Virginia Dems’ Power Grab Is A Middle Finger To Rural Americans
The article argues that many Democrats now use the idea of “our democracy” to push a political agenda that benefits them personally, using Virginia’s 2026 redistricting ballot measure as an example. The author contends the measure is not about fairness for all voters but about erasing rural voices and creating a heavy Democratic advantage in Congress, potentially shifting from a 6-5 edge to a 10-1 one.
It describes the proposed ballot as a censorship tool and a power grab that would override Virginia’s and california’s bipartisan redistricting commissions. The piece claims the new map would dramatically dilute rural depiction by stretching into densely populated, liberal Northern Virginia, effectively canceling rural districts like Shenandoah County. It draws parallels to other states’ actions and argues the move mirrors a broader strategy to engineer one-party rule.
Beyond the map specifics, the author characterizes the Democrats’ approach as contempt for rural citizens and accuses them of using Orwellian language-branding a self-serving gerrymander as “fairness.” The piece cites cultural criticisms of rural voters and portrays the move as a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise a important portion of Virginians ahead of midterm elections. It closes by framing the episode as an example of democracy dying in broad daylight, and it provides background on the author, Stella Morabito, her work, and credentials.
When most Democrats today use the phrase “our democracy,” they mean not a democracy for everyone but one exclusively for them. And Virginia’s ballot question on redistricting is the latest proof.
The ballot question is not merely a political power play. First and foremost, it’s an act of contempt for voters and the voting process itself. It’s naked disdain for the democracy they’re always pretending to care about.
Second, it serves as a censorship tool because it’s meant to deliberately erase the voices of half of Virginians, particularly those living in rural areas who will lose any chance at being represented in Congress. Rather than the 6-5 edge they have now, a margin that more closely reflects the popular voting patterns in the state, the Democrats in Richmond are aiming for a 10-1 advantage. Virginia Republicans might as well live in San Francisco or Mayor Mamdani’s New York.
We can all predict what will happen next. Just like the People’s Republic of Maryland, Democrats will later try to oust that very last Republican member of Congress so Virginia becomes a one-party state. As with all totalitarians, that’s the game plan. And like all totalitarians, they couch their goals in Orwellian verbiage like “fairness.” Just read this joke of a ballot question for yourself:
Question: 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?
Fairness? Give us a break. Temporary? Yeah, sure. No doubt Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger also has a bridge to sell over the Poop-tomac River to go along with the “temporary” status of this gerrymandering scheme. Compare the two maps below. First is a fairly reasonable drawing of districts in 2022 that represent the voters in those regions:
Now, observe the Virginia Democrats’ proposed 2026 octopus map that will use the referendum to stick it to rural voters:
For example, congressional representation of rural Shenandoah County in the northwest of the state would be totally canceled out by a Democrat tentacle that reaches into the densely populated and deep-blue Arlington County. As with all Northern Virginia suburbs that border Washington, D.C., Arlington is an area rife with AWFLs and deep-state government bureaucrats. Ditto for the other appendages that dilute rural representation by stretching into metropolitan Virginia. It’s crassly undemocratic. With the exception of the more sparsely populated southwestern area of the state, all of the current rural districts would be drawn to cancel out their representation in Congress.
Virginia Democrats are following California’s example of “getting even” with the Republican-dominated Texas legislature for redrawing its congressional districts last year. California Gov. Gavin Newsom already won a ballot measure for doing so at the same time Spanberger was elected in November 2025.
Interestingly, both California and Virginia are trashing the bipartisan commissions they set up for fairness in redistricting. Texas doesn’t have such a commission, but that’s really not the point. Gerrymandering started over 200 years ago, and it was corrupt then and is even more corrupt now. What’s different is that California and Virginia Democrats are mid-decade overriding the commissions that were approved by their voters in 2008 and 2020, respectively.
Contempt for Rural Citizens
It’s no secret that Democrats have always harbored a lot of disdain for rural voters. Hillary Clinton famously lumped them in as “deplorables.” In Obama-speak, that translates to bitter clingers or, in Biden-speak, “garbage.” The left has a whole stash of other nasty tags for traditional and normal folks, including “white supremacists,” “fascists,” “bigots,” “white Christian nationalists,” or just plain “bad people.”
Remarkably, Democrats often claim they want to win over rural voters. Yet when it comes to hiding their scorn for them, they’re hopelessly incontinent. For example, “Rural GroundGame” is the name of one such leftist program to convert rural voters. The director of that program in Virginia summarized the Democrats’ broader strategy with this choice quote: “We have the best policies, you dumb hicks.” Of course, Rural GroundGame is all in on depriving rural voters of representation.
Several other outlets seeking to convert rural voters to a left-wing outlook go by names like The Daily Yonder, the New Rural Project, RuralUrbanBridge.org, and Obama’s Change Collective. Democrats know they ignore these voters at their peril, as Trump’s elections have shown.
But aside from getting a little traction with some “hicklibs” who would attend drag queen events back when that was a thing, rural America is still problematic for Democrats. Hence, the current play in Virginia is simply to disenfranchise them altogether.
In short, this power grab just ahead of midterms is obscenely obvious. I had always thought that “Democracy dies in darkness” was not a mere slogan of The Washington Post but was actually the Democrat corporate media’s mission statement, with democracy in their crosshairs. The brazen power grab of Virginia’s April 21 ballot question now represents a shift in that mission: to kill democracy in broad daylight.
Stella Morabito is a senior contributor at The Federalist. She is author of “The Weaponization of Loneliness: How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer.” Her essays have appeared in various publications, including the Washington Examiner, American Greatness, Townhall, Public Discourse, and The Human Life Review. In her previous work as an intelligence analyst, Morabito focused on various aspects of Russian and Soviet politics, including communist media and propaganda. Follow Stella on Twitter.
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