This story was reported and written by VPM News.
Virginia Democrats appear to be sticking to a plan to put a constitutional amendment before voters that would allow a new congressional map in 2026, despite a sweeping victory in November's general election and a fluid redistricting landscape nationwide.
In October, Democrats used their slim majorities in the House of Delegates and state Senate to pass the first step in changing Virginia's constitution, recommending an amendment that would allow the Legislature to sideline the bipartisan commission that draws Virginia's political maps.
Just a few days later, voters expanded House Speaker Don Scott's 51–49 majority to 64–36 and sent Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger to the executive mansion with a 15-percentage-point victory.
"What we were doing was not something that they saw as a negative … that Democrats are on the right track in terms of where we are in our politics, and that this is not a bad thing," Sen. Mamie Locke (D–Hampton) told VPM News between budget hearings at a November meeting of the Senate Finance Committee in Radford.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D–Fairfax) said during a Nov. 7 appearance on WAMU's The Politics Hour that Democrats would be looking to redraw maps in a way that would flip at least two US House of Representatives seats currently held by Republicans.
"There's two seats that are pretty obviously in play. And after that it'll probably get pretty hard, but you know, anything's possible," he said at the time.
If voting trends from this election hold in 2026, Democrats would flip the 1st and 2nd congressional districts, currently occupied by Reps. Rob Wittman and Jen Kiggans, even without a new map.
Spanberger and Democrats in the General Assembly have focused their messaging on being prepared to respond to GOP-led redistricting efforts nationwide — or at least preserving the option — rather than promising a new congressional map ahead of the 2026 federal midterms.
The incoming governor hasn't gone as far as to say she would sign off on new maps yet. She's talked about keeping all options open and has been careful about how she speaks about the issue.
In an emailed statement, spokesperson Connor Joseph said Spanberger "knows many Virginians are increasingly concerned by the Trump Administration's attempts to undermine public trust in our elections — and by the continued uncertainty unfolding across the country."
While he did not use the term redistricting, Joseph added: "Governor-elect Spanberger believes it's important that the General Assembly be ready to respond to the concerns of Virginia voters if needed."
Republican President Donald Trump has pressured lawmakers in Texas, North Carolina and Missouri to redistrict — a process typically only done at the beginning of a decade, after a new US Census is conducted — possibly picking up several House seats.
But the path has been rocky and is not guaranteed to result in a net gain for the GOP in Congress. Texas' map, which opponents say illegally gerrymanders based on race rather than partisanship, is before the US Supreme Court. Indiana Republicans initially rejected a push to draw new lines, but have since put forth a map that eliminates the state's two current Democratic seats.
Democrats in California — where, in November, voters overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure allowing redistricting — countered most of those with their own new map. But nationwide, Democrats control fewer of the state legislatures (where congressional maps are drawn) than Republicans.
"There hasn't been any additional discussion in terms of what's going on in Texas now, what's happening with Indiana," Locke told VPM News. "We haven't been able to actually sit down and talk about, 'OK, now what?'"
Locke sat on the Virginia Redistricting Commission, a bipartisan group of eight lawmakers and eight non-elected Virginians that failed to produce maps in 2021. (The Supreme Court of Virginia ultimately stepped in and finalized new maps for elections beginning in 2023.)
The proposed constitutional amendment wouldn't eliminate that commission. Instead, it would allow the General Assembly to draw new maps in reaction to other states that undergo off-cycle redistricting.
Sen. Ryan McDougle (R–Hanover), who was also on the commission, opposes changing the map now, whatever the recent election showed.
"The maps should not be rigged so one party always gets the result that they want," he said on the sidelines of the Senate meeting in Radford. "Virginians said 'We want to take the politics out of this and put in a bipartisan redistricting,' and that's what we did. That's what we should continue with."
Ernest McGowen, a political science professor at the University of Richmond, said "the peculiarities" of Virginia politics may be dictating how Spanberger, who has cultivated a bipartisan image, approaches the redistricting issue. Virginia politicians regularly invoke bipartisan cooperation — or at least hearing the other side out — in the course of decision-making.
"It is not necessarily bare knuckles, like you would see in a California, [or] like you would see in a Texas," he said. "That kind of sense of how Virginia state politics works goes against these kind of national trends of 'Let's try to squeeze out every single drop we possibly can.'"
But McGowen added that local considerations — particularly the effects of the US government shutdown on Virginia's large contingent of federal workers — may be overriding the impulse toward bipartisanship. Illinois and Maryland, two states that are much bluer than Virginia, have not moved redistricting efforts forward with as much urgency as Democrats in the commonwealth.
Chapman Rackaway, chair of the political science department at Radford University, also pointed to national and local pressures.
"I'm sure that Gov.-elect Spanberger is getting massive pressure from federal-level Democrats, not just her old colleagues in Congress, but people within the elite leadership of the Democratic National Committee," he said, pointing to the real risks the Trump administration poses to Virginia-based federal employees.
"This is not just good old-fashioned politics, this is my livelihood we're talking about. This is my 20-year career that they have scuppered," Rackaway said, referring to federal workers. "They are angry, and they want someone to kind of bloody Trump's nose on this."
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