Early votes have been cast, final arguments have been made, and Virginia voters will head to the polls Tuesday for the final day of redistricting votes, after a long, expensive campaign that leaned on considerations of realism and idealism.
Democrats have pitched the special election as a referendum on President Donald Trump's attempts to gerrymander nationwide and his presidency as a whole, as many blue voters express unease with countering gerrymandering with gerrymandering.
Republicans say it's a Democratic powergrab and that rural voters will be disenfranchised, instead represented by a handful of Northern Virginia politicians, while avoiding casting judgement on Trump's role in starting the redistricting trend.
"I really think democratic norms is what prevented re-redistricting in the past, and the gloves are sort of off these days," said Rebecca Green, an election law professor at the College of William & Mary Law School, referring to redistricting outside of the normal 10-year cycle. "The US Congress is tightly controlled, and the feeling at the national level is that every seat matters."
A lot of power is at stake, and there's a lot of political passion and there's a lot of concern.
By the numbers, Virginia's referendum is remarkable: The little polling available shows a tight race, early voting totals are nearly the same as during the 2025 gubernatorial election despite being a ballot question and in April, and collective campaign spending from the Yes and No camps is approaching $100 million.
Almost all of that has come from nonprofits commonly known as dark money groups that can hide their donors. Both parties say politically active billionaires are behind some of the money. Republicans point to George Soros, while Democrats have said Peter Thiel is behind donations to another.
Another referendum committee is reportedly tied to conservative activist Leonard Leo. As VPM News previously reported, even the group names themselves are confusing: Virginians for Fair Maps is the anti-redistricting, No group; Virginians for Fair Elections is the pro-referendum group encouraging Yes votes.
The messaging is making it to voters, but there are still those who remain undecided and voters who won't cast ballots until April 21's Election Day. Kevin Leonard voted early last week in Goochland County — but said he was undecided beforehand.
"We can tell it's wrong to draw a map this way and say, 'Yep, this looks good,'" he said of the potential 10–1 split in Democrats to Republicans in Virginia's congressional delegation. "But is there an argument for: 'Hey, let's do this anyway?' I think that's what everyone's on the fence about."
Goochland lies in the eastern parts of a proposed 7th Congressional District that has been likened to a lobster, with its tail in deep blue Northern Virginia, one claw stretching to counties west of Richmond, and the other into the Shenandoah Valley.
"I can't think of anybody living in DC making plans for Rockingham and Augusta County," said retired veterinarian John Wise, referring to Washington's suburbs in Fairfax and Loudoun counties. "We need to nip this thing in the bud and not let it get any wider spread. Keep the issues in the Valley that pertain to the Valley, not Northern Virginia."
Wise was among about 300 other Shenandoah Valley residents that rallied against the proposal at a hangar in Harrisonburg used to restore old airplanes.
The four Republicans in Virginia's congressional delegation that are most likely to lose their seats in a redraw — Reps. Rob Wittman (1st), Jen Kiggans (2nd), John McGuire (5th) and Ben Cline (6th) — spoke to the crowd on April 11, with President Eisenhower's Air Force One on one side of the stage.
On the other? A billboard displaying a map showing the new proposed districts for Virginia.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana also spoke to the crowd, which came one day before House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York gave a motivational speech focusing on Trump to canvassers in eastern Henrico County.
Much of the April 12 event, hosted at a local NAACP leader's home in Central Virginia, focused on mailers the organization and others called racist and misleading.
While on paper being about redistricting, Virginia's special April election is also a referendum on the president.
Democratic voters have said over and over again that they're not comfortable with gerrymandering, but they've been forced into this position after Trump started the nationwide redistricting push. Traditionally, states usually redraw their election maps at the start of each decade — after a census.
Part of the conflict stems from Virginia's last ballot on redistricting, which was in 2020 and established the Virginia Redistricting Commission. However, that bipartisan commission did not ultimately draw the state and federal election maps that went into effect in 2023.
"I was never on the fence about it," said Jane Lewis as she voted early in New Kent County. "Trump said we deserve those seats. Well, I don't like that word: 'Deserve.'"
Lewis, like many other voters VPM News spoke to, said Trump's policies — in particular the war he launched with Israel against Iran and massive cuts to health care in tax bills — were without any institutional checks.
"If we can change the balance of power in Congress all — not all — some of his wild stuff can be blocked …and returned to a more humanitarian view of our country and the world," she said.
Lewis lives in New Kent, about a two-hour drive from Alexandria, where most of the voters in the potential new 8th District live. She has few qualms about being represented by a Northern Virginian — as long as they are a Democrat.
As the campaign went on, closing arguments more heavily featured the issues Congress would vote on in DC.
"Whether you are in an urban city or you are in a rural area, you have equally been hurt by Donald Trump and his policies. The people who are hurt by the loss of health care are both rural and urban," said 4th District Rep. Jennifer McClellan at the Democrats' April 12 rally with Jeffries.
Saturday, Yes campaigners passed by signs for the local Democratic Party as they made their way into a backyard. There, Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger laid out the stakes of another two years of a Republican-controlled Congress to the group as she went.
"This vote says that right now we, the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia, we want to stand up, reject what we are seeing coming out of Washington and ensure that we can be a counterweight to the actions of Texas, Missouri, of North Carolina," she told the group, who were about to knock on doors.
Similarly, the No campaign gathered at a diner in Richmond's West End and tied the campaign to national-level issues in their stump speeches.
"Do you like high taxes? Do you like taxes? You know, Abigail Spanberger ran on affordability, but then, as soon as they got in office, Democrats in Richmond proposed almost 50 new taxes," GOP Rep. John McGuire asked the crowd. "So what are you going to do on Tuesday?"
Those issues are also contributing to the urgency of the campaign, and voters' interest in the referendum.
"A lot of power is at stake, and there's a lot of political passion and there's a lot of concern, both from Republicans and Democrats, about the direction of the country," said Green, the William & Mary law professor.
Currently in Washington, there are 217 Republicans and 213 Democrats in the US House of Representatives, with one Democrat yet to be sworn in and three vacancies.
Virginia's polls open Tuesday at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
Watch Amending Virginia: 'Redistricting'
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