Virginians voted in favor of Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Democrats’ effort to completely overhaul the commonwealth’s congressional map to favor Democrats, the Associated Press reported Tuesday evening. The Associated Press called the race in favor of “yes” at 8:50pm eastern time with an estimated 81% of the votes counted. At the time of the call, 50.3% voted in favor of the redistricting effort, while 49.7% voted against. The AP called “yes” despite the slim margin because the outstanding ballots were in areas breaking hard for “yes.” While 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans currently represent Virginia in Washington, the new Virginia congressional map will likely give Democrats a 10-1 advantage after the midterms. Democrats will hold this massive advantage despite the fact that Virginia went blue by less than 6% in the 2024 presidential election and voted for Spanberger by 15 points in the 2025 gubernatorial election. The new congressional map is expected to result in 10 Democrats and one Republican by stretching congressional districts in Northern Virginia and areas of Charlottesville deep into southern and eastern portions of the state that are rural and reliably red. Even prior to Tuesday night’s election result, voters in Virginia expressed concern with the language on the ballot. The Virginia Supreme Court decided to wait until after the election to hear the case over whether the language was fair. Notably, this is the same court that decided the current map was a fair one to begin with. A recent poll conducted by Heritage Action found that nearly 50% of voters were confused by the term “restore fairness.” VIRGINIA: Language like “restore fairness” is leading language and is there to intentionally mislead voters. The truth is our 6-5 map is fair and an accurate representation of our purple state.If this amendment passes Virginians will lose their representation in Washington. pic.twitter.com/jXtx4gYMOm— Virginia Grace McKinnon (@virginiagmck) April 21, 2026 “It’s misleading,” Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., told The Daily Signal. “That’s why I’m a plaintiff in a lawsuit to challenge the wording of the ballot.” “We’re optimistic that even the blindest of advocates for justice can see that this wording of this question is unconstitutional,” Cline added. VIRGINIA SCOOP: @Heritage_Action is out with a new poll that shows 70% of Virginia Democrats oppose gerrymandering redistricting efforts happening now!“It’s very possible that this can be defeated.” @StefaniBuhajla told @DailySignal pic.twitter.com/RnTJu2a8Bg— Virginia Grace McKinnon (@virginiagmck) March 25, 2026 Now that the map has passed, the Virginia Supreme Court is expected to take cases challenging the map. The Virginia redistricting effort is a blow to Republicans seeking to hold their slim House majority. The most recent majority is 217-213, as of Tuesday, when Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., resigned. Unsurprisingly, Democrats across the country poured resources into the state, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who poured at least $70 million into the race from his super PAC, the House Majority PAC. Nevertheless, Florida could decide to redistrict in the coming weeks to claw back the potential losses in Virginia. ? IT'S OFFICIAL: Now, FLORIDA has a chance to redistrict exactly 1 week from tonight after Virginia approved their ridiculous 10D-1R map for CongressThe special session convenes in 7 days.Rise to the occasion, Florida Reps and Senators!Send a map to Gov. Ron DeSantis that… https://t.co/PU4GNQRFRm pic.twitter.com/pKTHydPHzN— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 22, 2026 The post Virginia Democrats’ Redistricting Gamble Succeeds in Special Election appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has raised money for decades claiming to dismantle white supremacy, but it funneled millions of dollars to white nationalist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, according to a federal indictment handed down Tuesday. The SPLC claims it was funding informants inside the extremist groups. While the SPLC “purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a press conference that “the SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose.” Blanche highlighted one example from the indictment, where the SPLC paid a member of the leadership group that planned the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. ?READ ITToday, @DAGToddBlanche & @FBIDirectorKash announced an 11-count indictment against the SPLC.While SPLC raises money by claiming to oppose white supremacy, the indictment accuses the SPLC of paying the Ku Klux Klan?https://t.co/Fl8GtFga9A?1/12 pic.twitter.com/b567v12DAD— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 21, 2026 “The Southern Poverty Law Center themselves advertise to raise money to dismantle violent extremist groups … however, the SPLC used the money they raised from their donor network to actually pay the leadership of these very groups,” FBI Director Kash Patel explained at the press conference. The indictment charges the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, aiming to “obtain money via donations through materially false representations and omissions about what the donated funds would be used for.” It charges the SPLC with four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank by creating accounts for fictitious entities to funnel the money. Finally, it charges the SPLC with one count of conspiracy to commit concealment of money laundering. The Justice Department’s indictment claims that the SPLC directed more than $1 million to an affiliate of the National Alliance; more than $300,000 to an affiliate of the Aryan Nations; more than $270,000 to a member of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017; more than $140,000 to the former chairman of the National Alliance; more than $73,000 to former Ku Klux Klan members; and more than $19,000 to the president of American Front. ?INDICTEDHere's @DAGToddBlanche laying out the payments SPLC allegedly made to white supremacist groups pic.twitter.com/qSm85M774N— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 21, 2026 Blanche said the federal investigation began years ago, and the Biden administration shut it down. The Daily Signal previously reported that members of the Biden administration worked closely with the SPLC. Patel said the FBI’s “investigation revealed that funds were used to facilitate the commission of further state and federal offenses, totaling