Virginia could swing again: voters to decide whether to redistrict in favor of Democrats

Purple state that recently elected Democratic governor will now choose whether to replace existing voting maps Nearly three months to the day after his term as Virginia’s governor ended, Republican Glenn Youngkin stood in an unshaded corner of an office parking lot to warn dozens of conservative activists that they were in the midst of “the most important election” in the commonwealth’s 237-year history. The question before the voters casting ballots at an early voting precinct a few yards away in the city of Leesburg ahead of Tuesday’s special election was whether to temporarily set aside Virginia’s congressional maps intended to advantage neither party and replace them with a new version that could allow Democrats to win all but one seat in the 11-member delegation in the November midterm elections. “They want to override the voice of Virginia and push us into what is now being called the most partisan, most gerrymandered map in America, worse than Illinois, worse than California,” Youngkin warned. Left unmentioned by the former governor was the role of Donald Trump, who instigated the nationwide redistricting war last year in an effort to preserve Republican control of Congress