On May 8, 2026, the Supreme Court of Virginia voted 4-3 to strike down the voter-approved redistricting referendum that Democrats had used to authorize a mid-decade congressional map. The court's reasoning was procedural: Virginia's 'general election' includes the early voting period, not just Election Day. Democrats had taken the first vote on the referendum on October 31, 2025, the day before Election Day — but with 40% of ballots already cast in the early voting period, the court ruled it was too late.
The practical effect: Virginia's current congressional map, which gives Democrats a 6-5 advantage, will remain in place through the 2026 midterm election and the rest of the decade. The new map Democrats had drawn would have shifted the delegation to as much as 10-1 favoring Democrats. The 4-seat swing Democrats believed they had won in the April 21 referendum is gone.
The ruling lands in the middle of the post-Callais Republican mid-decade gerrymandering push and effectively erases the one major Democratic counter-move. The current redistricting arms race tally: Texas (+5 R), North Carolina (+1 R), Missouri (+1 R), Ohio (+2 R), Florida (+4 R, mid-decade signed by DeSantis May 4), Alabama (eliminating 2 majority-Black seats, special session ongoing), Louisiana (primary suspended pending new map under Callais) — with Virginia's offsetting +4 D now removed by court action.
Trump celebrated on Truth Social, calling the ruling a 'huge win' over a 'horrible gerrymander' — the same language he applied to the Democratic effort that he had also called 'RIGGED' on April 22 when the referendum first passed. The Republican framing thus held both that the referendum result was illegitimate (RIGGED) and that the court's reversal of it was a victory over a horrible gerrymander. Both framings rest on the premise that Republican map-drawing is legitimate election administration and Democratic map-drawing is fraud.
The ruling also lands two days after the FBI raided the Portsmouth office of Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-VA), the 82-year-old Senate President Pro Tempore who was the legislative architect of the referendum. The conjunction — referendum vote (April 21), Trump 'RIGGED' post (April 22), FBI raid on Lucas (May 6), Virginia Supreme Court 4-3 reversal (May 8) — is the documented record of what happened to the one major Democratic redistricting victory in this cycle.