Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) gloated after the state’s redistricting referendum narrowly passed, allowing the Democrats to redraw the congressional map in their favor.
Spanberger expressed, in a post on X, that “Virginia voters have spoken” and “pushed back” against President Donald Trump. Spanberger’s post came after multiple outlets, including the Associated Press, called the election.
With 95 percent of the vote in, the proposed constitutional amendment received 1,543,746 votes in favor, or 51.4 percent of the vote, while there were 1,462,766 votes opposing the constitutional amendment, representing 48.7 percent of the vote, according to the Associated Press (AP).
The AP called the race at 8:49 p.m.
“Virginia voters have spoken, and tonight they pushed back against a President who claims he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress,” Spanberger said. “As we watched other states go along with those demands without voter input, Virginians refused to let that stand.”
“We responded the right way,” Spanberger added. “At the ballot box.”
Prior to being elected governor in November, Spanberger had stated she had “no plans to redistrict Virginia,” ABC7 News reported in August 2025.
“Virginia by constitutional amendment has a new redistricting effort that was put in place and first utilized in the 2021 redistricting. I’ve been watching with interest what other states are doing, but I have no plans to redistrict Virginia.”
As a result of the referendum passing, the state’s congressional delegation could go “from a closely divided 6-5 split to a heavily Democratic-leaning 10-1 advantage,” the Virginia Mercury reported.
Other lawmakers in the state, such as Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D), expressed that voters in the states “acted in response to what he called ‘unprecedented gerrymandering in other states.’”
“Thank you to all the voters who turned out to vote against the egregious power grab,” former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) said in a post on X. “The race was much closer than the left expected because Virginians know a 10-1 map is not Virginia. I urge the Virginia Supreme Court to rule against this unconstitutional process that will disenfranchise millions of Virginians.”
The passage of the redistricting referendum comes after the Texas Senate, in August 2025, passed the “Big Beautiful Map” to redistrict the state’s congressional map. In December 2025, the Supreme Court allowed Texas to keep the congressional map, which “could potentially add up to five Republican U.S. House seats.”
