The Virginia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on May 8th that Governor Abigail Spanberger’s beloved redistricting referendum is “null and void” — unconstitutional from start to finish — and $70 million in Democrat campaign cash just evaporated like morning dew on a hot Richmond sidewalk.
Oh no! All those ads, all those celebrity endorsements, all that Obama magic — poof. Gone. Someone pass the tissues.
Here’s what happened. Spanberger and Virginia Democrats pushed a redistricting referendum designed to redraw the state’s congressional map into a grotesque 10-1 Democrat-favoring ratio. One of the proposed districts was so absurdly shaped that people started calling it the “lobster district.” Because apparently democracy looks like a crustacean now.
The General Assembly Democrats held a special session vote on October 31st — Halloween, fittingly — to ram through the referendum. They got Barack Obama himself to tweet an endorsement on April 17th, urging people to vote by the April 18th early voting deadline ahead of the April 21st Election Day. They spent $70 million on ads, promotions, and social media trying to sell this thing to Virginia voters.
And it worked. The referendum passed.
There was just one tiny problem. The Virginia Constitution requires an intervening election before a redistricting referendum can take effect. The Democrats skipped that part. You know, the law.
Justice Arthur Kelsey, writing for the 4-3 majority, put it plainly: “While the Commonwealth is free by its lights to do the right thing for the right reason, the Rule of Law requires that it be done the right way.”
Translation: You can’t just ignore the Constitution because you really, really want to.
Former Attorney General Jason Miyares — who warned them this would happen — took a well-earned victory lap on Twitter. “If Abigail Spanberger and Virginia Democrats had paid attention my October 2025 AG’s Opinion…” he wrote, trailing off in what can only be described as the legal equivalent of “I told you so.”
The Democrat reaction was even better. House Democrats, speaking anonymously to Axios, had a one-word response that we’ll clean up for a family audience: they were not pleased. The actual quote, per Axios, was unprintable. Let’s just say it rhymed with “truck.”
And the hits keep coming for Virginia Democrats. Louise Lucas, the State Senate President pro tempore and arguably the most powerful Democrat in Richmond, just had her offices and businesses raided by the FBI this week. Because when it rains on the Virginia Democratic Party, it absolutely pours.
Ben Domenech over at the Daily Wire laid out the full autopsy of this disaster, and it’s a thing of beauty. Democrats went all-in on a scheme to lock Republicans out of Virginia’s congressional delegation for a decade. They brought in the big guns. They spent the GDP of a small country on advertising. They got the voters to say yes.
And they forgot to follow the rules.
This is what happens when your entire electoral strategy depends on rigging the map instead of winning the argument. Former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Miyares both flagged this constitutional defect months ago. Democrats ignored them because they assumed the courts would play along.
The Virginia Supreme Court did not play along.
Seventy million dollars. A 10-1 gerrymander. Obama’s personal endorsement. A statewide campaign operation that would make most presidential candidates jealous. All of it — declared null and void by four justices who can apparently read the Virginia Constitution.
Somewhere in Richmond, Abigail Spanberger is staring at the most expensive piece of worthless paper in American political history. And we’re not done smiling about it.