‘We Didn’t Want To Have To Do This’

Virginia Democrats are vowing to strike back after the Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for Texas to use its newly drawn congressional map in the 2026 midterms.

The Court granted the Lone Star State’s request to halt a lower court ruling that blocked its new Republican-drawn districts. In response, Virginia’s Democratic leaders pledged to push ahead with their own aggressive redistricting plan that could net the party up to four additional seats.

“We didn’t want to have to consider drawing a 10D-1R map,” Democrat Virginia House Speaker Don Scott wrote in a fundraising email Thursday. “But where I grew up, if a bully came and punched you in the mouth, you better punch back.”

Virginia Democrats have already approved a mid-decade redistricting bill that would sideline the state’s constitutionally mandated redistricting commission to allow the Legislature to redraw its districts. Lawmakers must pass it again in early 2026 before it can go to voters as a constitutional amendment.

Virginia voters in November handed Democrats 13 additional seats in the state House for a 64-seat majority, which Scott recently described as a “mandate.”

If Virginia Democrats succeed, the move could add as many as ten seats to the national Democratic tally. California voters approved a partisan measure in November that could deliver Democrats up to five more seats, and a Utah judge recently selected a House map that provides the party one pickup opportunity.

“I got something waiting for Texas…,” Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas posted on X, promising to”give a follow back to every person who I see tweet 10-1 tonight.”

“Full steam ahead,” state Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell also said in response to the Texas news, according to the Virginia Scope.

Texas passed a map in August, expected to give the GOP five additional House seats in the midterms, which remained in legal limbo until the Supreme Court allowed the map to stand. At President Donald Trump’s urging, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio have likewise approved new congressional maps expected to hand Republicans a total of four additional seats in 2026.

“Donald Trump and his allies are trying to disenfranchise our communities, and we have an obligation to stand up,” Scott wrote in the Thursday email.

Surovell told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he is confident that a map proposed by Virginia Democrats will survive legal challenge because the Supreme Court has “refused to find legal restrictions on drawing districts other than the Voting Rights Act,” which prohibits race-based redistricting.

Neither Scott nor Lucas responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

Scott and other Democrats have framed their redistricting push as a “defense of democracy,” but not all Democrats are on board.

In Maryland, Democratic Senate President Bill Ferguson has rejected a similar push as “catastrophic.”

“In Maryland, 31.5% of registered voters are registered Republicans,” Ferguson wrote in an October letter to his colleagues. “We do not know how a court would assess a revised midcycle map and whether the court would use party affiliation as a measure.”

Indiana Republicans are also voting on a new congressional map amid pressure from the president. However, many state senators — including Senate President Pro Tempore Rod Bray — have publicly opposed the move, calling it “not the right way” to secure a GOP majority in Congress.