In 2025, the Republican Party of Virginia was annihilated at the ballot box. Then-Governor Glenn Youngkin had decent job approval numbers, but in recent years, Virginia has taken on a tint that seems more blue than purple. Still, the scale of the destruction was striking. Youngkin’s chosen successor, then-Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earl-Sears, was defeated by over 15 percentage points by now-Governor Abigail Spanberger. Downballot, Democrats carved a bloody swathe through the GOP caucus in the House of Delegates, expanding their 51 to 49-seat majority to a 64 to 36-seat one. Even Jason Miyares, the uncontroversial Republican attorney general who ran a well-funded, competent campaign, was defeated by over 6 percentage points by child murder enthusiast Jay Jones. (RELATED: Virginia Attorney General Race May Show Proof of the Charlie Kirk Effect) The scale of the victory has emboldened Democrats to go on a legislative rampage. While “affordability” was the rallying cry during the campaign, the party has moved aggressively to enact sweeping gun control measures and put forward several potential amendments to the Virginia Constitution. (RELATED: The Abigail Spanberger Bait-and-Switch) The one with the largest national implications, though, is HJ4, which would amend the Virginia Constitution to abolish the commonwealth’s independent redistricting commission and allow Democrats to redraw congressional districts to favor their party. Passed by both chambers of the Virginia legislature and signed by Spanberger on Feb. 6, 2026, the amendment now must be approved by Virginia voters to take effect. (RELATED: Californicating Virginia: Democrats’ Misleading Appeal to ‘Fairness’) But now, Virginia Democrats aren’t so certain about the amendment’s chances, even though the campaign to approve it has outraised the campaign to reject it by a 54-to-1 margin. NBC News reported on March 21 that “some Virginia Democrats are growing uneasy” about the amendment’s “prospects for passage.” According to them, Democratic Virginia Rep. Don Beyer conceded that “[i]t’s not a done deal by any means.” University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato concurred, saying “[t]his is not a slam dunk. This is not over before it begins.” Why? To start, “[s]ome supporters of the Virginia referendum acknowledge the challenge of convincing voters to back a gerrymandered map,” per NBC. To call it a gerrymandered map is something of an understatement. According to an analysis by Virginia political commentator Chaz Nuttycombe, the proposed map would be the most severe gerrymander in the whole country. The proposed districts would flip as many as 4 of Virginia’s 5 Republican held seats blue, according to experts. (RELATED: Redistricting Betrayal in Virginia) Another cause for concern is turnout. Though election day is one month out, early voting has already begun. A consistent pattern thus far is that more Republican areas are voting early at significantly higher rates than Democratic localities. Virginia Mercury reported that “[i]n some GOP strongholds, between 10 and 15 percent of registered voters have already cast ballots, outpacing many Democratic-leaning areas, particularly in Northern Virginia.” There are other signs Republicans have been activated: in a recent special election in Virginia Beach, Republican Andrew Rice won by a 19 percentage point margin. In that same seat in 2024, Republican President Donald Trump defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris with just a 15-point margin, and Earle-Sears only won it 53 percent to 47 percent over Spanberger last year. This comes as Republicans have consistently underperformed in special elections in other states. Polling of the amendment is sparse, but one survey by Christopher Newport University found that voters leaned towards approving the amendment, 51 percent to 43 percent. The poll was taken from Jan. 13-20, 2026, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent. A source familiar with the situation and the CNU poll observed that, according to the poll, “63 percent of Virginians say they like the current method of redistricting — nearly identical to the 65 percent of voters who supported it in 2020. But the same poll found that 51 percent of respondents support the redistricting amendment. That number includes 34 percent of self-identified Republicans.” The source told The American Spectator that “[t]he only logical explanation for this result is that more than a third of GOP voters — and likely many Democrat and Independent voters as well — are unaware of what the amendment actually does.” The Democratic Party of Virginia did not respond to a request for comment on the referendum. Elsewhere, Democrats have argued that they are responding to a Republican gerrymandering onslaught begun by Texas at Trump’s instigation. For example, Beyer told NBC News that “[w]e have to effectively make the case that even though this seems unfair in Virginia, it’s totally fair for America, for those of us who believe that taking back the House is the most significant thing we can do to stop Donald Trump.” A spokesman for the Republican Party of Virginia told The American Spectator in a statement that “[i]n 2020, Virginia voters went to the polls and overwhelmingly decided to take politicians out of the business of redistricting by creating a nonpartisan redistricting commission. Now, Virginia Democrats are using millions of dollars in out-of-state liberal Dark Money to try to abolish the commission and rig our fair maps to give themselves a 10-1 advantage. Even worse, they are attempting to intentionally deceive voters into approving a partisan power grab that would create the most extreme gerrymander anywhere in the country. Voters don’t want this, and when they learn the truth they will soundly reject this dishonest and underhanded scheme at the ballot box.” Republicans have also countered that Democrats had already been gerrymandering prior to Texas taking any action. For example, Illinois Democrats redistricted their state in 2021 to have only three Republican districts out of 17 total, despite Trump winning over 40 percent and over 43 percent of the vote in 2020 and 2024, respectively. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, defended his state’s maps, telling NBC News that “[w]e held public hearings, legislative hearings. People attended them. They spoke out. There was a map that was put out. There were actually changes made to the map. And a map was passed, and it was done at the end of the census, the decennial census. So that’s how it’s done in this country.” Another Democratic state to redraw its congressional districts is California. Under California’s old congressional map that was drawn by an independent commission, in 2024, Trump would have only carried 11 out of 52 districts, just 21 percent, despite winning 38 percent of the vote statewide. Under the new map approved by Proposition 50, an amendment to the California constitution allowing the override of the state’s redistricting commission, he would have carried just 5. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt the use of California’s new map, despite a lawsuit from state Republicans. A lawsuit was filed against the proposed constitutional amendment in Virginia, alleging that it was not properly approved. Tazewell County circuit court judge Jack Hurley Jr. agreed, finding that because the amendment was approved by the state legislature while early voting in the 2025 elections was taking place, it had not been approved prior to the election as required by the state constitution. The Virginia Supreme Court reversed that decision and allowed voting to go forward. The court, however, reserved the right to rule on the constitutionality of the amendment later in the event that it was approved by Virginians. READ MORE from Stephan Kapustka: Did Illinois Dems Just Rebuke Wokeness? Everything’s Bigger in Texas, Including Primary Battles