Democrats scored a major victory Tuesday when Virginia voters passed a congressional redistricting referendum that could give the party a significant boost in the battle for the U.S. House of Representatives majority in this year’s midterm elections, The Associated Press reported at 8:49 p.m. ET Tuesday.

The ballot measure gives the Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature — rather than the state’s current nonpartisan commission — temporary redistricting power through the 2030 election. It could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge.

That would give the Democrats four additional left-leaning U.S. House seats ahead of the midterms as the party tries to win back control of the chamber from the GOP, which currently holds a razor-thin majority.

The standalone spring referendum capped months of political crossfire and court battles, sky-high early voting turnout and tons of national attention and money poured into the ballot box showdown.

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Even though a majority of voters gave the ballot initiative a thumbs-up, it still faces legal challenges.

The Supreme Court of Virginia allowed the referendum to move forward after a lower court struck it down. But legal challenges to the referendum remain unresolved and are still before Virginia’s highest court.

Republicans had railed against the Democrat-backed referendum.

“It’s the most partisan map in America,” former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin told supporters at his final campaign stop in northern Virginia on the eve of the election.

Pointing to the Democrats pushing new maps, Youngkin charged, “What they are doing is immoral.”

Teaming up with Youngkin to crisscross the state in leading the GOP opposition to the ballot initiative was former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, who told the crowd the Democrats’ map is one that “you draw when you’re drunk with power.”

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Speaking with Fox News Digital ahead of their final election eve rally, Miyares charged that “Democrats want to take away the voices of millions of Virginians and gerrymander the state.”

Youngkin, pointing to the duo’s relentless campaigning in recent weeks, said, “What we’re hearing over and over and over again is Virginians want fair maps. And what the yes vote represents are unfair maps.”

And the two Republicans reiterated their charge that the referendum was an “unconstitutional power grab” by Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger and the Democrats who control the state legislature.

As Youngkin and Miyares spoke in Leesburg, President Donald Trump took to the airwaves on a popular Virginia-based conservative talk show and later teamed up with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to urge voters to defeat the referendum.

Pointing to congressional Democrats, Trump warned that “if they get these additional seats, they’re going to be making changes at the federal level.”

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Democrats countered that the redrawing of the maps was a necessary step to balance partisan gerrymandering already implemented by Republicans in other states at Trump’s urging.

“By voting yes, you have the chance to do something important — not just for the commonwealth, but for our entire country,” former President Barack Obama said in a video released Friday on the eve of the final day of early voting. “By voting yes, you can push back against the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms.

“By voting yes, you can take a temporary step to level the playing field. And we’re counting on you.”

The video by Obama was the former president’s latest effort for the referendum. He had previously appeared in ads released by Virginians for Fair Elections, the Democrat-aligned group working to pass the ballot initiative.

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But Virginians for Fair Maps, the leading Republican-aligned group opposing redistricting, used past comments by Obama against political gerrymandering in its ads opposing the referendum.

“Because of things like political gerrymandering, our parties have moved further and further apart, and it’s harder and harder to find common ground,” the former president said in an old clip showcased in the spot.

Republicans pointed to comments from Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, a former Virginia governor and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, who acknowledged over the weekend in a “Fox News Sunday” interview that the new maps don’t represent Virginia’s partisan breakdown.

“Ninety percent of Virginians are not Democrats, that’s true,” Kaine said.

But Kaine added that “about 100% of Virginians want election results to be respected.”

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And Republicans took aim at Spanberger, who won November’s gubernatorial election by over 15 points as Democrats also captured the lieutenant governor and attorney general offices.

“Abigail Spanberger told everybody last summer that she had no interest in redistricting, and then the first bill she signs is a bill to enable the gerrymandering of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginians don’t like this and that’s why independents and a lot of Democrats are voting no too,” Youngkin told Fox News Digital.

Minutes later, Youngkin told the crowd that Spanberger is “trying to disenfranchise millions, millions of Virginians.”

