Spanberger Admin Warns Virginia Dems Ultra-Blue Congressional Map Could Cause Logistical Nightmare

Last week, Virginia Democrats trudged ahead with their mid-decade redistricting gambit by appealing a circuit court judge's ruling blocking their efforts to redraw the commonwealth's congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Behind the scenes, Democratic Party leaders in Richmond are hoping that a higher court will rule in their favor and allow the state legislature to put a redistricting constitutional amendment before voters this spring. But even if that effort succeeds, they remain intensely divided over how to proceed with their California-style gerrymandering effort. Right now, Democrats are shopping around multiple maps, two of which would create a ten-to-one margin favoring Democrats and another that would create a nine-to-two margin, sources say.

Administration officials working for newly sworn-in Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger have spent recent days privately cautioning Virginia Democrats about the technical and operational nightmare that might ensue if party leaders move forward with one of the ten-to-one maps over the nine-to-two map, sources familiar with the discussions tell National Review. The current congressional delegation includes six Democrats and five Republicans, and Spanberger will need to sign off on whatever new map the general assembly advances to her desk, assuming the courts allow them to redraw it.

Spanberger officials are warning Virginia Democrats that the ten-to-one maps — the margin currently favored by General Assembly leaders — might create too many split jurisdictions and precincts, causing technical and operational challenges for general registrars, the local officials who oversee Virginia elections.

For example, there are nightmare scenarios in which highly populated jurisdictions like Richmond might be carved into multiple congressional districts, potentially overwhelming general registrars and outdated Virginia election software on such a compressed timeline. Some Democrats worry that even a small precinct error in early voting or on Election Day may accidentally send hundreds of voters incorrect ballots, undermining public faith in elections and paving the way for election-related lawsuits.

And yet Democratic leaders in the general assembly say they have no plans to back down from an ultra-blue map. Last month, Democrats in the general assembly passed a constitutional amendment to redraw the maps in 2026, but a circuit court judge ruled that the party failed to follow the correct process. Privately, Democrats were unsurprised by that court ruling and are bullish that a higher court may rule in their favor.

And yet tensions are running high between the House of Delegates and state Senate. Although both House Speaker Don Scott and Senate President Louise Lucas favor a ten-to-one margin, they’re both leaning toward different maps, Punchbowl News reported. Democrats in both chambers are convinced that leaders are trying to put forward maps that benefit their own members.

“We have a 10-1 map that has secured the 21 votes needed to pass in the Senate,” Lucas wrote in a Tuesday morning social media statement. “Other proposals do not have the votes to pass. We have waited to release these maps in order to allow time for feedback- not time for games.”

The public bickering comes after Spanberger expressed hesitation about a ten-to-one map during a meeting with Virginia's congressional delegation back in December, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

During that private meeting, she suggested that a ten-to-one map will make Democratic seats unnecessarily competitive. "As I have told them," Spanberger said in reference to the Democratic leaders of the General Assembly, "please keep in mind that a 10-1 map means there are a lot of toss-up districts.”

She also referenced the constitutional amendment that Virginia voters overwhelmingly supported in 2020 which stripped redistricting power from the general assembly and vested it into an independent redistricting commission. "But I do think that with the . . . 66% of Virginians who voted for the amendment — and I was one of them — ultimately, it comes down to nothing happens if the people of Virginia don’t vote to make it so," Spanberger said in the December meeting.

Responding to pushback from GOP Representative Rob Wittman, the governor said that Republicans would "have a more compelling argument if they would also denounce what Republican led states are doing." After all, the entire mid-decade redistricting conversation began last year when the Trump administration blessed Texas Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting gamble, prompting other red states to follow their lead and blue states to retaliate with mid-decade gerrymandering efforts of their own.

Virginia’s gerrymandering drama has predictably prompted state legislators, former representatives, and other aspiring Democrats to jockey for congressional endorsements and soon-to-be-redrawn seats. In private, some Virginia Democrats expressed surprise that Spanberger has issued such early congressional endorsements of allies before the congressional map is even finalized, including former Representative Elaine Luria, former Representative Tom Perriello, author Beth Macy, and prosecutor Shannon Taylor, who narrowly lost to Jay Jones in last year's Democratic attorney general primary.

A Spanberger spokeswoman declined to comment for this story.

The ongoing tensions in Richmond mirror the intra-party headaches taking place nationwide as Democrats pursue a risky mid-decade redistricting push. Similar tensions are playing out in Maryland, where pro-redistricting Democratic Governor Wes Moore is facing pushback from the Democratic state Senate president, who cautions that an eight-to-zero congressional map might backfire on his party in court.