Virginia Dems Lose Leftist Media Support Over Gerrymandering
Maybe, just maybe, Virginia Democrats have gone too far. Their lopsided congressional district map, designed to create safe districts for handpicked Dem candidates may simply be too brazen to get a nod from voters in April.
Looks like brazen election rigging is a bridge too far for the leftist fan club of the legacy media.
After all, when the The New York Times calls out your chicanery, you’re in trouble. When they join the chorus of Dem-loyal outlets like The Washington Post and Virginia Mercury, this amounts to a media coup.
Dem loyalists are alarmed.
In a Wednesday piece by Times political reporter Reid J. Epstein, An Architect of Virginia’s Redistricting Will Run for A New Seat Himself: Dan Helmer, A Democratic State Lawmaker Played A Key Role In Putting Redrawn Congressional Maps Before State Voters, the Times staffer spotlights the shameless partisan behavior of Helmer and other Dems.
Earlier this week, Helmer announced that he’s running of the new 7th Congressional District seat. You know, the one created just for him!
Helmer ran for Congress twice. Both times he lost in a Democrat primary. In 2018, he lost the party primary in Virginia’s 10th District to Jennifer Wexton, In November 2024, Helmer went down in defeat to then-state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam.
You know what they say: If the voters won’t pick you, pick the voters.
And that’s just what the Dems did with their gerrymandered maps, which aim to give them a 10-1 advantage in seats, replacing the proportional 6-5 advantage they hold now.
They are punishing their conservative friends and neighbors here in Virginia for a redistricting move in Texas. As if that makes sense.
Helmer intends to run in the newly created “lobster district” - drawn as a reward for him!
“The Seventh is one of four new districts likely to favor Democrats that would be created if Virginia voters pass the redistricting amendment on April 21. It begins at the Potomac River in Arlington and stretches west to the West Virginia border in one lobster claw and south past Richmond to rural Powhatan County, in the other. Vice President Kamala Harris won 54 percent of the vote there in 2024, and Joseph R. Biden Jr. took 56 percent in 2020.
Though Mr. Helmer helped to whip votes for the constitutional amendment last fall, he said he was not involved in drawing the proposed new maps, an assertion confirmed by several people involved. Still, there was a widespread belief among Virginia Democrats as the new maps were being debated that a new Democratic seat would be drawn for Mr. Helmer.
While this move has infuriated conservative voters, it’s also raised the ire of some fair-minded Dems and independents.
Here’s one, responding in the NYT to the story:
This makes me even happier to vote NO on mid-cycle redistricting. And I'm a Democrat. Proudly voted to take reapportionment away from our partisan state legislature and give it to a more bipartisan independent commission five years ago. Now these politicians are back at it again, except it's even worse now because it's mid-cycle. Count me a NO vote whenever this comes up on our ballots
The Times is late bashing Virginia Democrats. On February 7, the reliably leftist Washington Post published a scathing assessment of the gerrymandering plan and its mastermind, Louise Lucas.
In “Brass-Knuckled Hypocrisy In Virginia: Voters Will Get A Chance To Reject Anti-Democratic Gamesmanship In An April Referendum,” the editorial board took a hot poker to Portsmouth political boss Louise Lucas:
The most powerful Democrat in Richmond right now seems to be the opposite of principled: L. Louise Lucas is the crass 82-year-old president pro tempore of the state Senate. Representing the Hampton Roads area, she has been openly hostile for decades to the interests of Northern Virginia. More than anyone else, for example, it was Lucas who torpedoed plans to bring the NBA and NHL to Alexandria in 2024.
Lucas has been the driving force behind the 10 to 1 map, ignoring concerns that this overreach may backfire in a better year for Republicans. When Tim Kaine and Mark R. Warner, the state’s Democratic senators, suggested a less aggressive map that would net the party three new seats instead of four, Lucas responded on social media: “we do not need ‘coaching’ on redistricting coming from a cuck chair in the corner.”
Shoot, even the left-wing Virginia Mercury published an opinion piece bashing the Democrat power grab:
“Gerrymandering in Virginia is a Strategic Blunder for Democrats: 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.
Keena is a professor of political science at VCU and has studied gerrymandering.
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.
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).
And here’s the money shot:
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.
Will a trifecta of bad publicity from friendly publications be enough to defeat the April referendum?
It doesn’t help, that’s for sure.
Democrats are already pouring millions into a Vote Yes campaign and Hakeem Jeffries said over the weekend he was willing to blow “tens of millions” to buy votes in Virginia.
Will Republicans fight back? With the RNC joining a lawsuit yesterday that seeks the referendum to be declared unconstitutional there are signs of life.
