Virginia’s Congressional Map Is the Fairest in America – Democrats Want to Make It the Worst.

Key Takeaways

1. Virginia’s current congressional map is the most proportionally accurate in the nation — a gap of just 0.6 percentage points between Republican vote share and Republican seat share, earning a Princeton Gerrymandering Project “A” grade.
2. The proposed 10-1 map would produce a 37-point gap between Democratic vote share and Democratic seat share — instantly transforming Virginia from the fairest map in America to, by a wide margin, the least.
3. The Democrats leading this effort — including Governor Spanberger, Speaker Scott, and Senate President Pro Tempore Lucas — were among the most vocal champions of the independent redistricting commission they now propose to suspend.
4. The national data do not support the “leveling the playing field” argument. Democrats currently hold a structural congressional advantage nationally, with approximately 21 excess seats from Democratic gerrymanders against roughly 15 from Republican ones.
5. The “temporary” label is misleading. It’s not just the upcoming November midterms. The maps would govern three full congressional election cycles — 2026, 2028, and 2030 — entrenching incumbents and reshaping political careers before the commission ever gets the pen back.
6. Virginia’s rural and conservative voters have a chronic habit of sitting out the odd-year state elections that determine who controls redistricting — and Democrats have built a coalition that shows up every time.
7. Virginians already answered this question — at the ballot box, less than six years ago, by nearly two to one. They amended their constitution to take map-drawing out of politicians’ hands, and the result was the fairest congressional map in America. Vote NO on April 21 to keep it that way.

THE MOST PROPORTIONALLY ACCURATE MAP IN THE NATION

Virginia currently holds a distinction that no other state can claim: its congressional delegation reflects the actual partisan preferences of its voters more precisely than any other state in the country.

In 2024, Donald Trump received 46.1 percent of the presidential vote in Virginia. Republicans currently hold 5 of Virginia’s 11 congressional seats — 45.5 percent. The gap between how Virginians vote and how they are represented in Congress is six-tenths of one percentage point. That is not approximately fair. That is, by any objective measure, as close to perfect proportional representation as a district-based system can achieve.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project — a nonpartisan academic authority on redistricting — awarded Virginia’s current congressional map an overall “A” grade, one of only four states to earn that distinction in the most recent redistricting cycle. The other three were Arizona, Colorado, and Michigan. All four maps were drawn by bipartisan or independent processes. Not one was drawn by a party-controlled legislature.

Virginia’s map was drawn by court-appointed experts — one nominated by each party — after the newly established Redistricting Commission failed to reach agreement. The result was described by the bipartisan mapmakers themselves as a map that “does not unduly favor any party.” The data bear that out to a degree rare in American political history.

Virginia Democrats now propose to tear that map up and replace it with one that would give their party 10 of 11 congressional seats — 91 percent of representation on roughly 54 percent of the vote. That would produce a 37-point gap between Democratic vote share and Democratic seat share. It would instantly transform Virginia from the most proportionally accurate congressional map in America to, by a wide margin, the least.

THE PEOPLE WHO BUILT THIS REFORM ARE NOW TRYING TO DESTROY IT

The commission that produced Virginia’s fair map did not appear from nowhere. It was created by voters — specifically, by the 65.69 percent of Virginians who approved a constitutional amendment in 2020 establishing an independent redistricting process, explicitly to take map-drawing out of the hands of politicians.

The Virginia Democrats who are now leading the charge to suspend that constitutional amendment were among its most vocal champions less than six years ago. The record is unambiguous.

Abigail Spanberger, now Virginia’s Governor, stated in 2019: “Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy. Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority.”

Congressman Don Beyer declared: “Gerrymandering is cheating. It allows politicians to select their voters, when it should be the other way around.”

Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas praised the 2020 reform for ensuring “an equitable, transparent and bipartisan process to ensure our electoral maps are drawn fairly.”

House Speaker Don Scott celebrated the amendment’s passage as a victory for fairness and transparency.

Every one of these officials now supports overriding the constitutional amendment they praised. The words have not changed. The principles they described have not changed. Only the political calculus has changed. When the independent process produced results they liked, it was a model of democracy. Now that they hold power and see an opportunity to exploit it, the same process is an obstacle to be removed.

