Virginia Democrats advance plan to counter Trump-spawned redistricting in Republican states

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By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) -The Democratic-led Virginia House of Delegates voted on Wednesday to amend the state constitution to allow legislators to redraw Virginia’s congressional maps next year, heightening a multistate, mid-decade redistricting war spawned by President Donald Trump.

Passage of the Democratic-sponsored resolution, on a party-line vote of 51-42, sent the measure to the Virginia state Senate, where the Democratic majority in that chamber is expected to approve the measure as well.

Under Virginia law, both houses of the General Assembly would have to adopt the constitutional amendment once more early next year before a redistricting plan could be submitted to voters for approval by referendum.

The measure would temporarily bypass an independent redistricting commission that voters created by constitutional amendment in 2020 and enable the Democratic-controlled legislature to reshape congressional boundaries to partisan advantage ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections.

Republican lawmakers cried foul, calling the Democrats’ efforts a naked power grab.

But Democrats countered that they were responding to a much bigger power grab initiated by Trump in pushing for Texas to redraw its congressional maps this year in a bid to pick up five more Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Republicans, including Trump, openly acknowledge that redrawn maps enacted this summer in Texas, followed by similar plans in Missouri and North Carolina, are aimed at preserving their party’s slim U.S. House majority in the hotly contested 2026 midterm races.

Democrats have fought back by advancing redistricting initiatives of their own, starting in California, where a plan to redraw congressional boundaries to their party’s advantage was passed by the legislature in August and will be decided by voters in a special election next week.

In Indiana, Republican Governor Mike Braun called a special legislative session for next Monday to weigh redistricting proposals in his state, bowing to a White House pressure campaign.

Virginia Democrats entered the fray this week, in the midst of Virginia’s closely watched gubernatorial race and election for all 100 members of the state’s House of Delegates.

No political map alterations have been specifically proposed in Virginia. But Democrats are expected to stand a good chance of gaining at least two additional U.S. House seats. Democrats currently hold six of Virginia’s 11 seats in the U.S. House.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, Editing by Franklin Paul and Matthew Lewis)