This morning, I dourly predicted the triumph of Governor Abigail Spanberger’s grotesque gerrymandering referendum in the State of Virginia, which draws a 10–1 Democratic congressional gerrymander for the next three election cycles. I suggested that, while the margin of victory would not approach Spanberger’s flogging of Winsome Earle-Sears in November 2025 by 15 percentage points, the redistricting referendum would pass. I predicted a win for “yes” by four to five percentage points, and that looks to be very close to what the outcome will be once all the votes are counted: 52–48 in favor of the measure. I also noted that, even if the referendum passed by only five votes, Democrats would reap 100 percent of the gains. So they shall.

There is little else to add tonight. D.C.-area Democrats, with little more than a slight majority, have voted to federally disenfranchise the rest of the state’s Republicans. Why? Because they could. There is no “bright side” to tonight’s vote for Republicans. The Supreme Court of Virginia could still strike down the new map — the case was put on procedural hold to be reviewed on the merits after the referendum — but that is a slim reed on which to hang one’s hopes. Republicans should never bet on a judicial deus ex machina. It would seem, therefore, that these are Virginia’s new congressional lines until 2032 at least. The state will be represented in Congress almost entirely by Fairfax County, and most of its “downstate” representatives will hail from within a 50-mile radius of Washington, D.C. Who knows what Virginia will look like demographically once the state returns to court-drawn maps in 2032 — or what will happen to the state’s Republican Party after it has been locked out of nearly all power and relevance for six years?

I will have more to say on this matter tomorrow, specifically about how the entire 2026 Gerrymänderrung has been the direct result Donald Trump’s original foolhardy and suicidal decision to goad Texas into mid-decade redistricting. But the recriminations can wait until the reality has sunk in that the State of Virginia has just been turned, by a bare majority vote, almost into a one-party state.

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