Bryer Haywood, Staff Writer
The campaign for mid-decade redistricting in Richmond has resulted in a tumultuous election cycle, featuring misleading mailers — with millions of dollars from outside Virginia being poured into promoting, or decrying, the Democratic proposal.
If passed on April 21, the referendum would amend the state’s constitution and give the General Assembly the authority to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts to favor Democrats by up to a 10-1 margin ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The current law that allows the Virginia Redistricting Commission to redraw the districts once every decade would remain in effect, regardless if the referendum passes.
The special election has presented some challenges for the Richmond registrar’s office. David Levine, director of Elections and General Registrar for the City of Richmond, explained that the proposed amendment included a total sum of $5 million to be split between all localities in the state for election management.
The Richmond Office of Elections requested additional funding but has not received it. The June primary elections in Virginia had to be moved to August to accommodate for the special election. Levine defended the pace of preparations in the city amid these challenges.
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” Levine said.
The political advertising surrounding the referendum campaign has been wrought with controversy.
Several Virginians reported receiving misleading mailers encouraging them to vote “no,” one of which used Jim Crow imagery to encourage Black people to vote against the amendment.
The mailer was distributed by the Justice for Democracy Political Action Committee (PAC), led by former Republican Del. A.C. Cordoza. A key donor to that group is billionaire and Trump ally Peter Thiel, who made a $2.5 million contribution to the PAC via his organization, Per Aspera Policy Inc., according to the State Board of Elections.
Other misleading mailers included images of former President Barack Obama and Gov. Abigail Spanberger encouraging voters to oppose the referendum. Obama has made his support for the “yes” vote clear. He appeared in an advertisement supporting redistricting.
Out-of-state money has played a large role in the referendum campaign on both sides, but by far the largest sum has come through the pro-redistricting PAC, Virginians for Fair Elections.
Of the whopping $49.2 million in contributions so far, $29.3 million has been from House Majority Forward — a group associated with Democratic leadership in the U.S. House.
Virginians for Fair Maps, the similarly named group advocating for the “no” vote, has received $9 million, according to VPM, and is now releasing TV ads.
VCU political science professor Alexandra Reckendorf said she is not surprised at the way the campaign has progressed so far, but she is disappointed in the ways politicians have misinformed voters.
“These ads are legal because they do use actual quotes from President Obama and Gov. Spanberger, but they enter an ethically grey area because they do so in a way that completely skewers the context of the current redistricting amendment,” Reckendorf stated.
Reckendorf explained the tactic of misattributing information to one party when it should be attributed to another is known as “black propaganda.”
“If Virginians pass the ballot measure, Democrats in the state will likely have a disproportionately high degree of representation after the upcoming midterm elections, while Republicans will have the opposite,” Reckendorf said, noting the result would mirror Republican gerrymanders of Virginia in the past.
Reckendorf believes a “no” victory that leaves the maps as they are is not necessarily fairer, as it would maintain disproportionately high Republican representation on the national level thanks to redistricting efforts in other states. That national environment would then pass policies that still impact Virginians, even if other states facilitated them.
“In that sense, voting against the ballot measure doesn’t preserve fairness and representation unless you’re only defining it on the state level,” Reckendorf said.
Republican state Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Colonial Heights, similarly called for congressional Republicans to get involved in the “no” side at a recent “Stop the Gerrymander” rally in Midlothian on March 29.
“Look, we voted by two thirds as Virginians just 5 years ago that we’re not going to do gerrymandering anymore, and then the first chance they get when they have a trifecta is to come back and try to do gerrymandering,” Sturtevant said.
Sturtevant is pleased with early-vote turnout for the Republican side, which he believes independents and some Democrats are in tune with.
“This is an opportunity for the grassroots of Virginia to come together and say we’re not going to put up with this outside-of-Virginia money trying to come in and change our districts, try to have everybody represented by somebody in Fairfax, which is basically how they have redrawn the maps in a smoke-filled room,” Sturtevant said.
U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, said in February the national Democratic party is willing to do “whatever it takes” in Virginia to ensure the measure goes through, according to Reuters. He is one of several national Democrats that have involved themselves in the campaign.
Tadek Wieczorek and Heciel Nieves Bonilla contributed to this story.
Click here to read our full voter guide for Virginia’s redistricting referendum.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article has been updated to reflect that the proposed $5 million to support localities’ running of elections would be split between all localities in the state and does not imply $5 million would go to each one, and that additional funds were requested by Richmond’s Office of Elections in particular as opposed to the City of Richmond.