May 8 (Reuters) – Virginia’s top court on Friday threw out a new electoral map that was crafted to flip four Republican-held U.S. congressional seats to Democrats, in a setback to Democratic hopes of retaking the House of Representatives in \u200bNovember’s midterm elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a 4-3 decision, the Virginia Supreme Court rejected a Democratic-backed ballot measure approved by voters in April that reconfigured the state’s U.S. House of Representatives districts for partisan advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ruling in \u200cfavor of a Republican challenge, the court’s majority found that Democratic lawmakers had not followed proper procedure last year when they rushed to approve the referendum in time to reach the ballot ahead of the November election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The opinion boosts Republican hopes of keeping control of the U.S. House, despite a razor-thin majority and deep voter unhappiness with President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On his Truth Social account, Trump called the ruling a “huge win for the Republican Party.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats cried foul, with Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House, calling the court’s decision undemocratic and ignoring \u200bthe will of millions of voters who had voted in favor of changing the electoral map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The state will submit an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to court papers filed late on Friday by \u200bVirginia Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kyle Kondik, a nonpartisan elections analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said while it was still too early to predict the impact of the ruling, \u2060it had undoubtedly improved the electoral chances for Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Whatever odds you would have given to Republicans winning the House yesterday, I think you would raise them today,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, Republicans face significant political headwinds ahead of November’s elections, with \u200bmany voters unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy and the Iran war which has increased gas prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marcia S. Price, a Democratic state delegate who played a central role in getting the new electoral map passed by voters, said \u200bthe main job now was to work even harder to turn out voters to flip Republican-held seats from the old map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“You lick your wounds, get back up and keep fighting,” she said in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats pursued the Virginia measure as part of a nationwide battle by both parties to redraw the boundaries of U.S. electoral districts for partisan benefit. The mid-cycle process of redrawing maps is unusual. Maps are typically redrawn once a decade after the national census.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republicans now hold a clear advantage in the fight, which began last year \u200bwhen Trump pushed Texas Republicans to rip up their electoral map and draw new district lines, targeting five Democratic U.S. House incumbents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats suffered a major blow last week when the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority eviscerated a key provision \u200bof the Voting Rights Act, opening the door for Republican-led Southern states to dismantle Democratic-held majority-Black and majority-Latino districts. Black and Latino voters tend to support Democratic candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Already, Republican-controlled states such as Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina have taken steps toward \u200cdrawing new maps \u2060in time for the November elections, with some even postponing party primary elections to give lawmakers time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Virginia’s map now invalidated, Republicans could eventually end up with an advantage in 10 House seats or more nationwide, pending the outcome of the efforts in those Southern states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republicans can afford to lose only two net seats in November’s elections to maintain control of the U.S. House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Virginia voters had approved the Democratic-backed map in an April 21 special election by a 51.7% to 48.3% margin, according to an Associated Press tally. The referendum was the final step in a complicated legislative maneuver to sidestep a constitutional amendment, passed by voters in 2020, that had put redistricting in the hands of a bipartisan \u200bcommission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under Virginia state law, two consecutive legislatures – with a \u200bstate election in between – must approve a proposed constitutional \u2060amendment before it can be put to a vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Democratic legislative majority approved the amendment in October, days before the November state election. Democrats, who gained additional legislative seats in that vote, then passed the amendment for a second time in January and scheduled the referendum for April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republicans filed multiple lawsuits, claiming in part that there was no intervening election \u200bsince early voting had already started when the amendment was first passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Friday’s decision, the Virginia Supreme Court agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The General Assembly voted for the first time to propose \u200bthe constitutional amendment to the \u2060electorate on October 31, 2025,” the majority wrote. “By that date, over 1.3 million votes had been cast in the general election, which was approximately 40% of the total vote for that election cycle.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In dissent, Chief Justice Cleo Powell, joined by two other justices, wrote that the court had improperly stretched the meaning of the word “election” to include weeks of early voting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is in direct conflict with how both Virginia and federal law define an election,” Powell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kondik said if Democrats had begun the process of \u2060trying to redraw \u200bcongressional maps sooner, they might have prevailed in court against the Republican legal challenge, which was led by the Republican National Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDemocrats just learned \u200bthat when you try to rig elections, you lose,\u201d said Joe Gruters, the RNC chairman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Underscoring the stakes of the Virginia redistricting fight, Democratic and Republican-affiliated groups spent close to $100 million on the referendum campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n