over $3 million.” He said the SPLC allegedly engaged in a “widespread, decade-long multimillion-dollar fraud” and proceeded to “hide their criminal activity from our financial banking network.” A reporter noted that the FBI had previously worked with the SPLC, and asked whether the SPLC revealed to law enforcement that it was funding these entities. Patel said he did not find it surprising that the SPLC “never told anybody that they were paying off the Ku Klux Klan.” Bryan Fair, interim president and CEO of the SPLC, revealed the federal investigation Tuesday morning, and admitted that the SPLC had paid informants in white nationalist groups. Fair added that the use of paid informants was “necessary” because of threats the SPLC faced. Fair noted that in 1983, members of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan firebombed the SPLC’s offices, and he claimed staff have faced “countless credible threats” since. “For decades, we engaged in unprecedented litigation to dismantle the Klan and other hate groups,” he said. “In light of that work, we sought to protect the safety of our staff and the public. We frequently shared what we learned from informants with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI. We did not, however, share our use of informants broadly with anyone, to protect the identity and safety of the informants and their families.” The SPLC built its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy. Now, the group publishes a “hate map” including mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters. The SPLC did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. This is a breaking news story and may be updated. The post The SPLC Was Paying the Ku Klux Klan, DOJ Indictment Claims appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL — Miguel Granda, a longtime Republican staffer and “Christian conservative whose ideas are rooted in his Christians values,” told The Daily Signal he has filed his candidacy for Florida House District 117 on Tuesday. Granda, 34, told The Daily Signal that his experience as a legislative aide to Florida Rep. David Borrero has given him a “first?hand understanding of the challenges facing Miami?Dade and the legislative process needed to address them.” “Floridians can trust me because I’ve already been doing the work,” Granda said. Since 2020, Granda has worked for the Trump?endorsed conservative lawmaker as Borrero advanced a slate of conservative priorities. Granda also serves as president of the Miami?Dade Young Republicans. In his interview with The Daily Signal, Granda added that he plans to bring “real?world, legislative, and legal experience that this district needs.” During Granda’s tenure in Borrero’s office, the lawmaker introduced legislation requiring public schools to teach students about the dangers of communism. The measure was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis and later approved by the Florida State Board of Education. More recently, Borrero told The Daily Signal in March that he is considering introducing a resolution condemning the Democratic Socialists of America and seeking to strip the group of its tax?exempt status after members planned a trip to Cuba and expressed support for the communist regime. “I promise the community one thing: No one will work harder for them than me,” Granda said. Granda described his decision to run for office as a major milestone in a life he said was transformed by “God’s grace and purpose.” “My story is proof that a person’s worst chapter is not their final one,” he said. Granda said he hopes to carry that message throughout his campaign and, if elected, while in office. “I want every young person in South Florida who has made mistakes, every family that is struggling, and every community that has been written off to see themselves in this campaign and know that there is a future waiting for them,” Granda said. “With God’s grace, I will bring that same relentless determination to every family, every business, and every neighbor in District 117.” The post EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Florida Insider Looks to Flip Democrat Seat in Florida House appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal.   We are now entering the 50th or 52nd day, somewhere in that period of the ongoing war with Iran. We’re in the middle of negotiations. We have a blockade on Iranian shipping going in and out, Iranian-bound shipping going in or out of Iran, as well as the Iranians are claiming that they too are trying to stop shipping that is pro-western or related to the United States.  We don’t really know who we are dealing with. We don’t know whether it’s the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or the Army or the elected—what’s left of the elected government or the theocrats themselves. They’re all vying for power. They’re all arguing with each other, so it’s a very complicated situation in Iran, even though they’re prostrate. They don’t have any military or economic capability left. And yet they remain defiant.  Now, why do they remain defiant when the next cycle of this war could knock out their bridges, their electrical power, and destroy what’s left of their military, and we could do it very easily. They believe that Donald Trump is on a tightrope, that he has certain constraints, prohibitions that are self-imposed upon him, through political calculus or other outside criteria that will force him to stop his neutering of Iran. And it will allow them, at some point, to rearm?  What are those? Well, first of all, they are watching the midterm elections very carefully, and they’re looking at the polls and they feel that the Democratic Party is a great ally, the leftists, especially in it, the hard left. They look at Tim Walz, the former failed presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, he was in Spain this week at an international Socialist conference. Spain, remember, was very anti-American, has refused American use of its NATO base and airspace. And what did he say? He said that our war effort, now he’s talking about our soldiers at war against Iran during periods of intense combat. He is saying that they were fascists. That the whole idea was fascists. And when Iran hears that, they think, well, if a former vice presidential nominee of the United States is siding with us, then maybe Trump will relent.  