Virginia has entered the national mid-cycle redistricting battle, with Democratic state lawmakers intent on redrawing the state’s congressional maps to deliver two or three additional Democrats to Washington.
Virginia currently has a 6-5 split in its delegation, favoring Democrats by one member. Don Scott, the Democratic Virginia house speaker, sent a letter on Thursday to members alerting them to a reconvening of a special session to consider legislation. The letter does not explicitly state that redistricting is on the agenda, but national organizations said they have been informed that this is the case.
The state becomes the second, after California, to attempt to redistrict to benefit Democrats in response to Republicans’ efforts to gain seats in Congress in states including Texas, North Carolina and Missouri. Texas’ redistricting moved five additional seats into likely Republican wins. Missouri added one likely Republican seat, as did North Carolina earlier this week.
“We are clear-eyed that Democrats cannot unilaterally disarm across the country and must pursue every available tool to counter Republicans’ desperate attempts to steal the midterms,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wrote in a statement Thursday following the release of Scott’s letter. “Virginia’s decision to convene and preserve the right to consider a new map in 2026 is critical in the fight to ensure voters have fair representation and we commend them for standing up against Republican attempts to weaken the power, and vote, of the people.”
Nonetheless, the move caught national leaders off guard. The Virginia General Assembly amended its state constitution in 2020 to create a 16-member bipartisan redistricting commission, taking apportionment out of the hands of the closely-divided legislature. Undoing this commission to conduct partisan redistricting requires another constitutional amendment, like in California where voters will vote on Prop 50 in early November, which would amend California’s constitution to temporarily permit redistricting.
In Virginia, an amendment must pass in two successive legislatures and then be enacted by ballot referendum.
Amending the constitution this way would require Democrats to hold both chambers of the general assembly in the November election. Virginia is one of four states that conducts state elections in off-years. The governor of Virginia does not have the power to veto redistricting legislation.
Virginia’s redistricting play comes after neighboring North Carolina’s legislature passed a measure to redraw its maps earlier this week. North Carolina’s Republican legislative majority voted to change the state’s first congressional district boundaries, replacing thousands of Democratic voters with Republicans, turning a closely-contested seat currently held by Don Davis, a Democratic representative, into a likely Republican win. North Carolina currently sends ten Republicans and four Democrats to congress.
”After what happened in North Carolina, and states across the country, in taking this procedural step, I believe [Virginia lawmakers] are keeping options on the table to respond to extreme rightwing gerrymandering next year,” said Mandara Meyers, executive director of The States Project, a political group working to create Democratic majorities in state legislatures. The States Project announced a $5m donation to shore up Virginia’s Democratic candidates earlier this month.
