Early voting is under way in a Virginia referendum. On the ballot: a redistricting ploy proffered by the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature that would likely give Democrats 10 slots on Virginia’s congressional delegation, stripping Republicans of four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Republicans have challenged the redistricting measure in court, including the “deceptive” phrasing appearing on the ballot. At present, Virginia’s congressional district maps are drawn by an independent, nonpartisan committee, which has drawn district maps giving Democrats six seats in the House and Republicans five. In order to hand themselves redistricting authority, Democrats in the General Assembly are asking voters to “restore fairness” to the state’s congressional districts.

While Democratic Party-aligned organizations are spending tens of millions of dollars urging voters to “restore fairness,” other voices are pointing out to Virginians that the proposed maps are anything but fair. One of those voices is that of Brian Cannon, a Democrat who serves as an advisory board member to No Gerrymandering Virginia, a bipartisan group opposing the redistricting push. “Virginia has never seen ballot language that effectively looks like a push-pull for the ‘Vote Yes’ campaign. We’ve never seen that before in our state’s history. Our laws require our ballot language to be very neutral,” Cannon said in a conversation with The Washington Stand. “And yet, here we are with the Dems in the state legislature rigging the question as a push-pull to get Virginians to vote yes.”

Cannon said that the ballot measure contains two big lies. “First of all, the fact that it’s temporary — and you hear them talk a lot about that in their messaging and it says that in the ballot language,” he noted. Framed by Democrats in the General Assembly as a response to President Donald Trump’s call for red states to redistrict, the redistricting measure would hand Virginia Democrats the power to redistrict until 2029. “I heard Barack Obama even say it was a temporary measure to fight back against Trump. But Trump’s only got until 2029,” Cannon said. “This is a huge power play by Democrats. That is not about fighting Trump. They are just using it as an excuse to rig the game for their favor in Virginia.”

“The other lie, of course, is the ‘restore fairness’ piece that they keep harping on. We’ve never seen language like that,” Cannon observed. “Like I said, it’s basically a push-pull that the Democrats are trying to push onto Virginia, and there’s nothing fair about a 10-to-one map in Virginia,” he continued. “Our current maps are fair, they represent Virginia very well. We have competitive districts, we have reflective districts. As the Dems have a good year, they’ll have more members of our congressional delegation. If the Republicans have a good year, they’ll have more members of the of the delegation. That’s exactly the kind of responsive and representative maps you want to see in Virginia.”

A Roanoke College poll conducted late last month asked voters if they plan to “vote to approve the amendment to allow mid-decade redistricting, or keep the current process as it is now.” While 52% of respondents said that they would oppose the amendment and only 44% voiced their support, Cannon warned that the deceptive “restore fairness” phrasing on the ballot lowers opposition by anywhere from eight to 10 percentage points. “People want to know, because there’s plenty of people that can read that and say, ‘Of course I want to restore fairness. Who doesn’t want to restore fairness?’” he observed. “But what’s interesting is, on the pro-gerrymandering side here, the ‘Vote Yes’ campaign, they have to have that language in — and they’re still only polling even internally in the upper 40s because people inherently know it’s fishy.”

According to Cannon, “Vote Yes” advocates have spent upwards of $20 million on advertisements, a record for Virginia ballot referendums. “I don’t think [the ads are] penetrating Virginians — at least all the way, we would hope. Certainly, it is a ton of money,” he said. “So spending $20 million-plus dollars to lie to Virginians — I guess ‘If you repeat the lie enough, it becomes a truth’ is what their strategy is. And that seems to be what they’re trying to do. It’s incredibly deceptive. It’s not temporary. It’s not anything. There’s nothing fair about it. They’d be more honest if they just said, ‘We hate Donald Trump. Do this because you do, too.’”

Chris Gacek, senior fellow for Regulatory Affairs at Family Research Council and a Virginia resident, questioned why Republicans at the national level aren’t matching the “Vote Yes” campaign’s funding to oppose the redistricting measure. “I’m kind of surprised to see that the Republicans aren’t really more motivated on this. You would think that whoever’s running the House electoral committee and this sort of stuff would be pouring money into this because that could be a swing of four seats immediately,” he said in comments to TWS. “I don’t know why the Republicans aren’t all over this, because what they should frame this election as is ‘Send Dems a message.’”

Gacek noted that newly-minted Governor Abigail Spanberger (D) appears to be losing support, suggesting that Republicans link the redistricting measure to her far-left policies. “Don’t get into the weeds on this stupid redistricting thing. You have somebody who’s already very unpopular.” According to Roanoke College’s poll last month, Spanberger’s popularity has declined since she took office, dropping by five percentage points. Gacek commented, “I think most people got the impression so far that she lied about what she was and what she was up to. She’s not a moderate. She’s a radical. I don’t know why anyone thought that because she was always a hardcore radical.”

“It’s just a blatant attempt to steal seats and gerrymander. So that’s all it is. Are they going to be able to pull it off? I don’t know,” Gacek added. “Let me just say that the Republicans who are voting all know that this is a seat-grab. You know, if this were some sort of normal way of doing things, you’re not doing this stuff in the dead of the night. Just how gullible are people? I don’t know.”

Looking ahead to the midterm and 2028 elections, Cannon suggested that forging ahead with the hyper-partisan redistricting push would likely harm Democrats’ credibility on the national stage. “The maps in Virginia will certainly help them, if they’re able to do that. But I do think this is classic overreach,” he said, including Trump’s red state redistricting push in his assessment.

He noted that the districts which netted Democrats a substantial majority in the General Assembly are drawn by the same committee which composed the state’s current congressional maps. “So Democrats complaining that they can’t win under fair maps is not true. They can win under fair maps. Republicans can also win under fair maps if they have an up year,” Cannon observed. “But any shred of credibility Democrats had on this issue is gone because of this campaign, and now we’re just in this race to the bottom. … . I think this comes back to bite Democrats in a number of ways.”