Virginia voters narrowly favor redistricting referendum, new poll shows

By Jen Rice

A voter casts a ballot at the Yorktown High School polling location on November 4, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

A narrow majority of Virginia voters say they support Democrats’ redistricting referendum, with 52% of likely voters saying they’re in favor of the measure, according to new poll results from a Washington Post-Schar School survey. 

Virginia lawmakers are asking voters to approve a plan that could help Democrats gain up to four more seats in Congress. Voters have already cast more than 619,000 early votes in the referendum election, with election day coming up April 21.  

Though the poll shows the plan narrowly on course to pass, Democrats are warning that turnout needs to stay high.

“We still have three weeks to go,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) told Punchbowl News. “To think, ‘It’s in the bag,’ would be a fatal mistake. We have to close very strong.”

The Virginia map is aimed at countering GOP gerrymanders in other states, including a likely GOP-driven redraw in Florida.Sunshine State lawmakers will consider their own redistricting plan in a four-day special session called by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) that could deliver two to five more Republican seats in Congress. 

Though Floridians won’t get to weigh in directly on the redistricting, more than half are saying it’s a bad idea, according to new polling from Emerson College. 

Florida voters passed a ban on partisan and racial gerrymandering in 2010, which could complicate the effort.

But the justices of the Florida Supreme Court, most of whom were appointed by DeSantis, have signaled that they don’t consider the ban to be a barrier to the governor’s gerrymandering agenda. 

And just this week DeSantis boasted that he had transformed the state’s highest court.

“When I got elected, we had probably the most liberal supreme court in the country,” DeSantis said. “Now I’ve put six on and we have the most conservative supreme court in the country.” 

However, that doesn’t mean he has support for his redistricting plan, even from his own party. One GOP member of Congress told a Florida TV news channel this week: “DeSantis doesn’t care about us having a majority — DeSantis cares about DeSantis… It’s about his 2028 campaign.”