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Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville and his podcast co-host Al Hunt analyzed the results of the Virginia redistricting vote, agreeing that President Donald Trump started a redistricting war.
Democrats scored a major victory Tuesday when Virginia voters narrowly passed a congressional redistricting referendum that could give the party a significant boost in the battle for the U.S. House of Representatives majority in the 2026 midterm elections, the Associated Press reported.
The ballot measure gives the Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature — rather than the state’s current nonpartisan commission — temporary redistricting power through the 2030 election. It could result in a 10–1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6–5 edge.
Hunt lamented on “Politics War Room” that the redistricting vote was a terrible thing, even if he personally would have supported it as a politically pragmatic necessity.
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The referendum could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
“That is an awful outcome. Virginia is a blue state, but it’s not a 90% blue state,” he said. “Democrats, however, had no choice. This was all due to Donald Trump, who, desperate to avoid losing the House last year, demanded Republicans gerrymander in Texas and elsewhere and they were going to try to fix the elections. What he didn’t figure was that Democrats would respond just as ruthlessly, California and Virginia in particular.”
“I think the outcome in Virginia is terrible,” Hunt stressed. “I would have voted for it, even though I think it’s terrible. They did it by referendum. The voters decided rather than backroom deals like they did in Texas and in Missouri and elsewhere.”
He went on to argue that while this may be something to understandable for Republicans to take issue with, he advised, “Tell them to look next door at North Carolina, a purple, slightly red state [that] gerrymandered their congressional districts for what’s expected to be a 11-3 advantage.”
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Political commentator James Carville stands at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, ahead of the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 18, 2024. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg)
“I’ll tell ya, 11–3 in North Carolina is every bit as bad as 10–1 in Virginia,” he said. “Trump, who only cares about himself, started this whole damn fiasco, and in the end, I think it may help Democrats more than it helps him.”
“Well, you got to blame the Supreme Court, too,” Carville said. “I mean, I hate to bring the bearer of bad news, but the great American institution called the Supreme Court said, ‘Well OK, there’s no equal protection. There’s no anything. The legislature can do what they want.’”
“The court has become so disreputable, so unpopular, and look at the polls. I’m not the only person that believes that it has to be saved from itself. That’s how bad it’s become,” Carville said. “But that they’re the people that let this stuff go with all this cockamamie 11-to-3 that, you know, I mean, as if the voters aren’t required to have equal protection during redistricting.”
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James Carville and his co-host Al Hunt agreed that President Donald Trump’s actions started a cynical redistricting arms race between the two parties. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Politicon; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“I have no idea how you come up with that theory that that legal theory could work, but they say it does,” Carville said. “They’re corrupt. No code of ethics, no rules of conduct, no nothing.”
Hunt went on to suggest that politics now feels like a standoff where both sides are afraid to “unilaterally disarm” and instead opt for cynical power plays like gerrymandering.
“The problem with this is when you let politicians choose their voters rather than voters choose their politicians, you create politicians who have very little incentive to govern or compromise,” he said. “So it’s a terrible system, but this year it was all brought on by Donald Trump.”
“Yeah,” Carville agreed. “I think the Supreme Court did its part, but yeah, it wouldn’t have happened without Trump.”
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Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger speaks during a Virginians For Fair Elections canvassing event in Woodbridge, Va., on April 18, 2026. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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Digital reached out to the White House and was referred to the following statement by RNC national press secretary Kiersten Pels:
“46% of Virginians voted Republican in the last federal election, yet Democrats are rigging the system to cling to power and silence voters they can’t win over. This map is an unconstitutional partisan power grab designed to disenfranchise millions of voters and tilt the playing field. Abigail Spanberger broke her promise to Virginians by advancing a gerrymandered map that serves her party’s interests after pledging she would not. The RNC will continue this fight in court to protect Virginia voters and ensure fair representation across the Commonwealth.”
Digital’s Paul Steinhauser, Jasmine Baehr, and Charles Creitz contributed to this report.
