We’ve reached the first weekend mark for early voting here in Virginia as the proposed constitutional amendment that would allow Democrats to implement a gerrymander in Virginia in response to Republican gerrymandering in states like Texas, Ohio, and Missouri begins. The amendment would allow Democrats to elect 10 Democrats to the US House of Representatives this November (as well as 1 Republican), marking the first time in 100 years that there have been 10 Virginia Democrats in the chamber. Not since the beginning of the Byrd Machine have Democrats been able to accomplish such a feat, and not since 1991 have they had sole control over the redistricting pen.
Democrats start out with an advantage — not because of any sort of analysis of the first week of early voting, but because of the fundamentals of this election.
The pro-Democrat gerrymander side (pro-’Yes’ campaigns, most notably the new “Virginians for Fair Elections”) starts out with tens of millions of dollars to spend persuading likely voters to allow Democrats to combat Republican gerrymanders in other states, or “leveling the playing field,” as they like to frame it. Meanwhile, their opposition currently has less than $1,000,000 in their available funds to spend. In general elections, spending advantages in Virginia don’t have much of an impact on the outcome (with the few exceptions of House of Delegates elections where a candidate spends at least 9x more than their opponent), but it has a huge effect on both persuasion and turnout for a special election with no identifiable partisanship on the ballot.
Even if both sides had an equal spending plan, Democrats would still have a natural turnout advantage. In special elections nationwide, Democrats are outrunning Kamala Harris’s 2024 performance by an average of 12%. In Virginia, there have been seven special elections for the Virginia General Assembly since November, mostly due to appointments to Governor Spanberger’s cabinet. In those special elections, Democratic candidates have averaged only 1% behind her 2025 landslide-victory performance.
Those who vote in special elections, which is essentially what this redistricting amendment vote is, are more likely to be white, wealthy, and to have a college education than the general election electorate. In the Obama era, this tended to favor Republicans, but since Donald Trump came onto the political scene ten years ago, the narrative of who benefits from low turnout has turned on its head due to massive losses with white college-educated voters.
In all likelihood, this current electorate voted for Abigail Spanberger in 2025 by a similar victory margin to her actual 15-point win, if not by a hair more. That means for Republicans, persuasion is the key to victory. Should the redistricting electorate prove to be as blue as last year’s, Republicans would need to outperform Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 persuasion performance in the election for Virginia Governor. That year, Youngkin won by 2% in an electorate that voted for Joe Biden by 3 or 4 percentage points.
That might seem like a tall order, but persuasion in theory should be easier without partisan identification on the ballot. Virginia voters will simply answer “Yes” or “No” to the following question: “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?”
Republicans fought tooth and nail in the courts to prevent the above text that the ballots’ voters will read from using this specific verbiage, but were ultimately unsuccessful. To the uninformed voter who will be coming out to vote, they’ll see a ballot that provides the language Democrats wanted. This will be the biggest hurdle for Republicans in outperforming Youngkin’s 2021 performance with Democrats and Independents.
There hasn’t been any reliable polling on the redistricting amendment thus far, but State Navigate is hoping to enter the fray before April 21st by raising the funds needed to poll likely Virginia voters, when they see the language that will actually be in front of them at the ballot box, how they plan to vote. Thus far, no poll has used the actual language on the ballot in their questions and thus cannot predict the outcome. We hope to change that.
You can stick with our coverage to be informed on where things are heading as Virginians vote through April 21st.
