Gov. Abigail Spanberger celebrated a win for Democrats in Virginia on Tuesday night as the party moved ahead with a plan to redraw the state’s congressional map to potentially gain four additional U.S. House seats.
Meanwhile, Republicans are holding out hope that the Virginia Supreme Court will rule against the redistricting efforts. The court had postponed arguments on redistricting until after the special election.
Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin has argued the proposed map is unfair and would disenfranchise voters in red, rural counties by lumping them in with urban, blue parts of the state.
Thank you to all the voters who turned out to vote against this egregious power grab. The race was much closer than the left expected because Virginians know a 10-1 map is not Virginia. I urge the Virginia Supreme Court to rule against this unconstitutional process that will…
— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) April 22, 2026
Spanberger joined WTOP anchor Nick Iannelli to defend the amendment, which many Democrats have said is a necessary check on President Donald Trump’s efforts to rigg the maps in his favor in other states.
Read and listen to the interview below:
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
- Nick Iannelli :
Let’s get your initial reaction to the results here. Is this about what you thought it would be? We knew the polling was showing it close, and it does appear this was a pretty close race here.
- Abigail Spanberger:
This is exactly what I thought would be the result of the election. I believe that the ‘yes’ vote would win, and I thought it would be a close vote, and I think it ended exactly as I thought it would. And I think importantly, you know, unlike other states in the Commonwealth of Virginia, it was up to the voters whether we chose to move forward with redistricting, that is temporary, responsive and for us, preserves our long term bipartisan redistricting commission.
- Nick Iannelli:
Initially, you said that you believe that Democrats would be able to essentially do well in the midterms, pick up some of these districts without having to shift the boundaries around and engage in redistricting. Do you still feel that way? Or do you have no regrets? In other words, going through this process now you’re out the other end?
- Abigail Spanberger:
Well, I think I’m a pretty competitive person. And I think that we should campaign aggressively anywhere and everywhere, and certainly in 2025, I had won the lines of two of the Republican held congressional districts. So I certainly saw paths toward moving forward on the maps that we previously had. But I think the important thing for people to recognize and consider with the redistricting amendment is, as of right now we have, before this referendum passed, we have two districts where the vote margin coming out of the 2024 numbers was single digits, right. So competitive districts, one held by a Republican, one held by Democrat. After this redistricting, we’ll have five congressional districts where the win margin in 2024 was single digits. And so importantly, what we actually have now are five competitive districts that certainly give a strong opportunity for Democrats to win, but everyone who is running in any of these new districts is going to have to work very, very hard to earn the vote of every last voter, which is really the way that it should be. So, a long way of answering your question that ‘No, I do not have any regrets,’ because I do think that we should continue to to work to win in under any circumstances, and I know that we can, frankly, particularly given the fact that there is such a need to take us to the chaos coming out of Trump administration.
- WTOP Capitol Hill Correspondent Mitchell Miller:
Well, as a former member of Congress yourself, you know how tight these margins are here in the House. A lot has been talked about in connection with this redistricting effort in Virginia. Do you think this could actually potentially be the margin that determines the balance of power in the House of Representatives?
- Abigail Spanberger:
I actually don’t. I think that the win in November on the Democratic side of the aisle will be so substantial that maybe there might be a couple extra seats coming out of Virginia that will be the cherry on top. But no, I think that we absolutely would have won the majority in November regardless of the steps that Virginia took. Now, I do think it’s important that Virginia took these steps to be responsive to what we’re seeing in other states, but I think that the Democrats were on path to win, and are on path to win, regardless of the results this evening.
- Nick Iannelli:
We’ve been talking all evening about the 2020 vote, where Virginians said 65% to 34% that they wanted this process to be bipartisan, essentially have the process be the opposite of what it’s about to be in Virginia, which is one party controlling how the boundaries are set. Does that give you reservations when you look back to 2020 and you see that margin, what do you think Gov. Spanberger? Do you think that this is going to be the new normal, that we’re going to be moving away from what voters wanted back in 2020?
- Abigail Spanberger:
Well, I think importantly, the short answer is no, and I was a very vocal supporter, and continue to be a vocal supporter, of the bipartisan redistricting commission that we passed in 2020 which did pass with substantial bipartisan support. Notably among the things that voters were voting on in passing that constitutional amendment was the principle that we did not want legislators driving the process, that we wanted a bipartisan commission and importantly, in putting forth a referendum that would take a temporary and responsive step of doing this one time redistricting that yes, the maps were drawn by the legislature. But importantly, the maps were before the people when they went to the polls. And so, I do think that long term, going back to our bipartisan redistricting commission after the 2030 census, is essential. Certainly is central to what it is that we passed with this referendum, which does return us back to that bipartisan redistricting commission. But I think the important steps that we took in this endeavor, by ensuring that the maps were available and ensuring that people understood that this is a point in time, responsive act was, I think, essential to it passing. And I think that many people like myself supported and continue to support a bipartisan redistricting commission, but recognize that at this moment in time, the need to take a responsive posture towards what we’re seeing from the Trump administration and the state legislatures, not people, legislatures that are willing to oblige him. I think that that sentiment certainly was the majority opinion in this vote.
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