I wish I had better news, but, as expected, Virginia voters voted to heavily gerrymander Virginia in favor of Democrats.
There's a lesson here, everyone: The Democrats fight dirty, and the GOP gains nothing by pretending that playing nice will win out in the end. How many times does the right have to watch this happen before it finally decides enough is enough?
Tuesday's result was ugly. Virginia's Democratic redistricting referendum passed, and conservative voters across the state just watched their representation get carved out from under them. Republicans will likely be left with a single congressional seat in a state that used to be a national model for fair apportionment.
"Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates. Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority." — @SpanbergerForVA pic.twitter.com/4LuXeNcfvx
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) April 22, 2026
The whole thing stunk from the start.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger once stood firmly against this kind of naked power grab. Back in 2019, she said that "gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy, and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates," and insisted that "opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority." Then she won the governorship by pretending to be a moderate, and then stopped pretending she wasn’t a far-left Democrat and steamrolled her radical left-wing agenda.
And don't even get me started on the ballot language.
The question put before Virginia voters read: "Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia's standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?"
I love the way this is framed. New congressional districts that would disenfranchise almost half of Virginia GOP voters are designed "to restore fairness in the upcoming elections." Modern American politics is just lies piled upon lies. pic.twitter.com/cOu9X9Lffe
— FischerKing (@FischerKing64) April 21, 2026
Excuse me? “Restore fairness." That's the language they used to describe a partisan gerrymander. The wording was engineered to produce a specific outcome, and it worked. There's no way that language should have been allowed anywhere near a ballot, and yet here we are.
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This is how Democrats operate. They rig the system in their favor, cry when Republicans push back, and then rig it even more. The strategy is consistent, it's coordinated, and it works — because one side keeps pretending that restraint and principle will eventually be rewarded. It won't. It never has. When everyone plays fair, you win some, and you lose some. But Democrats aren't interested in that deal. They want a system where they win every time, and they are working overtime to build it.
Meanwhile, the SAVE America Act — which has overwhelming bipartisan support among actual voters — sits stalled in the U.S. Senate because Democrats refuse to let it move. Why? Because obstruction is a tool they'll use without hesitation when the outcome suits them. Virginia gerrymanders itself into a one-party state, and the left calls it fairness. Republicans try to pass election integrity legislation with overwhelming bipartisan support, and can’t get it done.
So here's the hard truth: the GOP has to stop bringing a spoon to a gunfight. The days of taking the high road while Democrats pull the rug out from under them have to end. Republicans need to nuke the filibuster, pass the SAVE America Act, and send an unmistakable message that the era of unilateral restraint is over. Democrats made the rules of this new game. It's past time Republicans started playing by them.
