By roughly three percentage points, voters in Virginia voted for a redistricting plan that will heavily tilt the congressional playing field toward the Democrats. With some votes still to be counted, yes took 51.5% of the vote to 48.5% for the no campaign. The new map will give the Democrats a good chance at winning 10 out of 11 Virginia congressional districts—a big shift from the current 6 Democrats, 5 Republicans in the delegation. The measure still faces legal challenges before it can go into effect.

Turnout for the referendum was roughly 89% of those who voted in the 2025 gubernatorial election. So, the overall turnout rate for the referendum was around 49%. While this is disappointing in that less than half of eligible voters went to the polls, it is a high turnout rate for a special election.

Unfortunately, there are no exit polls for the Virginia referendum, so the best we can do is look at the voting data and see what conclusions we can draw. Among the very Hispanic-Asian election districts in Northern Virginia (Fairfax, Loudoun, and Manassas Park) the pro-referendum forces did about 16 percentage points better than Kamala Harris in 2024. A strong performance among Black voters in Richmond and Hampton Roads helped put the referendum over the top. According to The Washington Post, counties that were at least 25% Black supported the measure by a 14-point margin, after backing Gov. Abigail Spanberger last November by 24 points.

The pro-referendum forces also fared well in high-income parts of the commonwealth. Opposition to the referendum was concentrated in southwestern Virginia. In many of these counties, the no campaign was able to improve on President Donald Trump’s 2024 performance.

Tuesday’s vote in Virginia will mean more Democratic representatives in Congress.

Are there lessons that the Democrats can take away from the Virginia redistricting campaign? First of all, it is important to note that a win is a win. However, there is an important lesson to be learned here and that is that there is no advantage for Democrats in not being fully anti-Trump.

When the referendum campaign began, the yes forces were portraying the vote as part of a broad effort to level the congressional playing field. The New York Times reports that:

In the first six weeks of the campaign, the “Yes” side spent $13.5 million on advertising compared with the “No” campaign’s $640,000, according to data from AdImpact, a media tracking firm. But over that time period, “Yes” did not gain ground in private polling, according to multiple people briefed on the data.

Based on the media that I saw, in the closing days of the campaign, the yes forces retooled their messaging and presented the campaign as a way to stop Trump and the MAGA forces.

Why did the pro-redistricting forces not immediately embrace a full-on anti-Trump message? We can only make educated guesses. The first is newly elected Spanberger, who had run as a middle-of-the-road Democratic centrist. Her role in the redistricting is ambiguous. Unlike Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, Spanberger did not get out in front of the campaign. This is understandable. After all, Virginia, unlike California, is a purple state. Spanberger also needs to get her legislative agenda through in Richmond.

The best symbol of Spanberger’s attitude toward the referendum is the fact that she made an ad in support of a yes vote but the ad never showed. In her statements about the referendum, the governor was uncomfortable.

Democrats also seemed to have been unprepared for the no forces’ very clever use of statements by President Barack Obama opposing gerrymandering, which created confusion in the electorate. In response, the Democrats responded with ads featuring President Obama. In an interesting twist, Obama not Trump was the president most featured in the media outreach on the referendum.

So, in the end the redistricting referendum passed by less than Spanberger won last November. While the Republicans may be able to claim some sort of a moral victory, a win is still a win. Tuesday’s vote in Virginia will mean more Democratic representatives in Congress.

Democrats have reasons to celebrate. However, they should learn the lesson from the referendum: There is nothing to gain politically by soft-pedaling their opposition to Trump.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board tore to shreds the Trump Food and Drug Administration's move to block lifesaving cancer research — a move so indefensible, they noted, that even Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had no good answers for the Senate when asked.

"The Food and Drug Administration rejection of Replimune’s life-saving treatment for metastatic melanoma is so dubious that even Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is distancing himself from it," the board wrote. "During a hearing Wednesday, Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto asked Mr. Kennedy about our recent editorial that noted criticisms from oncologists about the FDA rejection of Replimune’s RP1 immunotherapy. 'First of all, I had nothing to do with this decision,' he replied."

Kennedy went on to claim that FDA commissioner Marty Makary told him "every panel" that examined the research voted against it — but this isn't true, said the board.

"As we wrote, the first FDA panel to review the drug supported its approval but was overruled by biologics chief Vinay Prasad. We’re also told that staffers who recommended approval were sidelined. Retaliation?"

Additionally, the board continued, "Mr. Kennedy said he was told FDA staff 'voted against it because it does not appear to work, because the trial was a one-armed trial when the company was asked to do a two-armed trial.' That’s more misinformation. As oncologists explained to us and in letters to the FDA, it would have been unethical to do a trial with patients in a control arm receiving a drug on which their cancers would get worse."

Ultimately when pressed by Cortez Masto, the board said, Kennedy vowed that "If the drug works, we're going to approve it."

"That’s a message to Dr. Makary," wrote the board. "If the FDA doesn't reverse course, Congress would do a public service by investigating and demanding the Commissioner testify under oath. Who’s afraid of a little radical transparency?"

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board on Wednesday blamed Donald Trump for the Democratic gerrymander that just cost Republicans up to four House seats in Virginia.

In a sharply critical editorial, the Journal's board laid the Virginia debacle squarely at Trump's feet, arguing that the president "started this rolling rock that has now come down on their heads" by goading Texas Republicans into redrawing their own map last year.

Democrats responded in California, possibly adding five net seats, and Virginia may have added four more, with Utah set to add one. Republicans will likely pick up seats in Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina. But the Journal's math suggested Republicans are likely to "break even at best" and could end up losing seats if a Democratic wave crashes into America in November.

The editorial didn't spare Virginia Democrats, calling the new map a "race to the bottom" and noting that the new 7th Congressional District has been dubbed the "lobstermander" for its crustacean-like shape stretching across the state.

The Journal also took aim at Barack Obama, who praised Virginia for "standing up for democracy," arguing the comment rang hollow given that the referendum effectively ends competitive congressional elections across most of the state.

The editorial concluded that Congress should ban mid-decade redistricting after 2030, otherwise the House "can barely be called democratic."