Virginia Democrats unveiled a proposed US House map Thursday that aims to give their party four more seats in the latest effort to fight President Donald Trump’s redistricting push, even as an ongoing legal challenge makes use of that map for the midterm elections far from certain.

The map would dilute Republicans’ hold in Virginia’s conservative areas while giving Democrats a better footing in the districts they would like to flip. And it would give Democrats nationwide a boost in the redistricting battle for the House ahead of the November elections.

But in January, a Virginia judge ruled that Democrats’ proposed constitutional amendment for redrawing the state’s U.S. House lines was illegal. It was a blow to Democrats’ plan to let voters decide on the amendment in a referendum in April. Democrats are appealing in the case, which appears headed directly to the state Supreme Court.

The state is currently represented in the US House by six Democrats and five Republicans who ran in districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan legislative commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census.

Earlier Thursday, the state’s top Democratic legislators said they would unveil a map drawn to help Democrats win 10 of the 11 seats. Data from recent past elections attached to the proposal posted online Thursday support that possibility. A congressional primary is currently set for June.

Virginia Republicans have rebuffed Democrats’ efforts to redraw the House map, pointing to a recent yearslong push for fair maps in the state. In 2020, voters supported a change to the state’s constitution aimed at ending legislative gerrymandering by creating the redistricting commission.

Virginia Democrats, who decisively flipped 13 seats in the state House and the governor’s office last November, have long said that efforts to redistrict the state would level the playing field after Trump pushed to redraw House districts in Republican-controlled states such as Texas.

“These are not ordinary times and Virginia will not sit on the sidelines while it happens,” state Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas told reporters earlier Thursday alongside House Speaker Don Scott. “We made a promise to level the playing field, and today we’re keeping our promise.”

In other states, the redistricting battle has resulted so far in nine more seats that Republicans believe they can win in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, and six that Democrats think they can win in California and Utah. Democrats have hoped to make up that three-seat margin in Virginia.

Mike Young with Virginians for Fair Maps, a Republican-backed group opposed to the redrawing, called Thursday’s proposal “an illegal, hyper-partisan gerrymander drawn in backrooms hidden from the public” and one “that completely disregards common sense.”

Redistricting initiatives are still being litigated in several states, and there is no guarantee that the parties will win the seats they have redrawn.

While Virginia’s redistricting push hits hurdles, Maryland lawmakers have advanced a new map that could enable Democrats to defeat the state’s only House Republican, after Democratic Gov. Wes Moore urged them in person to do so, though obstacles remain for enacting such a map there.

TRENTON, N.J. — The race in New Jersey between a onetime political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders and a former congressman was too early to call Thursday, in a special House Democratic primary for a seat that was vacated after Mikie Sherill was elected governor.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski started election night with a significant lead over Analilia Mejia, based largely on early results from mail-in ballots. The margin narrowed as results from votes cast that day were tallied.

With more than 61,000 votes counted, Mejia led Malinowski by 486, or less than 1 percentage point.

All three counties in the district report some mail-in ballots yet to be processed. Also, mail-in ballots postmarked by election day can arrive as late as Wednesday and still be counted.

Malinowski did better than Mejia among the mail-in ballots already counted in all three counties, leaving the outcome of the race uncertain.

The Democratic winner will face Randolph Mayor Joe Hathaway, who was unopposed in the Republican primary, on April 16.

Malinowski served two terms in the House before losing a bid for reelection in a different district in 2022. He had the endorsement of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim, who has built support among progressive groups.

FILE – Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski speaks during his election night party in Garwood, N.J., Nov. 8, 2022.

Andres Kudacki/AP

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Andres Kudacki/AP

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Mejia, a former head of the Working Families Alliance in the state and political director for Sanders during his 2020 presidential run, had the Vermont independent senator’s endorsement as well as that of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York. She also worked in President Joe Biden’s Labor Department as deputy director of the women’s bureau.

Both Malinowski and Mejia were well ahead of the next-closest candidates: Brendan Gill, an elected commissioner in Essex County who has close ties to former Gov. Phil Murphy; and Tahesha Way, who served as lieutenant governor and secretary of state for two terms under Murphy until last month.

The other candidates were John Bartlett, Zach Beecher, J-L Cauvin, Marc Chaaban, Cammie Croft, Dean Dafis, Jeff Grayzel, Justin Strickland and Anna Lee Williams.

The district covers parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey, including some of New York City’s wealthier suburbs.

The special primary and April general election will determine who serves the remainder of Sherrill’s term, which ends next January. There will be a regular primary in June and general election in November for the next two-year term.

Sherrill, also a Democrat, represented the district for four terms after her election in 2018. She won despite the region’s historical loyalty to the GOP, a dynamic that began to shift during President Donald Trump’s first term.