The Virginia Supreme Court has handed a major victory to Republicans in the state after it ruled against a Democratic plan to gerrymander the state to favor left-leaning candidates.
The court ruled that Democrats used an unconstitutional process to put a “proposed constitutional amendment that authorizes partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts in the Commonwealth” before voters.
The opinion pointed out that Virginia voters already approved a 2020 reform establishing the Virginia Redistricting Commission and that the effort to suspend a provision in the state constitution to allow the General Assembly to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts outside the usual once-a-decade process.
HUGE: The Virginia Supreme Court has overturned the Democrats' gerrymandering referendum pic.twitter.com/ohnc4A5LkK
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 8, 2026
Democrats sought to use a ballot measure to convince voters to approve a mid-decade redrawing of the congressional maps to eliminate Republican districts.
The court’s majority posited that the most glaring issue with the Democrats’ argument is that lawmakers had first approved the amendment after more than 1.3 million people voted early in the 2025 House of Delegates election, meaning that voters were not given a full chance to understand what the amendment would do as the state constitution requires.
The Supreme Court got it right!
— Glen Sturtevant (@GlenSturtevant) May 8, 2026
More than 1.3 million Virginians had already voted when Democrats first passed this constitutional amendment.
The Court holds that violated the Constitution and nullified the referendum.
The 2021 court-approved maps remain in place for 2026.… pic.twitter.com/cbZguCshIR
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For this reason, the court held that the referendum was legally “null and void.” This means the maps the court adopted in 2021 will remain in place for the 2026 election.
Chief Justice Cleo Powell’s dissent contended that the majority redefined election too broadly and ignored Virginia statutes mandating that a general election is “an election held in the Commonwealth on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.”
She argued that under this definition, the state legislature satisfied the constitutional requirements and timeline.
The debate over Virginia’s redistricting referendum began when Democrats proposed the gerrymandering amendment as a response to red states redrawing their districts in the middle of the decade instead of waiting until 2030. These states gerrymandered their districts to eliminate Democrat strongholds. Virginia’s Democrats sought to do the same in favor of their party. For now, the effort has failed.
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