Voters have once again handed President Donald Trump a loss in one of the defining fights of his second administration: the national congressional redistricting race.
Virginia
UVA Football Report Card: Handing Out Grades for Virginia vs. Virginia Tech
For the final time this season, let’s hand out some letter grades to evaluate Virginia’s 37-17 defeat to Virginia Tech in the Commonwealth Clash on Saturday night in Blacksburg.
In his first start in 13 months, Muskett struggled to find accuracy on his deep balls, couldn’t connect with Malachi Fields or Trell Harris, who was playing his first game since week 3, and had two bad overthrows for costly interceptions. Muskett settled in a bit in the third quarter and led the Cavaliers on back-to-back scoring drives, both of which he capped with touchdown runs. He was more effective running the football than Anthony Colandrea and made some nice throws outside the pocket, though his completion percentage was not great: 19/36 (53%).
For what it’s worth, I think it was the right call to roll with Muskett as the starter even with the hindsight of knowing that Colandrea bolted to the transfer portal less than 24 hours later. With the way Colandrea played in the back half of the season and the way he played against Virginia Tech last year, this was the right decision by Tony Elliott and company. And as you can see in the video below from Preston Willett, Tony Muskett clearly left it all on the field.
“All I wanted to do was win this game.”
An emotional Tony Muskett after making his first start of the season for UVA in a 37-17 loss to Virginia Tech. pic.twitter.com/ieUnrRzl5Q — Preston Willett (@PrestonWillett) December 1, 2024
Suderian Harrison had a career night, catching five passes for 54 yards, including a 24-yarder on the sideline that stood as Virginia’s longest play of the game. It was a great game for Harrison, but the fact that he led the Cavaliers in receiving is not a great sign for the team, as it came as a result of Malachi Fields being neutralized (two catches for 20 yards on five targets), Trell Harris not being impactful in his return from injury, and Chris Tyree being removed from the passing game in order to give UVA an experienced option at running back. Virginia converted just four passes of 15 or more yards and none that went for 25 yards. The Cavaliers averaged just 9.4 yards per completion, barely more than half of Virginia Tech’s (18.1), and UVA’s 178 passing yards were well beneath the expected amount for a team that attempted 36 passes in the game.
Virginia gave up five sacks, which is actually a significant improvement over the nine sacks UVA gave up against SMU, but still not great. The Cavaliers attempted a flea flicker on their first offensive play of the game and it was blown up immediately by projected NFL Draft pick Antwaun Powell-Ryland, who had three sacks in the game. McKale Boley actually did a fine job against Powell-Ryland when he was lined up against him on the outside, but when Boley went down with an injury, Powell-Ryland blew right past Jack Witmer on the next play for another sack. Boley, Blake Steen, and Noah Josey all suffered injuries in the game, continuing a problematic year-long trend for the Virginia offensive line, which couldn’t stay healthy throughout the entire season. The Cavaliers also failed, unsurprisingly, to establish the run, which brings us to our next grade…
Virginia’s ground game has been given a lot of poor grades this season. With the exception of the Richmond and Coastal Carolina games, in which the Cavaliers had a distinct advantage at the line of scrimmage, UVA never found any consistent success running the football. Besides those two games, Virginia’s best game of the year running the football came against Pittsburgh, going for 170 yards and two touchdowns on the ground; not coincidentally, that was probably UVA’s best win of the season. Against Virginia Tech, the Cavaliers had 96 yards on 32 carries, averaging 3.0 yards per rushing attempt. Most of that was due to some effective quarterback runs from Tony Muskett, who had 62 rushing yards even with the negative sack yardage. With Xavier Brown and Kobe Pace out with injuries, Virginia moved Chris Tyree to the backfield along with Noah Vaughn. Tyree had 18 yards on eight carries and Vaughn had 16 yards on six carries. Getting little to no gain on first and second down run plays consistently had Virginia facing third and long. Virginia’s inability to run the football has been a problem all season long and for the last several seasons even dating back to the final years of the Bronco Mendenhall era.