Republicans trained their redistricting firepower on Spanberger since a poll two weeks ago by The Washington Post indicated that the new governor’s approval rating was barely above water, with the highest unfavorable rating for a new Virginia governor in two decades.

“She’s an unpopular governor with an unpopular agenda, and she lied to the voters,” Miyares charged.

And Miyares and other top Republicans accused Spanberger of pulling a “bait and switch.”

Spanberger, in an ad in support of the referendum, said she was backing the measure because “it’s directly in response to what other states decide to do and a president who says he’s quote entitled to more Republican seats before this year’s midterms. Our approach is different. It’s temporary. It preserves Virginia’s fair redistricting process into the future.”

Supporters of redistricting dramatically outraised and outspent groups opposed to the referendum, with Virginians for Fair Elections outraising Virginians for Fair Maps by a roughly three-to-one margin. Much of the funding raised by both sides came from so-called “dark money” from nonprofit public policy groups known as 501(c)(4) organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.

Despite the Democrats’ funding advantage, recent polling suggested support for the ballot initiative was only slightly ahead of opposition amid a surge in early voting, which ended on Saturday.

“They have outspent us three to one. They’ve raised over $70 million. And yet this is a close vote,” Youngkin said.

Pointing to the ads in support of the referendum, Youngkin said Virginians “aren’t believing the mistruths. They aren’t believing the lies on TV. They’re actually doing the work themselves and understanding that a no vote is for fair maps and a yes vote is for the most gerrymandered maps in America.”

And Miyares emphasized that Democrats “outspent us, but we have the truth.”

Virginia is the latest battleground in the high-stakes fight between Trump and the GOP and Democrats over congressional redistricting.

Aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterms, Trump last spring first floated the idea of rare, but not unheard of, mid-decade congressional redistricting.

The mission was simple: redraw congressional district maps in red states to pad the GOP’s fragile House majority to keep control of the chamber in the midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.

When asked by reporters last summer about his plan to add Republican-leaning House seats across the country, the president said, “Texas will be the biggest one. And that’ll be five.”

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas called a special session of the GOP-dominated state legislature to pass the new map.

But Democratic state lawmakers, who broke quorum for two weeks as they fled Texas in a bid to delay the passage of the redistricting bill, energized Democrats across the country.

Among those leading the fight against Trump’s redistricting was Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.

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California voters in November overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that temporarily sidetracked the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and returned the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democratic-dominated legislature.

That is expected to result in five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, which aimed to counter the move by Texas to redraw their maps.

The fight quickly spread beyond Texas and California.

Republican-controlled Missouri and Ohio and swing state North Carolina, where the GOP dominates the legislature, have drawn new maps as part of the president’s push.

In blows to Republicans, a Utah district judge late last year rejected a congressional district map drawn by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternate that will create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the midterms.

Republicans in Indiana’s Senate in December defied Trump, shooting down a redistricting bill that had passed the state House. The showdown in the Indiana statehouse grabbed plenty of national attention.

Florida is next up.

Two-term Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and state lawmakers in the GOP-dominated legislature are hoping to pick up an additional three to five right-leaning seats through a redistricting push during a special legislative session that kicks off April 28.

Hovering over the redistricting wars is the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule in Louisiana v. Callais, a crucial case that may lead to the overturning of a key provision in the Voting Rights Act.

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If the ruling goes the way of the conservatives on the high court, it could lead to the redrawing of a slew of majority-minority districts across the county, which would greatly favor Republicans.

But it is very much up in the air when the court will rule and what it will actually decide.

Xavier Becerra, a former Cabinet secretary in President Biden’s administration, appears to be surging in the wildly unsettled California governor’s race.

Until recently, the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary had been mired in the single digits in polling to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom and lead the nation’s most populous state.

But after former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) dropped out of the race earlier this month amid accusations of sexual assault and other misconduct, Becerra has seen a boost in polls, fundraising and endorsements.

