By Geoffrey Ingersoll
THE GREAT DISPLACEMENT
Virginia Democrats have planned a statewide referendum with perhaps the most diabolically Orwellian question in the history of modern democracy.
“Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”
Obviously, relatively disengaged voters will see this question and go, “Restore fairness? Sure, I vote yes.”
But when this question talks about “fairness”, it means gerrymandering, extreme partisan gerrymandering. If this referendum passes, Virginia will have the most extreme gerrymander of any state.
Let me break down what this referendum’s passage actually means.
First, newly empowered Virginia Dems redrew the maps for House seats in the most comical fashion.
Here’s the old map:
(Photo via twotwofourtysix on Medium)
And here’s the redrawn map.
(Photo via Virginia Board of Elections)
The previous rules, voted on by Virginians five years ago, legally bound districts to be apolitically drawn. They gave five seats for the GOP, at roughly 45% of the state, and six for the Dems, at ~55% of the state.
See how all five of those new districts gobble up the rurals but then snake up and into that tippy top area of the state? That’s right under DC and represents one of the most affluent, liberal … and foreign-born … suburban areas of the entire country.
But this is where things get particularly nasty.
Restoring “fairness in the upcoming elections” means the new maps disenfranchise GOP midterm voters in Virginia and award 10 surefire seats of the 11 allocated to Virginia in the last census. Doesn’t seem like that big a deal, eh? So what? it’s just one state.
“If the Democrats get away with their gerrymandering scheme in Virginia,” wrote political analyst and state resident Christian Heiens, “their odds of winning the House of Representatives will be as close to 100% as one could reasonably imagine.”
What makes this even more diabolical is not just the wording on the referendum; it’s the demographics.
Remember those little snakes Dems drew up in the northern tippy top of Virginia? Since 2015, the foreign-born population there has exploded. Foreign-born residents are now roughly 25% of most of the districts there. Some districts go as high as 42% (!!!). Nearly every district in Loudoun County is 30+% foreign-born. That’s three of every 10 people.
Prior to 2015, Republicans used to win elections in some of these districts. No longer.
“Residents are often from other places,” The New York Times wrote glowingly in 2019 about the massive influx of immigrants turning once-red districts blue. “And when they vote, it is often for Democrats.”
The foreign-born population in Virginia will, in effect, swing the lower chamber to the other end of the aisle, even if many of them don’t vote.
If these redrawn maps somehow pass muster and go into effect, it will be the first time in modern political history we can say with utter certitude that an immigrant population has shifted control of the House of Representatives in the United States.
How’s that for great replacement?
