandering – the redrawing of electoral boundaries to favour a political party – is only illegal if it is based on race.<\/p>\n

Democrats in Virginia currently hold six out of the state’s 11 seats, and the updated map could allow them to hold up to 10.<\/p>\n

“Virginia just changed the trajectory of the 2026 midterms,” Democratic state House Speaker Don Scott said on social media.<\/p>\n

“At a moment when Trump and his allies are trying to lock in power before voters have a say, Virginians stepped up and leveled the playing field for the entire country,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

The redistricting referendum is the most expensive ballot measure in Virginia’s history by far, according to figures from the Virginia Public Access Project<\/a>. Over $80m (\u00a359m) was raised as of earlier this month by groups on both sides of the effort.<\/p>\n

In his first public comments on Virginia’s measure, Trump said on Monday that if House Democrats win a majority in the midterm elections, “it’s going to be a disaster”.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know if you know what gerrymandering is, but it’s not good,” he added.<\/p>\n

States usually redraw their voting maps once every decade after new population data is released as part of the US Census.<\/p>\n

Texas became the first state to launch a mid-decade change amid pressure from Trump, setting off a race for other states to alter their maps to help their respective political parties.<\/p>\n

Texas’ new map will give Republicans an advantage in five additional seats.<\/p>\n

In response to Trump’s support of Texas’ changes, California Gov Gavin Newsom launched a campaign last year to suspend the Golden State’s independently drawn maps in order to “fight fire with fire”.<\/p>\n

California voters approved their new maps in a special referendum in November, giving Democrats an edge in five new districts.<\/p>\n

Other Republican-led states have changed their maps, too. North Carolina and Missouri also passed new maps that give the party an edge.<\/p>\n

Utah has also passed a new map with court-imposed districts that could give Democrats an advantage in one district.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virginia voters have approved a redistricting measure that could hand Democrats control of the thinly-divided US House of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7549,17,7547,162,7545,7546,7544,7550,7548,7543,4948,7551],"class_list":["post-14186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ballot-measure","tag-canada","tag-democrats","tag-donald-trump","tag-house-democrats","tag-house-seats","tag-midterm-elections","tag-political-party","tag-republicans","tag-us-house-of-representatives","tag-virginia","tag-virginia-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}