On Tuesday, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas endorsed Becerra alongside 14 Democratic members of the legislative body.

Arguing that Californians are under constant threat from President Trump’s policies, Rivas cited Becerra’s decades-long record in public office, including defending Obamacare and young immigrants, or “Dreamers,” to argue that Becerra is best positioned to lead the state.

“There’s no time to learn on the job — we need a governor who’s ready to fight back on day one,” Rivas said in a statement, noting that Becerra sued the Trump administration 122 times while he was California’s attorney general. “We have a strong Democratic field for governor. But right now, we need someone ready on day one. Xavier Becerra is that leader.”

Becerra said he was honored to receive the legislators’ backing.

“I look forward to working with the Speaker and legislators on Day One to tackle the problems Californians care about most — from the skyrocketing cost of groceries and housing to our unyielding fight against the Trump Administration’s disastrous policies,” he said in a prepared statement. “Californians need an experienced and trusted leader who doesn’t need on-the-job training.”

The endorsements come at a critical moment in the governor’s race — just two weeks before ballots begin arriving in Californians’ mailboxes. In addition to Swalwell dropping out, former state Controller Betty Yee ended her bid on Monday because of a lack of resources. On Tuesday, Yee endorsed hedge fund founder turned environmental warrior Tom Steyer.

She said in a video that she was backing Steyer because of his “standing up our democracy and getting young people involved, certainly with respect to our climate and the climate crisis we’re facing.”

Becerra and Steyer are now the Democratic front-runners in the race.

Despite Becerra’s long tenure in state and federal office, the unflashy politician is not well-known among California voters. He was among the underdogs in the 2026 gubernatorial race. Swalwell, by contrast, was among the leading Democratic candidates.

Amy Thoma, a former Republican strategist who is no longer affiliated with a political party, noted that Becerra’s surge comes at a critical moment in the election, shortly before ballots land in Californians’ mailboxes.

“Voters are starting to tune into the race. Yes, they want someone who will stand up to Trump, but it also seems they want someone with experience who can address the very real issues facing the state,” Thoma said.

She added that Becerra’s life story is “incredibly compelling.”

“The word authentic is overused, but every time he talks about his love for this state, for his family and wanting to make California work for everyone, it comes across incredibly sincere,” Thoma said. “Voters can see through candidates who fake it.”

Becerra was respected by colleagues across the aisle, including former GOP legislative leader and state Republican party chairman Jim Brulte. Both men were elected to the state Assembly in 1990 and though their politics often sharply differed. However, they had a warm relationship.

“He was progressive and I am a conservative,” Brulte said. “We never agreed much on policy, but he is a good man with a great heart.”

The 2026 governor’s race has been unlike any in recent memory, with no clear front-runner in a crowded field of candidates and voters just beginning to pay attention to the contest shortly before the June 2 primary.

There were two prominent Republicans and eight prominent Democrats in the race, leading to fears among Democratic leaders in the state that their party’s candidates could be shut out in the general election because of California’s unique primary system. The two candidates who win the most votes in the June 2 primary will move on to the November general election, regardless of party affiliation.

Democratic leaders remain concerned that despite California’s sapphire-blue tilt, the number of their party’s candidates in the race could lead to a splintering of Democratic voters that results in two Republicans advancing to the November ballot.

Six prominent Democrats remain in the race, after Swalwell and Yee dropped out.

The race — lacking a global superstar such as Arnold Schwarzenegger or the scion of a storied political family and former governor like Jerry Brown — is ephemeral. Anything can happen before the June 2 primary.

But Becerra is having a moment. In addition to the new endorsements, he has seen notable movement in polls, most recently in a survey released Monday by the state Democratic Party. Becerra jumped nine points from the party’s last poll, tying Steyer at 13%.

While Becerra will never be able to match Steyer’s deep pockets, he raised more than $1 million on ActBlue, the top Democratic fundraising platform, in the week ending Saturday, making him the biggest fundraiser on the site in the nation.