There’s also edgy Republicans. They want to, of course, they have to be reelected, carry out the MAGA agenda. Some of them are looking at their internal polls and saying, the price of gas is hurting us. We’re not paying attention to the economy. We have under seven months before the midterms. At some point, Mr. President, you gotta pivot. Then there’s the Democrats. They’ve threatened the War Powers Act, where at day 50. And at 60 days, 60 to 90, they can cut off funds. Now they don’t have the votes in the House to do ,that or the Senate, but they feel there’s enough renegade Republicans worried about their own seats that they might get some defections. Something to worry about.  By the way, Barack Obama didn’t worry about it at all. He bombed Libya for seven months without even consulting Congress. He had a Democratic Congress and he thought that whatever he did would be rubber-stamped. And he was absolutely correct.  The Europeans, they’re kind of like a carrion force. They look at this, they didn’t do anything to help. They did a lot of things to hamper our efforts on Iran. But they feel that the heavy lifting is over and they might just, sort of, creep back with an armada, one or two ships per country, 20 or 30 countries. And then they can say they opened the strait. Get back in the good graces of the United States and patrol this crucial conduit that they export into and import oil out of. So they’re trying to tell Trump, stop the kinetic action. Let us in. Please, please.  At home, he’s got, in addition to the Republicans who are worried about their, and with good reason, their careers. He has got the fanatic Left. He’s also got a kind of a fanatic Right. This week, Tucker had a guest on and they were quoting the Book of Daniel from the Bible about the antichrist, and the argument, thinly veiled, was that Donald Trump and the Iranian war fit the prophecies and the narrative of Daniel, who was talking about a king, i.e., the antichrist, who would have success in the Middle East, but then, of course, fail and meet his fate. It was almost a wish as much as a prophecy.  Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a fanatic Trump supporter, without power, now. And she’s out of Congress. But she’s now peddling the conspiracy theory that Trump really, really wasn’t the target of a real assassin in Butler, Pennsylvania. That he may have helped stage the incident. That’s really looney.  Of course, Candace Owens is now regretting her, not just regretting her vote for Trump, but arguing that he’s a very pernicious, almost a satanic figure. This is really unusual that somebody who was fanatically pro-Trump, as these three were and were habitues at Mar-a-Lago, all of a sudden, would not just say, well, I agree with him with 80% of his agenda. But the 20% I can’t go along with. But they’ve turned, not just against him, but many of their positions and much of their rhetoric is not that much different than the hard Left today. We don’t know where they’re going to end up, but they’re on a trajectory to join the Never Trumpers at The Bulwark, perhaps.  And then there’s also worry about the weapons shortage. We had not invested heavily enough in quantity. We have good quality of weapons, the best in the world. But we don’t have enough Tomahawk missiles. We don’t have enough Patriot missiles. And we need to have our stocks replenished and have them replenished quickly. And if this war were to go on another three or four weeks, we would not be able to achieve the level of competency that we had in the first four weeks, simply because we would be hoarding and worried about weapons that would be short.  Put this all together and explains a couple things that are otherwise inexplicable. Why, after Iran has been militarily destroyed, it has a restive population that at almost any minute that it feels they can survive, they will rebel. And economically it was already in a period of depression, and now it’s losing all of its revenue and it’s just about ready to implode. Why, with all this, does Iran keep saying that it’s winning, and why do people put pressure on Donald Trump as if he’s losing?  And the answer is, the war is not necessarily about just military affairs alone. It’s politics. And Trump’s enemies at home and abroad feel that if they can drag it out. And if Donald Trump, for a variety of reasons, can’t turn the tactical victory to long-term strategic success, he will be vulnerable. And all of his economic progress that he’s made so far, which is pretty impressive, the idea that he ended illegal immigration, the ability to flip Venezuela from an arch enemy into a successful state without any losses. All of that will be endangered. And he will be neutered in the midterm elections.  And so therefore, Donald Trump is winning on the battlefield, but he has to keep going somehow and nullify all of these centrifugal forces around him, that are hoping for his defeat. And yet in the end, only he can win the war. If he continues a little bit longer, a week or two, Iran will be bankrupt. And when it’s bankrupt, it will not have enough food, not have enough fuel, not have enough key consumer commodities, and the people will be very restive.  But the question now that we’re looking at, will the pressures that surround him in a 360-degree fashion, force Trump to relent when he’s inside of a spectacular and historic victory? We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Winning the War, Fighting the Swamp: Trump’s Toughest Battle Isn’t Iran appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he is extending the ceasefire with Iran after earlier pledging to maintain the original Wednesday night deadline for a peace agreement. “Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other,” he said. Since April 13, the United States has maintained a blockade of vessels leaving Iranian ports through the Strait of Hormuz. Before the extension, Iran had until Wednesday night to agree to a peace deal. When asked by CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday morning if he would extend the ceasefire to allow time for peace talks, Trump said, “Well, I don’t want to do that.” Vice President JD Vance was expected to fly to Pakistan Tuesday for a second round of negotiations with Iran, but the trip was reportedly delayed on Tuesday. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, joined Vance in a delegation to Islamabad on April 11, but the negotiations did not result in a deal. When asked Tuesday morning what would happen if Iran wouldn’t make a deal, Trump said, “I expect to be bombing because I think that’s a better attitude to go in with.” This story is developing and may be updated. The post Trump Announces Extension of Ceasefire With Iran appeared first on The Daily Signal.