The city of Richmond would be split across two congressional districts under the mid-decade redistricting plan Virginia Democrats want voters to approve in a ballot referendum planned for April 21.

Democratic leaders are trying to temporarily suspend Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting process in order to gain more seats in Congress, an action they argue is necessary to balance out gerrymandering being done in Republican-led states at the urging of President Donald Trump.

To gain more seats, General Assembly Democrats released a redistricting proposal Thursday that could give them 10 districts after the 2026 midterm elections while leaving only one for Republicans. To achieve that, lawmakers had to create more oddly shaped boundaries that draw redder, rural areas into districts connected to blue population centers like Northern Virginia and Richmond.

Most of the city of Richmond would still be represented by Rep. Jennifer McClellan (4th District), whose reworked district would cover a broader slice of Southside Virginia, going as far as the city of Danville.

However, the city’s West End, the westernmost areas of South Richmond and parts of Northside would be added to a more Democratic 5th District that could align with the congressional hopes of Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor.

Henrico and Chesterfield counties would also be divided between the redrawn 4th and 5th Districts. The new 5th District would extend to the rural outskirts of Lynchburg, while adding more Democratic votes in the Richmond region.

Taylor has been running for the 1st District seat currently held by GOP Rep. Rob Wittman, but the redrawn boundaries could oust Wittman by wiping his district off the map. On Friday morning, Taylor announced she now plans to run in the 5th if the redistricting plan goes through.

“Whether it is under the current 1st district lines or newly proposed 5th district lines, I will never stop fighting to lower everyday costs for working families and defend the community I love and have sworn to protect,” Taylor said in a news release.

Rep. John McGuire, a Goochland County Republican whose current 5th District includes western parts of the greater Richmond area, could be put in the same dire position as Wittman.

Under the Democratic plan, Goochland, Powhatan and Louisa counties would be drawn into a new 7th District that meanders both north to deep-blue Arlington County and west to the Shenandoah Valley.

Meanwhile, most of traditionally conservative Hanover County would be put in a 1st District that runs up the I-95 corridor to Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County.

Though it’s not fully clear which politicians will end up running in which districts, Wittman and McGuire would both have a difficult if not impossible path to staying in Congress if the new maps are implemented.

If anti-Trump backlash leads to strong midterm results for Democrats, Virginia’s congressional delegation could drop from five Republicans to just one representing a district in far Southwest Virginia. Conversely, Democrats could gain as many as four seats.

A Republican group opposing the Virginia redistricting called the proposed maps an “an illegal, hyper-partisan gerrymander drawn in backrooms hidden from the public.”

“This map completely disregards common sense and silences millions of Virginians,” said Mike Young, president of the GOP-allied Virginians for Fair Maps. “This is not just extreme. This is an embarrassment to the Commonwealth, and it is exactly what voters rejected in 2020.”

If the proposal to implement the new map is approved by voters and survives court challenges, the new boundaries are expected to hold until the 2032 election cycle, when new maps will be implemented after completion of the 2030 U.S. Census.

In 2020, Virginia voters approved an anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment that took map-drawing power away from the General Assembly and gave it to a bipartisan commission made up both state lawmakers and citizens. The commission failed to reach a deal on new maps in 2021, which left it to the Supreme Court of Virginia to create the districts with the help of outside experts and no involvement by lawmakers.

In order for the General Assembly to redraw the lines this year, Democrats are asking voters to temporarily suspend the process they approved six years ago by passing another constitutional amendment allowing a one-time redistricting to go through. Republicans have challenged the legality of that process on several grounds. In an initial ruling, a Tazewell County judge sided with Republicans and ruled that the redistricting push is illegal. 

Democrats have appealed the Tazewell ruling, and the matter is now before the Supreme Court of Virginia.

“The proposed Virginia map increases the number of competitive districts from the current map, and Virginia voters will have a say at the ballot box on the new map—a stark contrast to brazen mid-decade gerrymanders in Republican states,” said NDRC President John Bisognano.

Taylor is seen as the favorite to run against Wittman in the existing 1st District, and former congressman Tom Perriello is seeking to run against McGuire in the existing 5th District. Even if the redistricting push fails, Democrats would have a chance to flip those two seats in an anti-Trump wave year.

Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org