Virginia’s scheme, playcalling, and execution were all subpar. By the time Des Kitchings and company “figured it out” with a couple of scoring drives in the third quarter, it was too little, too late.
For most of the game, Virginia actually held up fairly well against Bhayshul Tuten and the Hokie rushing attack. That was until Tuten broke a third down tackle from Kam Robinson and got loose for a 58-yard touchdown that essentially put the nail in the coffin. If you take out that play, the Hokies averaged just 3.7 yards per carry, which is pretty respectable for the UVA defense. The Cavaliers had trouble containing Pop Watson on quarterback keepers, but that is more an issue of UVA’s pass rushers not staying disciplined than with Virginia’s actual run defense. Virginia Tech did have success using misdirection to get the Hoos a step or two behind at the point of attack.
Where Virginia really lost the game was in pass defense. There was a massive error with a blown coverage on the 66-yard touchdown pass to Jaylin Lane from Pop Watson, who looked like a veteran quarterback out there dicing up the UVA secondary in his first-career start. It was just way too easy for the redshirt freshman, who threw for 254 yards and a touchdown and completed 67% of his passes. Virginia got very little pressure on Watson, who was sacked only twice, with the second sack coming late in the fourth quarter when Watson practically gave himself up with the game already in hand. John Rudzinski has, by most accounts, done a pretty solid job with this UVA defense over the course of his three season in Charlottesville. But the results so far in his two games against Virginia Tech have not been encouraging.
We must shout out Jonas Sanker, who was once again a picture of consistency in his final game as a Cavalier, just as he has been all season and throughout his career. The Charlottesville native doesn’t miss many tackles and never gives up on a play, as evidenced by his near chase down of Bhayshul Tuten on that long touchdown run. He has great tackling technique and this year in particular, Sanker has shown that he has the physical tools with his speed and athleticism to make it in the NFL. Sanker co-led Virginia with nine total tackles on Saturday night, finished the regular season as the ACC’s leader in solo tackles, and should have a First-Team All-ACC selection with his name on it as well as an NFL Draft pick in his future. It’s been a pleasure watching Sanker play football in a Virginia uniform for the last four years.
Virginia Tech racked up 456 yards of total offense and 37 points with a third-string redshirt freshman in at quarterback.
Virginia committed no major miscues on special teams. UVA had no problems in the return game on either side. Will Bettridge made his only field goal attempt. Daniel Sparks punted four times for 208 yards. That’s an average of 52 yards per punt with a long of 59 yards that came after an inexcusable delay of game penalty with the punt team on the field. That was pretty much the only significant blemish.
Four in a row. 19 of the last 20 overall. 12 in a row in Blacksburg. These numbers need no explanations because followers of UVA football are well aware of them by this point. Time and time again, Virginia fails to show up in this game. There is no tangible reason why the Cavaliers and Hokies seemed to have such a gap between them when both teams came in with an identical record. We’ve seen similar stories unfold in the Commonwealth Clash over the last quarter-century. The sample size is too big now. Virginia Tech owns this “rivalry” and has ultimate confidence that it will win every time this game is played. The Hokies hit harder, run harder, and execute better. This trend has extended beyond teams, players, and coaching staff. It has to change, but there are no signs of that happening anytime soon.
Virginia WR Jaden Gibson Entering the Transfer Portal
By the Numbers: Breaking Down UVA Football’s 37-17 Loss to Virginia Tech
Virginia Quarterback Anthony Colandrea Enters Transfer Portal
Five Takeaways From Virginia Football’s 37-17 Loss to Virginia Tech
Virginia Football Outmatched by Virginia Tech Again in 37-17 Loss
DALEVILLE, Va. (WSET) — Heads up, Virginia Iconicks! Nick Jonas is having a show in Danville in June!
The superstar is set to perform on June 11 at Caesars Virginia’s venue, The Pantheon.
