Democrats are asking voters to protect democracy by abandoning America’s most sacred of democratic principles: that voters get to choose their politicians, and that elections mean something, writes guest columnist Alex Keena.
Alex Keena | Virginia Mercury
Last year, President Donald Trump started a new “redistricting war” when he pressured Republicans in Texas to redraw their state’s congressional district map to help the party win five additional seats. In response, Democrats in California advanced a congressional map that stacks the deck in favor of Democrats, while several other states (both red and blue) have followed suit.
The latest battle of this redistricting war is now playing out in Virginia, where Democrats have advanced a measure that would temporarily undo the anti-gerrymandering reforms approved by voters in 2020 and replace the unbiased map with an extreme Democratic gerrymander. Although the measure is currently held up in court, the new maps are expected to give Democrats a 10-1 advantage.
As an expert on redistricting who has co-authored two academic books on gerrymandering, I see this as a colossal mistake for Democrats that could backfire in unexpected ways.
In the popular discourse, the issue of Democratic gerrymandering has been framed as an issue of fairness.
It is true that gerrymandering is profoundly unfair to voters from the minority party and gives politicians in the majority party the power to carve up our communities to suit their personal and political agendas (this is happening right now in Richmond).
It is also true that Republicans are largely responsible for violating the Democratic norms that prevented aggressive gerrymandering in the past. Since the Republicans aggressively gerrymandered after 2010, and the conservative Supreme Court refused to intervene, the “rules” have changed.
However, this misses a larger point: Extreme gerrymandering in Virginia puts Democrats in grave danger.
In order to give Democrats a 10-1 advantage, mapmakers must pack Republicans into one “safe” districts and “crack” Republican support across the remaining districts to create Democratic majorities.
Yet because Democratic voters tend to live near urban areas – for example, along the I-95 corridor in Northern and Central Virginia, and in the Hampton Roads region – this is only possible by drawing irregularly shaped districts that unite urban Democratic voters with “mixed” suburban and red-leaning rural areas. How these communities will vote in future elections and in what numbers is very difficult to predict and is far from certain.
Under a “Blue Wave” (e.g. in 2026), Democrats would very likely do well under this type of gerrymander. However, once the pendulum swings toward the Republicans (and it always does, eventually), Democrats can expect these “Democratic” districts to fall like dominos. What was intended as a pro-Democratic gerrymander could wind up helping Republicans win a lopsided majority and give them control of the U.S. House (for example, in 2028 or 2030).
Perhaps even worse for the party, replacing the current map with a gerrymandered map would disrupt years of progress that Democratic challengers have made in districts currently held by Republican incumbents.
For example, Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s performance in District 1 in the gubernatorial race last year suggests that Republican incumbent Rob Wittman is extremely vulnerable. Several viable Democratic candidates, such as Salaam Bhatti and Shannon Taylor, have already begun primary campaigns. Or consider Democrat Eugene Vindman, who impressively won in District 7 in 2024, which leans Republican. New maps would undo all of this work, disrupt the community building efforts, and further expose Democrats in subsequent election cycles.
For these very same reasons, Republican gerrymandering poses extraordinary opportunities for Democrats to make inroads this fall without resorting to the undemocratic tactics that Republicans have relied on to stay in power.
There is a reason that Texas Republicans were not anxious to adopt Trump’s map. Their 2021 gerrymander achieved a delicate balance between maximum partisan advantage and protecting GOP incumbents. The 2025 gerrymander assumes that the GOP will net five additional seats, but this assumption rests on data from the 2024 election, when Trump over-performed with Latinos. Under a “Blue Wave”, the new map could spell disaster for the GOP.
In short, Democrats are asking voters to protect democracy by abandoning America’s most sacred of democratic principles: that voters get to choose their politicians, and that elections mean something. This is wrong because it is unfair, but it is also strategically foolish and short-sighted. In Virginia, it could wind up helping Republicans stay in power and embolden Trump in his efforts to “nationalize” voting and promote authoritarianism.