There is a word for that. It is not fairness.

WHO ACTUALLY BENEFITS FROM THE NATIONAL GERRYMANDERING STATUS QUO?

Virginia Democrats claim they are “leveling the playing field” — that Republicans are gerrymandering to build a structural congressional advantage that Democrats are simply seeking to correct. That argument does not survive contact with the data.

Start with Virginia. The measure is straightforward: the gap between a party’s share of the 2024 presidential vote and its share of congressional seats. A gap of 0.6 percentage points between Republican vote share and Republican seat share. As close to perfect proportional representation as a district-based system can produce.

Virginia: Current Congressional Map

Now compare that to the states with the largest partisan imbalances in either direction.

Top 5 Democratic Gerrymanders

Top 5 Republican Gerrymanders

The Democratic states in the top five produce approximately 21 excess Democratic congressional seats. The Republican states in the top five produce approximately 15 excess Republican seats. Democrats already hold a structural national advantage of roughly six seats from gerrymandering before Virginia’s proposed map is drawn.

Virginia’s proposed 10-1 map would flip four additional congressional seats to Democrats in a single stroke — erasing the Republican presence in Virginia’s delegation from five seats to one. The proposed Virginia map’s 37-point gap between vote share and seat share would be worse than Massachusetts, worse than Illinois, worse than Maryland, worse than California, and worse than New York. It would be the most extreme partisan gerrymander in America.

This is not leveling the playing field. It is seizing control of the field entirely with the intent to keep it tilted as it has been for decades to Democrat advantage.

THE “FAIRNESS” ARGUMENT COLLAPSES UNDER ITS OWN LOGIC

Virginia Democrats argue that their gerrymander is justified as a response to Republican gerrymandering in other states. Let us follow that argument to its logical conclusion.

If the principle is that unfair maps in one state justify unfair maps in another, then by exactly the same reasoning, Texas Republicans are “leveling the playing field” when they gerrymander their districts to chip away at the national structural Democrat gerrymander advantage. Under the Virginia Democrat framework, their gerrymander is justified as a response to the Texas gerrymander; however the concept of fairness becomes meaningless outside of the total national context — a rhetorical convenience invoked only when it serves the speaker’s interests. It is even more unfair within the context of Virginia, where rural Virginia’s conservative voters are to be outnumbered by a narrow slice of a congressional district that stretches into densely Democrat Northern Virginia.

What Virginia Democrats are proposing is partisan gerrymandering dressed in the language of fairness, while its actual effect is to preserve and extend a structural national advantage that they have long enjoyed from Democrat gerrymandering in other states.

Virginia’s current map represents the standard by which all congressional maps should be judged: vote share and seat share within a fraction of a percent of each other. The Democrat proposal would abandon that standard, specifically in order to maintain the national partisan imbalance that has always tilted in their favor. Calling that “fairness” requires the audience to ignore the data entirely.

ON THE SUBJECT OF “TEMPORARY”

Virginia Democrats describe their proposed gerrymander as “temporary” — a short-term suspension of the independent redistricting process, with a promise that it will be restored after the 2030 census. Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell called it “a temporary, restrained measure.”

Here is what “temporary” actually means in the text of this amendment: the General Assembly’s authority to draw or modify congressional maps expires after October 2030, and the Redistricting Commission resumes that authority in 2031. That is the full extent of the expiration. The maps themselves do not expire. Congressional districts drawn under this amendment would govern the 2026, 2028, and 2030 congressional elections — three full election cycles — before the commission redraws them in 2031 as part of the normal post-census redistricting that was always going to occur anyway. Nothing is cut short. The gerrymander runs its full intended course. The incumbents elected under a 10-to-1 map entrench themselves across three election cycles, building donor networks, name recognition, and political infrastructure that no future commission can erase by drawing new lines. The commission gets its pen back in 2031. It cannot undo three consecutive elections conducted under districts designed to make Virginia’s congressional delegation unrecognizable to its voters. Calling that “temporary” is like burning down a house and calling it a temporary fire.

RURAL VIRGINIA IS SLEEPWALKING INTO IRRELEVANCE

There is a final dimension to this story that demands plain speaking, because it falls directly on the shoulders of rural conservative Virginians — including voters right here in Warren County and across the Shenandoah Valley.

