Virginia, Indiana join national fight over Trump’s redistricting campaign

Governor Glenn Youngkin called Democrats’ redistricting push ‘a desperate power grab’ ahead of November’s election. (EPA Images pic)
LOS ANGELES: Democratic leaders convened a special session of the Virginia legislature on Monday to consider redrawing congressional electoral maps in their party’s favour, while Indiana’s Republican governor summoned lawmakers to weigh a similar plan next week at the behest of President Donald Trump.
Virginia and Indiana were poised to become the latest battlegrounds in a mid-decade redistricting war, instigated by Trump, that could play a pivotal role in the outcome of next year’s congressional elections.
Redistricting, the periodic reshaping of political boundaries dividing legislative seats, traditionally is conducted just once a decade following the US Census to account for population shifts.
The widening coast-to-coast redistricting scramble, set off by Trump pushing for Texas to redraw its maps this year, is unprecedented in modern US politics.
Republicans, including Trump, openly acknowledge that redrawn maps enacted in recent months in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina are aimed at preserving their party’s slim US House of Representatives majority in the hotly contested 2026 midterm races.
Democrats have fought back by advancing redistricting initiatives of their own, starting in California, where a plan to redraw congressional boundaries to their party’s advantage was passed by the legislature in August and will be decided by voters in a special election next week.
Abruptly entering the redistricting fray on Monday in the midst of its gubernatorial race was Virginia, which has a Republican governor and a Democratic-controlled legislature. Democrats currently hold six of Virginia’s 11 seats in the US House.
The opening round in Virginia’s statehouse was mostly procedural, with Democrats in the House of Delegates pushing through legislative ground rules required for consideration of a state constitutional amendment to the redistricting process.
The resolution passed on a party-line vote of 50-42, and the House was swiftly adjourned until Wednesday, when more substantive action is expected to commence.
Democrats in Virginia have said little publicly about their precise intentions, and it was not clear when the state Senate might act.
“Virginia’s decision to convene and preserve the right to consider a new map in 2026 is critical to the fight to ensure voters have fair representation,” Courtney Rice, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement last week.
In a radio interview on Friday, governor Glenn Youngkin, a term-limited Republican whose successor will be determined by voters on Nov 4, called Democrats’ steps toward redistricting “a desperate power grab”.
Under Virginia law, the governor plays no role in amending the state constitution.
In Indiana, Republican governor Mike Braun called a special legislative session for Nov 3 to weigh redistricting proposals in his state, bowing to a White House pressure campaign.
Braun said he was acting to protect Indiana “from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair.”
The Democratic leader in the state Senate, Shelli Yoder, responded in a statement, “This is not democracy. This is desperation.”
Fights over handful of seats
No political map alterations have been specifically proposed in Virginia. But local news media reports have said Democrats would stand to gain at least two additional US House seats.
California’s redistricting plan, which comes before voters in a special ballot on Nov 4, is designed to flip five Republican seats to the Democrats’ column.
The redrawn Texas map could yield as many as five more Republican seats. The party is also seeking to gain one additional seat each in Missouri and North Carolina. Other Republican states, including Ohio, Kansas and Florida, are either planning or considering similar moves.
Democrats’ redistricting ambitions in Virginia face several hurdles that must be surmounted in short order.
Virginia law requires a majority of both houses of the General Assembly to vote in two consecutive sessions – this year and next – to alter the state constitution, then submit the plan to voters for approval in a referendum early next year.
While Democrats control both the state’s Senate and House of Delegates, Virginia is eight days away from elections on Nov 4 for governor and all 100 legislators in the lower house, leaving little time for lawmakers to act on redistricting in this session.
In Indiana, by contrast, lawmakers have the authority to alter the existing map, though some Republicans have expressed scepticism about doing so. Republicans now control seven of the state’s nine US House seats.
Signalling the next potential flashpoint in skirmishes over political boundaries, the Kansas Senate president announced he has collected enough signatures to call for a special session on redistricting. The House has not yet done so.