Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Democrats hope gerrymandering Virginia will give them the edge they need to win back the House. But Tuesday\u2019s special election is proving more competitive than they\u2019d like.<\/p>\n
Tight polling and concerns over voter turnout in an atypical April election have many Democratic party strategists and officials preparing for a close finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought this campaign would be close [and] 24 hours out, I believe that to be the case,\u201d Democratic strategist Jared Leopold said on Monday, before the final day of voting.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you’re on the \u2018yes\u2019 side of a referendum, you’ve got the burden of proof,\u201d he added. \u201cIt doesn’t matter what the referendum is, but anytime you’re arguing for \u2018yes,\u2019 the other side is going to be arguing for the status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n
The party anticipated its campaign to redraw the state\u2019s congressional maps would be boosted by its massive war chest and a favorable political environment that helped elect Gov. Abigail Spanberger last November.<\/a> If approved, the aggressive partisan gerrymander could deliver Democrats a 10-to-1 seat advantage in Virginia, which amounts to a net pickup of as many as four House seats.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was always going to be close,\u201d said another Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly. \u201cOne side is giving [President Donald Trump] power and the other side is doing a reform that a lot of them don’t really want to do. That’s your choice.\u201d<\/p>\n The election will serve as a test of whether voters in the light blue state will set aside long-standing distaste for partisan gerrymandering to counter a redistricting fight set in motion by Trump last year. With primary elections already underway, this is one of Democrats\u2019 last shots at offsetting or even overcoming the gains Republicans made in Texas and elsewhere before November.<\/p>\n If the ballot referendum fails, it would be an early embarrassment for Spanberger<\/a> as governor and a high-profile loss for a Democratic Party that has cast Trump\u2019s efforts in existential terms as \u201celection rigging\u201d that undermines American democracy.<\/p>\n The campaigns have drawn heavyweight national involvement from former President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, among others, who have campaigned on behalf of Virginians for Fair Elections, which is leading the \u201cyes\u201d effort. On the Republican side, former Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been a vocal critic of the measure. And, after largely staying on the sidelines, Trump made a late push Monday night for the \u201cno\u201d campaign, joining Speaker Mike Johnson for a tele-rally where he sought to remind voters of the stakes.<\/p>\n \u201cTomorrow, your commonwealth has an incredible, and really, an important election in every sense of the word that will have major consequences for our entire country this November,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThis is really a country election. The whole country is watching.\u201d<\/p>\n Public polling suggests the race will hinge as much on persuading voters about the need for new maps as on mobilizing them to the polls for an out-of-cycle election.<\/p>\n A Washington Post-Schar School poll<\/a> conducted last month shows the \u201cyes\u201d campaign leading by roughly five percentage points among likely voters. That same poll found Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to say they planned to vote in the special election or already had \u2014 85 percent to 79 percent.<\/p>\n Many Democrats say they remain cautiously optimistic. There has been an uptick of early voting in recent days, particularly in counties in Northern Virginia, which tend to be blue-leaning. Overall, more than 1.3 million people cast early ballots, according to the Virginia Public Access Project<\/a>, not much lower than the roughly 1.48 million who cast early ballots in 2025, when Spanberger was running.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s been an alteration to whether or not people like gerrymandering,\u201d said John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. \u201cWhat I do think is, if this is the only way that we can keep the U.S. House of Representatives as a representative body for this nation, people are willing to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Virginia Democrats have also recently put pressure<\/a> on the governor to more aggressively campaign on behalf of the \u201cyes\u201d effort and be more outspoken about the stakes of the special election. She was on the campaign trail over the weekend urging voters to back the measure.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, I do think this is more of a persuasion election than a turnout election, and so it\u2019s a test to see if [the] \u2018no\u2019 campaign has done an effective job reaching voters,\u201d said Noah Jennings, a Virginia-based Republican strategist unaffiliated with the \u201cno\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n