SEE ALSO: Danville sees unusually high voter turnout for redistricting referendum, registrar says
He announced the concert in an Instagram post, revealing a six-stop tour spanning up and down the East Coast.
“Six nights with you this June!” Jonas said in the post. “I’ve been wanting to do a run like this for a while. Something that feels a little closer, playing through different releases from over the years. A few of my favorites, a lot of your favorites and sharing the stories behind them as we go.”
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You can reserve tickets on April 23.
Tuesday night, Virginia approved a ballot measure to redraw the state’s 11 congressional districts to give Democrats a significant edge — salvaging Democratic hopes of flipping control of the House of Representatives in the fall.
In case you need a refresher, congressional redistricting — or the process by which states define the districts that House members represent — usually happens once per decade, after a new census.
That all changed over the summer when President Donald Trump urged Republicans in Texas to redraw their congressional maps early, to shore up the GOP’s tiny (currently one-seat) congressional majority and give the national party a boost during 2026 midterms. Texas Republicans created new maps in the summer, giving the GOP a new edge in five districts.
Democrats in some blue states also mobilized, kicking off a wave of mid-decade redistricting in both Democratic and Republican-controlled states that has undone some of the final remaining electoral norms of the Trump era. In November 2025, California voters approved a ballot measure that redrew maps to add up to five Democratic seats — neutralizing the Texas GOP gerrymander.
Virginia is not California, however. Though it has tended to vote for Democrats in presidential and gubernatorial elections since 2000, the state is swingy and had a Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, until January. That made the Virginia redistricting campaign — a vote on a constitutional amendment to bypass the state’s normal mapping process until the next census — even more complicated and unpredictable.
Voters complained about confusing messaging from both sides of the campaign, and many independent voters were uncomfortable with a partisan power grab. The “Yes” side relied heavily on direct appeals from former President Barack Obama, who reassured voters that the move was a justified response to Trump’s moves to tilt the House election. The “No” side ran ads that also featured earlier clips of Obama decrying gerrymandering in prior years, and ads and mailers aimed at Black voters that portrayed the referendum as a betrayal of civil rights activism to protect voting rights.
Republicans also appealed to regional concerns, warning rural residents that they would be put into awkward districts that lumped them with distant Northern Virginia suburbs.
That was reflected in the final results of the election — rural regions of the state turned out at a high rate. The electorate, overall, was more Republican than the electorate that swept in complete Democratic control of the state government during last year’s elections. Meanwhile, big urban centers, like Richmond, Virginia Beach, and the Washington, DC suburbs of northern Virginia, would turn out enough Democratic and independent votes to carry the measure statewide. In the end, the race was closer than expected, but the “Yes” side was comfortably on track for a majority win as of publication time.
While the “Yes” victory in Virginia is another major win for Democrats nationwide, the results of the 2026 redistricting wars have been more haphazard.
Across the country, political infighting, reluctant legislators, and timing constraints have headed off other redistricting efforts on both sides of the aisle. Now time is running out for any additional efforts: Primaries are already beginning across the country, and election preparation has to begin soon in those that haven’t started yet.
The state of the redistricting wars
Currently, Virginia’s congressional delegation is split 6-5 in Democrats’ favor; the referendum approved on Tuesday night asked voters to rejigger the map to favor Democrats in 10 districts, netting four seats.
Combined with redrawn maps in California, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio (mandated by the state constitution), and Utah (due to a court decision), the Virginia vote creates the possibility that Democrats enter the midterm elections with a one-seat edge based on past voting patterns.
At the moment, Democrats stand to gain one seat
- California: -5 GOP seats (+5 DEM seats)
- Missouri: +1 GOP seat
- North Carolina: +1 GOP seat
- Ohio: +1/2 GOP seats
- Texas: +5 GOP seats
- Utah: -1 GOP seat (+1 DEM seat)
- Virginia: -4 GOP seats (+4 DEM seats)
Up until now, this electoral arms race had become a “close to a wash,” Barry C. Burden, an elections expert and political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told me.
