Virginia Democrats entered the redistricting fight believing that redrawing the map would tilt the state decisively in their favor and give them control of the U.S. House.
Instead, the party’s aggressive push to reshape congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms spiraled into a political and legal headache that stands to boost Republicans after the Virginia Supreme Court blocked their redistricting plan on Friday.
In fact, the Cook Political Report, which has been closely tracking developments in the mid-decade redistricting war, says the GOP now holds an advantage because of rulings from the Virginia Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. Republicans are likely to gain six to seven seats, according its newly updated analysis.
The Cook Political Report maintains Democrats are still positioned to retake the House. “But they are no longer overwhelming favorites,” it said.
Democratic political strategist and pollster Cornell Belcher agrees, saying his party wasn’t harmed by the Virginia court decision — it just wasn’t helped.
The ruling, he told MS NOW, “certainly makes it more difficult for Democrats to win because Republicans are rigging the system in real time.” But Belcher said Republicans run the risk of overreaching and making themselves “more vulnerable to a wave.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries condemned the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision as an assault on voting rights, telling MS NOW’s “Velshi” on Saturday, “This isn’t just Black people’s fight. It’s certainly everybody’s fight. It’s going to take an all-hands-on deck effort, and everybody has a stake in preserving a multi-racial democracy as part of the effort to preserve American exceptionalism.”
Still, some conservatives, pointing to a Fox News redistricting tracker, are now touting “massive seat gains” for Republicans as the battle over congressional maps intensifies.
The controversy in Virginia centered on a Democratic-backed proposal that would have dramatically reshaped the state’s congressional districts, potentially turning the state’s current 6-5 Democratic edge in the House into a near 10-1 advantage.
Republicans denounced the plan as an extreme partisan gerrymander, calling it a “desperate grab for power.” Virginia Democrats drew backlash because they had previously championed an independent redistricting process in 2020 as a safeguard against partisan mapmaking. Critics argued the party abandoned those principles once it saw an opportunity to expand its congressional advantage.
The redistricting fight in Virginia consumed months of political oxygen while lawsuits mounted before Virginia voters ultimately approved the redistricting proposal in an April referendum in what would become a short-lived victory for Democrats.
Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones immediately filed a joint motion asking the high court to delay its decision as Virginia Democrats vowed to fight what they described as an effort to overturn the will of voters.
While it may not be the redistricting wipeout Democrats had hoped for, they expressed confidence after the ruling that they will carve out a path to regain House control.
“Make no mistake, Democrats will not roll over while Republicans undermine our democracy to entrench their power. This is not over. Democrats will use every tool at our disposal — the courts, Congress, and public opinion — to fight back on behalf of all Americans who believe in and seek to uphold fair elections, democratic representation, and the sacred right to vote,” Democratic National Chair Ken Martin said in a statement.
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“The will of voters of Virginia and California are being challenged by Republicans,” Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., told MS NOW’s “The Weekend” on Saturday. “It’s really unbelievable. We’re going to have to fight back because there is no alternative at this point.”
The Virginia battle also reflects a broader national reality: Both parties increasingly view redistricting not as a procedural exercise, but as a high-stakes weapon in the fight for control of Congress.
“It’s a really sad state that our country is in when both political parties are using redistricting as their main strategy to win midterms,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. said in a social media post Saturday. “Both parties are not presenting strong cases as to why their policies and accomplishments are why the American people should vote for them.”
In Tennessee, Republicans approved a new congressional map on Thursday that splits the state’s only majority-Black district into multiple districts, a move Democrats are denouncing as Jim Crow 2.0.
“This is an attempt to take away, to destroy, to silence Black majority community of Memphis and it is an attempt, in one of the most significant, probably since the end of deconstruction to take away Black political voice in the United States Congress,” Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson said Saturday on MS NOW’s “The Weekend.”
The nationwide redistricting fight began after President Donald Trump pushed Republicans in Texas to pursue an aggressive congressional redraw aimed at strengthening the GOP’s hold on the House ahead of the midterms. Democrats in blue states fought back with redistricting strategies of their own, most notably in California.
Trump has seen his approval ratings dip to new lows, according to recent polls, as the war with Iran drags on and gas prices continue to soar, causing political headaches for Republicans just six months ahead of the midterms.
Still, Republicans are counting the redistricting rulings in the South as victories.
“Democrats just learned that when you try to rig elections, you lose,” Republican National Committee Chairman Gruters in a statement. “We took them to court, and we won.”
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at CNN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.