President Donald Trump is refusing to accept yet another election defeat for his party and re-running the same playbook of false and outrageous allegations of fraud after Virginia voters approved a mid-decade redistricting referendum that heavily favors Democrats.
Writing on Truth Social, Trump on Wednesday screamed in all caps that a “RIGGED ELECTION” had taken place in Virginia despite there being absolutely no evidence of any irregularities or fraud in the conduct of the plebiscite the previous evening in which 1,575,288 voters cast ballots in favor of a constitutional amendment which permits the implementation of new districts drawn by Virginia’s Democratic-led General Assembly, bypassing an independent, bipartisan commission which has drawn district lines since 2020.
The ballot measure was approved by 51.5 percent of voters who turned out in the special election, compared with 48.5 percent who voted against it.
No irregularities were reported during the voting on Tuesday, and Democrats had indicated that they expected to win based on heavy turnout in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudon, Prince William and Henrico Counties, all of which are home to hundreds of thousands of federal workers, many of whom have been affected by the Trump administration’s efforts to slash federal employment rolls to punish what GOP loyalists believe is an anti-Trump “deep state.”
Trump nonetheless claimed Republicans had been “winning” the referendum “all day long” — until what he described as a “massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop’” changed the GOP’s fortunes.
“Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory! Six to five goes to ten to one, and yet the Presidential Election in November was very close to a 50-50 split,” he said, seemingly oblivious of the fact that he lost the 2024 election in Virginia 16 months ago by a similar margin: 51.82 percent to 46.05 percent.
Continuing, Trump also groused about the ballot measure’s language, calling it “purposefully unintelligible and deceptive.”
“As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they!” he said.
The successful push by Democrats to allow redrawing of Virginia’s House districts with four years until the next decennial census marks a major political setback for Trump, who last year sparked national redistricting push last year by urging Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts mid-decade to eliminate numerous Democratic-held House seats and replace them with safe GOP-majority districts, all with the aim of preventing Democrats from winning a majority of seats in this year’s midterm elections even in the face of widespread disapproval of the Trump administration.
But the unprecedented effort to rig House districts to prevent the chamber from changing hands appears to be a wash for the GOP.
While Republicans believe they can win up to nine extra House seats in newly redrawn districts in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, Democrats have countered with five new favorable districts in California, one new seat in Utah under a court-imposed map, and as many as five new seats in the districts laid out in Virginia’s map.
Trump’s claim that mail-in ballots were used to facilitate a “rigged election” echo the false claims he made after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.
In both cases, he falsely alleged that the time it took for absentee ballots to be tabulated was evidence of foul play. But the reason for the late results in heavily Democratic areas is far more mundane.
Not only does Virginia law not permit absentee or mail-in ballots to be counted before 8:00 pm on Election Day, but the areas where the vote in favor of the redistricting plan was heaviest are among Virginia’s most populous counties.