“Even though Republicans are doing it in more states than Democrats are, they’re not making big gains outside of Texas,” Burden said. “And there are so many other factors in play that I think make it difficult to know exactly how the maps will play out.”
Not every state has thrown itself into the mix. Despite intense pressure from national parties, Democrats have so far turned down opportunities to squeeze out seats in Illinois, Maryland, and New York, while Republicans stood down in Indiana, Kansas, and Nebraska.
That leaves one last big redistricting wild card: Florida.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has wanted to redraw his state’s maps since Trump made his appeals, yet the effort has been mired in GOP infighting, a lack of preparation, and faces a state constitution that bars partisan redistricting, although the courts approved Republican-friendly maps in its last redraw. The state legislature was supposed to meet for a special session this week to create anywhere from one to five seats, but that meeting was delayed until April 28.
“It’s a big state, so that would give Republicans a lot of opportunity,” Burden said. “But they already have a map that’s pretty favorable to Republicans, and there’s a little more concern that spreading Republican voters more thinly across more districts might really put them at risk.”
That’s related to one big electoral wild card: whether the rightward shift of Latino and Hispanic voters since 2020 holds firm in a midterm year. In redrawing at least two districts, Texas Republicans bet that this trend will hold firm. Yet polling of these voters nationally, and some off-year election results, suggests that Trump’s 2024 gains may have evaporated, or reversed, because of discontent over the economy, Trump’s mass deportation agenda, and a general sense of chaos and instability that many of these voters trusted Trump to steady. That opens the possibility for the Texas gerrymander to come up short — a scenario Florida Republicans might not want to risk.
“Texas acted earlier, so it was at a time when maybe Trump and Republicans didn’t look as vulnerable going into 2026,” Burden said. “But now that we’re just months away, it’s clear Republicans are going to have a difficult environment in November.”
None of this factors in the effects of a potential Voting Rights Act decision by the Supreme Court this year or future redistricting efforts ahead of 2028. The Court has so far declined to issue a ruling on provisions of the landmark 1965 law that prohibited states from breaking up communities of minority voters, which led to the rise of majority-minority districts to boost nonwhite representation. A handful of states could still redraw their districts were the Supreme Court to decide the case during this term.
With the latest vote, though, we may be nearing the end of the redistricting wars — for this cycle, at least.
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — A victims’ rights advocacy group and the mother of a murder victim have filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging that Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano is prioritizing the interests of illegal immigrants over public safety.
The complaint, filed by the Victims Rights Reform Council (VRRC) on behalf of Cheryl Minter, the mother of Stephanie Minter, seeks a federal investigation into whether the prosecutor’s office violated equal protection standards.
The core of the complaint centers on the death of Stephanie Minter, who was killed at a Fairfax bus stop on February 23. The suspect, Abdul Jalloh, is an illegal immigrant with a history of violent offenses.
READ | Illegal immigrant accused in deadly Virginia stabbing previously picked up by ICE in 2018
According to the filing, Fairfax County Police had repeatedly warned prosecutors about Jalloh’s behavior prior to the killing.
Documentation cited in the complaint includes warnings from law enforcement that Jalloh showed a “blatant disregard for human life” and was a “danger to the community.”
SEE ALSO | ICE held Abdul Jalloh for nearly 2 years before judge’s ruling forced his release
The VRRC argues that Jalloh’s release was a direct result of a written office policy titled “Consideration of Immigration Consequences.” The policy instructs prosecutors to negotiate case resolutions that “avoid or lessen” collateral immigration consequences, such as deportation.
“My daughter died because Fairfax prosecutors chose ideology over safety, favoritism over equal justice, and leniency for an illegal immigrant over protection for innocent citizens,” Cheryl Minter said in the complaint.
MORE | Family of murdered mother pushing for recall of Fairfax County prosecutor Steve Descano
The controversy is also moving toward Capitol Hill. Descano was called to testify on May 14 before the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee, where lawmakers are expected to examine the impact of local sanctuary-style policies on community safety.
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