Virginia Republicans lost the statehouse. Virginia Democrats now control both chambers of the General Assembly and the Governor’s office. How that happened is a story every conservative rural voter needs to understand — because it is about to get considerably worse.  Virginia holds its gubernatorial and state legislative elections in odd-numbered years, when no federal races appear on the ballot. Those are the elections that determine who controls the General Assembly, who sits in the Governor’s mansion, and — as we are now seeing firsthand — who draws congressional maps. They are, in a direct and immediate sense, the elections most consequential to daily life in Virginia. And they are the elections in which conservative rural turnout collapses.  The numbers are stark. In presidential election years, rural Virginia turns out at impressive rates — Rockingham County hit 81.5% turnout in 2024, Botetourt 81%, multiple rural Trump counties above 80%. But statewide, Virginia’s average turnout across the last three non-presidential election cycles averaged just 48% — compared to nearly 70% in 2024. The drop-off is not symmetric. In 2025, Republican turnout statewide fell 30% from 2024 presidential levels. Democrat turnout fell only 16%. Republicans dropped at nearly twice the Democratic rate. Not one historically Republican locality increased turnout from 2021 to 2025. Every single one either held flat or declined, while Democratic localities held steady or grew.  The result is a state that votes roughly 46% Republican in federal elections but is governed entirely by Democrats — Democrats who are now using that governing power to draw congressional maps designed to make the imbalance permanent. This is not bad luck. It is the predictable consequence of a coalition that shows up for the biggest race on the national stage and treats every other election as optional. All elections matter. Local and state elections are in many respects the elections that matter most — they are the ones closest to home, governing schools, roads, courts, and now, the very congressional lines that will determine Virginia’s representation in Washington for the next decade. Rural conservative voters cannot afford to treat them as afterthoughts.

The misunderstanding driving that low turnout is this: rural conservative voters look at their county results — Warren County went for Trump by substantial margins; neighboring Shenandoah County by larger margins still — and conclude that their vote does not matter much because the outcome in their county is not in doubt. That reasoning is catastrophically wrong, and it is about to become catastrophically costly.

Congressional districts are not counties. They are drawn across county lines, across cities, across regions. Under the proposed gerrymander, Virginia’s congressional maps would be specifically engineered to blend rural conservative counties with carefully selected slices of Northern Virginia — Fairfax County, Loudoun County, Prince William County — in configurations designed so that the concentrated liberal vote of the Washington suburbs numerically overwhelms the dispersed conservative vote of rural Virginia. A Fairfax County Democrat would “represent” the farmers and small business owners of the Shenandoah Valley in Congress. That is not an accident. That is the design.

The turnout numbers tell the story. In 2024, Fairfax County — population 1.1 million — cast over 560,000 votes for president. Warren County cast roughly 22,000. The ratio is more than 25 to 1. Rural Virginia counties, taken individually, are overwhelmed by the population mass of a single Northern Virginia jurisdiction. District lines drawn to exploit that math will render rural voices effectively mute in congressional representation.

Every rural conservative voter who does not turn out to vote NO on the redistricting referendum contributes to that outcome. This is not an abstraction. The referendum now before Virginia voters would instantly take the state’s congressional map from the most proportionally accurate in the nation to the most distorted — from a 0.6 point gap to a 37-point gap between votes and representation, by design, at the expense of the very communities that make up most of Virginia’s geography.

Sixty-five percent of Virginians voted in 2020 to take this power out of politicians’ hands. Those same politicians have now placed a referendum on the ballot — dressed in the language of “fairness” — that would let them suspend it. The data tell a different story: Virginia’s current map is the most proportionally accurate in the nation, and the proposed 10-1 replacement would make it the least accurate for Virginians, and would not restore “fairness” to a tilted national landscape but, in fact, simply preserve the Democratic advantage on top of a Democratic advantage that already exists.

Vote NO on the redistricting referendum. Virginia’s voters already said what fair looks like. They said it six years ago, by nearly two to one. It is time to say it again.

Richard Jamieson, Ph.D.
Represents the North River District on the Warren County Board of Supervisors.

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