Beginning in early March, Virginia voters, particularly members of the Black community, began receiving mailers that compared a proposal by Democrats to temporarily redraw the state’s congressional districts to the Jim Crow era.

One mailer featured images of the KKK in white hoods and teenagers running from police in the 1960s. “Just like Jim Crow, they want to silence your voice,” it read. “Our ancestors fought to represent us. Now Richmond politicians are trying to take our districts away.”

Other mailers used past quotes from Gov. Abigail Spanberger and former President Barack Obama critiquing gerrymandering to make it seem as if they opposed the redistricting referendum on April 21, which could net Democrats up to four new seats if voters approve it. In fact, both support the initiative.  

The mailers were sent by a little-known group, the Justice for Democracy PAC, that was founded by former state delegate A.C. Cordoza, who served two terms as the only Black Republican in the Virginia legislature before losing his seat last November.

But Cordoza has a powerful backer in the effort to thwart Virginia’s redistricting referendum. His PAC has received nearly $9 million in donations in recent weeks from a dark money group funded in the past by the pro-Trump tech billionaire Peter Thiel, the PayPal and Palantir co-founder who is a longtime mentor of Vice President J.D. Vance. That group, Per Aspera Policy Incorporated, wrote four seven-figure checks to Cordoza’s PAC in March and April.

Thiel made a six-figure donation to Per Aspera Policy in 2018 to boost Kris Kobach’s failed campaign for governor of Kansas. Per Aspera Policy also gave $200,000 in 2022 to a super PAC supporting Vance when he ran for Senate in Ohio. Thiel donated $15 million to that pro-Vance super PAC, at the time the largest amount ever given by a single donor to a political campaign. The pro-Vance super PAC was run by Republican strategist Luke Thompson, who is the current president of Per Aspera Policy.

Per Aspera Policy is registered in Massachusetts and does not have to disclose its donors. A source familiar with the group told Mother Jones that “Thiel has nothing to do with it” and has not donated to Per Aspera Policy for years. They declined to say who the donors to the group currently are, but said Thiel was not one of them.

Civil rights groups have sharply criticized the mailers sent by the Justice for Democracy PAC. “We denounce the manipulative mailers sent by a MAGA-aligned political action committee aimed at deterring Black voters from supporting this referendum, which falsely compare this important measure to Jim Crow—a brutal system that stripped Black Americans of their voting rights,” the NAACP Virginia State Conference said in a statement. “This referendum addresses the manipulation of congressional seats, designed to imbalance representation and secure conservative wins ahead of the November midterm elections. We cannot stand idly by and allow these reprehensible racist tactics go unchallenged.”

Virginia’s redistricting referendum next Tuesday has major implications for the midterm election. Like with California’s Prop. 50, Democrats have proposed temporarily replacing Virginia’s current district lines, which were drawn by a bipartisan commission and result in a split of six Democrats and five Republicans, with a new map that could give Democrats a 10-1 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation. Democrats argue that such a move is necessary to combat Donald Trump’s unprecedented effort to persuade GOP states to redraw their districts mid-decade.

Democrats have largely fought Trump to a surprising draw in the gerrymandering arms race he started. But Florida is still planning to convene a special session to redraw the state’s congressional map, which could net Republicans anywhere from two to five more seats, while the Supreme Court is weighing whether to strike down the key remaining section of the Voting Rights Act, which could shift another half dozen seats to the GOP depending on the timing of the decision. Virginia thus represents the last, best opportunity for Democrats to play offense on redistricting before the midterms. Polls show the referendum narrowly passing, with the early voting turnout initially favoring more Republican areas of the state but trending toward Democrats as more polling locations opened in Northern Virginia.

“Over the past year, several Republican-controlled states have taken the unprecedented step of redrawing their congressional maps in the middle of the decade,” Obama has said. “And they’ve done it for a simple reason: to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms this fall. In April, Virginians can respond by making sure your voting power is not diminished by what Republicans are doing in other states. This amendment gives you the power to level the playing field in the midterms this fall.”