Around 7 p.m. last night, The Argument’s Lakshya Jain and Split Ticket’s Armin Thomas settled in for a night of poll watching and election analysis for Virginia’s redistricting referendum. Then, about 40 minutes later, they had to wrap it up because Democrats’ victory had already become obvious.
“I thought we’d have a little bit more entertainment before we were like, ‘No, it’s going to pass,’” said Lakshya. “Got to say that this is probably one of the more underwhelming drops in terms of election nerd stats that I could have imagined.”
But while the election itself may not have exactly been electric, the aftermath certainly will be. Assuming Virginia’s new map survives a likely challenge from Republicans, Democrats will have effectively neutralized the mid-district gerrymandering advantage that Republicans were hoping to gain from places like Texas and Ohio, and Democrats may even come out a couple seats ahead.
On the other hand, the Supreme Court is overdue to issue a ruling in a case that is likely to overturn Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. This would enable heavy Republican areas like Florida to issue much more aggressive gerrymanders that are currently illegal.
“Once it comes around to the 2028 cycle and Section 2 of the VRA gets struck down, all bets are off. And I think what happens there is you’re going to see that places like Virginia are going to try to push to keep these maps more permanent. I don’t think they’re going to succeed in that one because I think a Democrat wins in 2028, and then the 2030 referendums are going to suck for them,” said Lakshya. “After all is said and done, Republicans will probably gain a few seats, [but] not enough to make the House permanently red — I don’t like that New York Times headline.
Check out the video above to hear more about what the new maps could mean going into the midterms and beyond.
