The nightmarish Virginia gerrymander is officially and somewhat unexpectedly dead.
A brief note on a surprise ray of sunshine: The nightmarish Virginia gerrymander is officially and somewhat unexpectedly dead. When last we spoke about matters involving Virginia, I concluded with the grim certainty that Abigail Spanberger had succeeded in constructing the Democratic one-party state in the commonwealth, at least for the next several electoral cycles. After holding a statewide referendum to temporarily undo the nonpartisan redistricting process (one the state’s voters overwhelmingly approved in 2020) in favor of a 10–1 Democratic congressional gerrymander — and winning on a narrow 51.7–48.3 margin — Spanberger was sitting smugly, and I concluded that the Gërrymänderrung was well and truly upon us.
In those pieces, I mentioned in passing that there was a slight chance the Virginia Supreme Court might overturn the decision to even place the initiative on the ballot in the first place — thus invalidating the results, even after Virginia’s voters had schlepped to the polls to register their official opinion. But I warned readers not to take the possibility too seriously. For one reason: As a matter of general principle, conservatives are ill advised to rely on a judicial deus ex machina to deliver them from political outcomes. But for another, more pragmatic one: How often are courts simply willing to invalidate the “will” (note scare quotes) of the voters, expressed mere weeks before? Would one expect a Democratic-leaning court, in particular, to do that?
For once, I was too cynical. In a 4–3 decision today, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the 10–1 gerrymander, instantly returning the 2026 map to the status quo ante, a 6–5 D/R disposition. Sean Trende, elections analyst at RealClearPolitics, confidently predicted that this outcome was very much in play — “it’s an extremely formalist court.” And indeed, the decision turned on the timing of the commonwealth’s election laws. The majority explicitly rejected the idea that the outcome of the vote was relevant in the slightest — and then rejected the amendment for falling afoul of the state’s early-voting laws.
In 2019, the Democratic legislature expanded the early-voting window to a whopping 45 days prior to Election Day (mid-September, in other words). In 2020, voters approved the establishment of a nonpartisan redistricting commission. But in late October 2025 — long after early voting for the gubernatorial election had begun, and long after it became obvious that Spanberger would win — Virginia Democrats rushed to place the redistricting amendment on their legislative calendar, thus violating the technical requirement that at least one supervening election must take place first. (The court explains that these rules exist precisely to “slow-walk” the constitutional amendment process, by forcing procedural hurdles.)
Virginia Democrats, in their unseemly haste, violated them — and the court has proven to be sticklers about it. What seemed like a grotesque certainty — the Commonwealth of Virginia being run almost entirely out of Fairfax County and its environs — has now vanished in a cloud of dust. And the governor can choke on it.