Virginia Supreme Court Rules Against Congressional Maps

Virginia supreme court strikes down new congressional maps in win for Republicans

Maps, recently approved by voters, would have helped Democrats gain up to four new seats in US House

✍ Chris Stein

🕒 08 May 2026 22:05

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Virginia’s supreme court on Friday ruled that the state cannot use new congressional maps approved by voters to help Democrats gain as many as four new seats in the US House of Representatives, handing Republicans a major win ahead of November’s midterm elections.

The high court found that the state’s general assembly did not follow the appropriate procedure in approving the maps, which voters then passed in a referendum last month.

“This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy,” the court wrote in its decision.

The ruling is a setback for Democrats’ efforts nationwide to counter gerrymanders approved by Republican-led states that may oust Democratic House representatives and boost their party’s chances of retaining the majority in the November midterm elections.

Texas, North Carolina and Missouri have enacted new maps that could gerrymander as many as seven Democrats out of their districts, while voters in Democratic-led California have approved new maps that could cost the GOP as many as five seats.

Following elections last November in which Virginia voters elected Democrat Abigail Spanberger as governor and boosted the party’s majority in the lower house of the general assembly, the state’s leaders went to work on their own partisan gerrymander, which was expected to remove four of the five Republicans in the state’s 11-member delegation.

Richard Hudson, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP campaign arm that funded the lawsuit against Virginia’s new maps, said: “Virginia Democrats’ corrupt scheme to rig the map has been crushed in court, restoring fairness and protecting the future of the Commonwealth.”

The decision in Virginia comes as Republican-led southern states scramble to redraw their congressional maps following a supreme court decision that weakened the Voting Rights Act and allowed lawmakers to break up majority-Black districts, whose voters tend to favor Democrats.

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, also last week signed into law a new congressional map that is expected to make it more difficult for four Democrats to win re-election.