As both parties race to redraw congressional lines before next year’s midterm elections, Virginia represents one of Democrats’ best chances to blunt Republican attempts to pad their congressional majorities.
It’s unclear whether Virginia Democrats will be able to execute a high-wire act to successfully change their map for next year’s elections. Regardless, this November’s election results highlight how an energized Democratic Party could win back control of the House next year.
High turnout helped propel Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger in more Republican-leaning areas, and Spanberger improved on Democrats’ 2024 margins in the most diverse congressional districts, a new NBC News Decision Desk analysis of the governor’s race results showed.
Throughout the year, President Donald Trump’s strong performance in 2024 with nonwhite voters and younger voters has served as something of a baseline for Republicans who, at his behest, touched off a redistricting arms race that’s expected to continue into next year. The Virginia gubernatorial results, broken down by congressional district, underscore how quickly voters can shift from one election to the next and highlight some of the risks of the extraordinary effort.
Virginia’s congressional delegation is narrowly divided, with six Democrats and five Republicans. But last month, Spanberger carried not only each district her party holds, but also two Republican-held districts.
Spanberger made gains of more than 7 points each, compared with 2024, over Kamala Harris’ margins in GOP Reps. Rob Wittman’s and Jen Kiggans’ districts.
While the electorate that turns out in next year’s midterm elections won’t be the same as the one that helped Spanberger cruise to victory, those results suggest that, even if Democrats do not redraw their districts, Wittman and Kiggans could face spirited re-election challenges next year.
One major reason why Spanberger was able to carry those GOP-held districts comes down to turnout. Democrats got far closer to their 2024 raw vote totals there than Republicans did.
For example, almost 202,000 voters backed Spanberger in Virginia’s 1st District, an 11% decrease from Harris’ vote total in last year’s presidential election. About 193,000 voters backed Republican gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears, a 23% decrease from Trump’s 2024 turnout.
There were similar trends across the state last month, with Democrats getting significantly closer to their 2024 raw vote total than Republicans did.
Another important trend: Democrats improved their margins most in the most diverse Virginia districts.
This is especially notable given the ever-present risk associated with redistricting. Drawing too aggressively in an attempt to create flippable seats can leave other seats vulnerable, particularly if the political winds change. The fact that Democrats’ gains compared with 2024 were especially strong in diverse Virginia districts could, if replicated elsewhere, cap the GOP’s upside in Texas congressional races next year. That’s because Texas Republicans redrew the maps in the hopes of winning up to five new seats in part by banking on continuing their improvements among Hispanic voters in 2024, even without Trump on the ballot.
The four Virginia districts where the 2025 gubernatorial margin swung double digits from the 2024 presidential margin — the 7th, 8th, 10th and 11th districts, all of which are at least partly in Northern Virginia — are each approximately 50% white, according to census data.
The 11th District moved the most, swinging more than 13 points toward Democrats compared with 2024. It’s also the most Asian district in the state, more than 20%, with Hispanic residents accounting for another 15% and Black residents accounting for 9% of the population.
Both the 8th and 10th districts also have significant Black, Asian and Hispanic populations. And in the 7th, which extends from the outer Washington, D.C., suburbs south toward Fredericksburg and the Richmond area, about 40% of voters are either Black or Hispanic.
All of these results are under the current lines, and Democrats want to redraw the congressional maps to try to flip at least two GOP-held seats — and possibly more.
Virginia Democrats are hoping that, unlike the other states that have already created new maps, they can look at election results from just last month to help inform where they would draw those lines.
