Democrats hope that capturing Virginia will give them the leverage they need to win back the House. But Tuesday’s special election is proving to be more competitive than they expected.
Many Democratic Party strategists and officials are preparing for a closeout election due to concerns about tight turnout and voter turnout in April’s unusual election.
“I always thought this campaign would be close (and) 24 hours a day, I believe that will be the case,” Democratic strategist Jared Leopold said Monday before the final day of voting.
“Anytime you’re on the ‘yes’ side in a referendum, you have the burden of proof,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what the referendum is, whenever you’re arguing for ‘yes’, the other side is arguing for the status quo.”
The party anticipated that its campaign to redraw the state’s congressional maps would be boosted by its huge war chest and the favorable political climate that helped elect Governor Abigail Spanberger last November. If approved, the aggressive partisan gerrymander could give Democrats a 10 to 1 seat advantage in Virginia, equivalent to a net gain of four House seats.
“I think it was always going to be close,” said another Democratic strategist, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. “One side is giving power to (President Donald Trump) and the other side is making reforms that a lot of them don’t really want to do. That’s your choice.”
The election will serve as a test of whether voters in the light blue state will overcome their long-standing dislike for partisan gerrymandering to counter the redistricting fight launched by Trump last year. With primary elections already underway, it is one of the last-ditch efforts by Democrats to recoup or even overcome the gains Republicans made in Texas and elsewhere before November.
If the ballot referendum fails, it would be an early embarrassment for Spanberger as governor and a high-profile loss for the Democratic Party that has denounced Trump’s efforts to exist as “election fraud” that undermines American democracy.
The campaigns have included heavy national participation from former President Barack Obama and others, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has campaigned on behalf of Virginians for fair elections, leading the “Yes” effort. On the Republican side, former Governor Glenn Youngkin has been a vocal critic of the measure. And, after largely remaining on the sidelines, Trump made a late push for the “no” campaign on Monday night, joining Speaker Mike Johnson in a tele-rally where he sought to remind voters of the stakes.
“Tomorrow, your Commonwealth will have an incredible and, indeed, a momentous election in every sense of the word, which will have major consequences for our entire country this November,” Trump said. “This is truly the country’s election. The entire country is watching.”
Public polling suggests the race will depend on convincing voters of the need for new maps as well as motivating them to vote outside the cycle.
A Washington Post-Scar School voting The “Yes” campaign conducted last month shows a lead of about five percentage points among likely voters. The same survey found that Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to say they plan to vote in the special election or have already voted — 85 percent to 79 percent.
Many Democrats say they remain cautiously optimistic. Early voting has surged in recent days, particularly in Northern Virginia counties that lean blue. Overall, more than 1.3 million people voted early, According to the Virginia Public Access ProjectNot much less than the approximately 1.48 million who voted early in 2025, when Spanberger was running.
“I don’t think there’s any change in whether people like gerrymandering or not,” said John Bisognano, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “What I think is, if this is the only way we can keep the U.S. House of Representatives as a representative body for this nation, people are willing to do it.”
Virginia Democrats have also recently pressured the governor to campaign more aggressively for the “yes” effort and be more vocal about the stakes of the special election. She was on the campaign trail over the weekend urging voters to support the move.
Virginia-based Republican strategist Noah Jennings said, “Ultimately, I think this is more of a persuasion poll than a turnout poll, and so it’s a test to see if the ‘No’ campaign did an effective job of reaching voters.”
Complicating the Democrats’ pitch are two factors: The Virginia Supreme Court could strike down the redistricting effort even after the April election. And, in 2020, voters approved a constitutional amendment that established a bipartisan redistricting commission to limit partisan redrawing of maps.
That history has given the “No” campaign a powerful line of attack.
Conservatives have portrayed Spanberger as a flip-flopper on redistricting and criticized him for bowing to pressure from national Democrats. GOP-aligned groups have also sent misleading mailers or run ads using past comments opposing gerrymandering to suggest that both he and Obama are “no” votes on the ballot.
“Democrats have invested more than $60 million to rig Virginia’s congressional maps and yet the referendum is extremely close – as all sides acknowledge,” said Mike Young of Virginians for Fair Maps, a group that encourages voters to vote against redistricting. “It didn’t happen by accident or dumb luck.”
Jennings said that if the “No” effort wins on Tuesday, “it shows very clearly that there is a line you cannot cross.”
“Virginia has that big middle section that runs free, and I think those guys don’t like gamesmanship, and they don’t like it on either side,” he said.
The “Yes” campaign says it is unaffected.
“While Republicans have spent nearly $34 million to flood this race with MAGA misinformation, the Yes campaign is doing the work – knocking on more than 600,000 doors, communicating directly with Virginians, organizing in every corner of the state, and driving historic early voting,” said Dan Gottlieb, spokesperson for Virginia for Fair Elections.
The results of Tuesday’s election could reverberate beyond Virginia. After Trump pushed to redraw congressional boundaries in Texas last year, the fight has turned into a tit-for-tat fight, with each party trying to gain an advantage before November.
Last year in California, voters overwhelmingly approved new congressional districts, offsetting GOP gains in Texas. Florida could redraw its own maps as soon as next week, which could counter any Democratic gains in Virginia — if the ballot measure passes.
