Virginia's Democrat win cracks the gerrymandering obstacle

Part of the reason Republicans hung onto the Virginia state legislature for so long was gerrymandering. With Democrats’ win on Tuesday, Republicans can no longer draw the maps to their advantage — in either state house or US House districts.

The party in control of Virginia’s House of Delegates doesn’t just have a huge hand in crafting policy; they’ll also be responsible for drawing Virginia’s new congressional maps in 2021 after the 2020 Census. And with Tuesday’s win, state Democrats become the big winners of the future here — with huge implications for the state’s congressional delegation.

Given the state’s history with gerrymandering, that process will be closely watched. Virginia’s old maps were drawn by House Republicans in 2011; packing black voters into districts to dilute their vote. And that was noticeable even during Democrats’ big wins in 2017; even though Democrats won the overall vote by about 9 points in House of Delegates races, gerrymandered districts made it so Republicans still controlled the chamber — barely.

A lot has happened since then. In 2018, a district court in Virginia ruled the old maps an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and new maps fairer to Democrats were drawn at the beginning of the year (these maps may have also helped put them over the top in Tuesday’s election). To solidify that, the US Supreme Court upheld the lower court ruling this summer.

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“Whether or not we’ll have fair maps for the next decade remains to be seen,” Tram Nguyen, the co-director of New Virginia Majority, told Vox recently.

Democrats got their chance on Tuesday night.

  Vox