“Ninety-seven percent were first-time donors,” Becerra’s campaign said in a statement. “This is not a donor base being recycled. It is a movement being born.”

Times staff writer Nicole Nixon contributed to this report from Sacramento.

American cities — densely populated and overwhelmingly Democratic — are typically prime targets for aggressive gerrymanders. This past year has been no different, as urban areas became casualties of newly partisan maps, drawn by both Republicans and Democrats in a rare bout of middecade redistricting.

With nearly 80 percent of the United States population living in urban areas, according to the census, mapmakers using modern data technology can surgically split cities block by block to eke out a partisan advantage. They “pack” like-minded voters into a single district, or “crack” them, linking slivers of concrete-covered downtowns with farmland hundreds of miles away.

While the intentions are often political, these julienned districts often leave communities with little in common, and no cohesive representation in Congress. Roughly 37 percent of congressional districts are either urban or an urban-suburban mix, while 63 percent remain rural or rural-suburban, according to the District Density Scale.

So far this year, state lawmakers have carved up major Democratic cities in the nationwide redistricting arms race, drawing new maps in five states. Virginia could be next, if voters approve a referendum Tuesday to redraw boundaries and potentially add four Democratic seats.

Kansas City, Mo.

Take the Kansas City, Mo., area as a clear example. Late last year, Gov. Mike Kehoe signed into law a new map that would pave the way for eliminating a Democratic seat and add a Republican one, potentially ousting a longtime representative, Emanuel Cleaver, who was also the first Black mayor of Kansas City.

The proposed map effectively slices apart — or “cracks” — the old Fifth District, which previously held a majority of Democratic-dominated Kansas City and its metropolitan area, into three parts.

As a result, Democratic voters from Kansas City are spread out across three new districts where they are likely to be outnumbered by Republican voters. The Kansas City area went from having one Democratic district and two Republican districts to having three Republican districts.

Northern Virginia

While Missouri illustrates how a single-district city can be cracked apart to dilute the votes of a densely packed partisan area, Virginia is taking a different approach. Its proposed map spreads out Democrats from the crammed northern Virginia suburbs into multiple districts spreading more than a hundred miles into deeply red areas for the opposite outcome: to tilt more districts blue.

While there is no central city in northern Virginia — Fairfax County, the state’s largest municipality, boasts nearly 1.2 million people but sprawls across nearly 400 square miles — the northern reaches of the state have a population in the millions and are mostly Democratic.

The result is an exceptionally aggressive “cracking” of Democratic voters in the northern part of the state across five congressional districts, which would lead to the elimination of three Republican-held seats (the proposed Virginia map eliminates all but one Republican-controlled district).

Houston

In larger cities like Houston, mapmakers have the opportunity to get creative in their carving. At President Trump’s behest, Texas was the first state to redistrict last year. Let’s look at Houston’s old Ninth District.

The old Ninth District was mostly swallowed by the newly crafted 18th District, and remaining voters were funneled into three Republican-leaning districts and one Democratic one.

But Houston’s maps also illustrate a second gerrymandering strategy: “packing.” The new 18th District was drawn to be exceptionally Democratic, “packing” a high concentration of Democrats into a single district, thereby ensuring that they would be outnumbered in neighboring districts.

Dallas

As another densely populated city, and one with a large population of people of color, Republicans in Texas sliced some congressional districts in the state, while packing Democrats into others.

The newly drawn 32nd District is a textbook example of “cracking,” splitting apart the eastern and northern suburbs of Dallas and extending the district more than a hundred miles east, into more rural and deeply Republican areas of East Texas. As a result, the new 32nd District is solidly red compared with its previous blue tint.

The cracking and packing in Dallas achieved another outcome: drawing current incumbents out of their districts, forcing some into primaries against one another while prompting others to leave the House entirely. In Dallas, Representative Jasmine Crockett chose to run for Senate after being drawn out of the 30th District (She lost in March to James Talarico).