With one week to go in the statewide redistricting referendum, campaign cash is flooding the airwaves and mailboxes.
Groups in favor of the amendment are spending about $50 million, and groups in opposition are spending about $20 million. That’s creating a seemingly never-ending stream of commercials on television and direct mail in postboxes. Most of that is dark money says J. Miles Coleman at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
"So little of this we know where the actual donors are coming from," Coleman says. "We kind of almost have a perfect recipe for it almost, right? Because we have a very high stakes proposition that we are going to be voting on; couple that with Virginia's unlimited spending."
One group advocating for a ‘no’ vote has been drawing criticism from the African American community by using images of Martin Luther King and Barack Obama. Wes Bellamy at Virginia State University says he's disappointed in a campaign of misinformation.
"Taking words out of context from beloved figures within the African American and minority communities is really just not only distasteful, dishonest, but it’s also just poor politics," Bellamy says. "And I honestly think that there's going to be some backlash or ‘blacklash’ as some may put it [for] individuals trying to overtly misinform and trick voters."
Almost a million votes have already been cast, more than half of the expected turnout. Voting ends on Tuesday, April 21st.
