Politics
‘The GOP should’ve done more’: Virginia Republicans point fingers after gerrymandering loss
After a narrow loss in Virginia, Republicans are pointing fingers as President Donald Trump’s national gerrymandering fight slips into a stalemate.
Multiple Republicans say the party should’ve spent much more, much earlier to have a better shot at blocking Democrats’ Virginia map, which could give the party as many as four more House seats. And pressure is now growing on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to make up for Democrats’ gains with a GOP-led redistricting effort in his state, as soon as next week.
“You’d be hard pressed to find a single Republican tonight who doesn’t think the GOP should’ve done more in Virginia. It actually hurts more that it was so close,” said a GOP operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly, like others in this article.
There are mounting signs that Trump and the GOP have used valuable time and political capital on an arduous tit-for-tat that is so far looking like it will be close to a draw. Even if Republicans squeeze out gains in a new Florida map, their total gains are likely to be modest at best.
“I just don’t think that Republicans looked at the map and said, ‘Okay, what’s the worst case scenario, what could happen if all the Democrat-controlled legislators rebel against this?’” said one Virginia Republican. “We’re seeing a thing that felt really good at the moment erase gains that we fought for elsewhere.”
Tuesday’s results in Virginia, combined with gains in California and a new court-drawn seat in Utah, have effectively erased the advantage Republicans built off new maps in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri. It’s a stark reversal nearly nine months after Trump first urged Republicans in the Lone Star State to redraw maps, upending the midterm battlefield.
“Just so you get the truth and not the partisan spin here, Republicans came up with the idea of the mid-decade redistricting fight and started in Texas,” Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host and an influential voice with evangelical voters central to the MAGA base, wrote on X after the amendment passed in Virginia.
“Now, as drawn, the Democrats have an advantage from the redistricting fight,” he said.
The RNC and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
National Republican Congressional Committee chair Rep. Richard Hudson is holding out hope that the state’s Supreme Court, which reserved the right to weigh in on the new map after the election, voids Democrats’ effort.
“This close margin reinforces that Virginia is a purple state that shouldn’t be represented by a severe partisan gerrymander,” Hudson said in a statement. “That’s exactly why the courts, who have already ruled twice to block this egregious power grab, should uphold Virginia law.”
Still, several Virginia Republicans said their party could have done more to prevent Democrats from edging out a victory Tuesday. Democrats outspent Republicans by a roughly three-to-one margin, putting Republicans at a disadvantage on the airwaves until the late stages of the race. Virginians for Fair Elections — which led the “yes” effort — raised $64 million, according to Virginia Department of Elections data, boosted by nearly $38 million in support from House Majority Forward, a political nonprofit aligned with House Democratic leadership.
Even though Republicans have far more money stacked up in outside groups — including $297 million brought in by the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. since the start of last year alone — they ultimately never matched Democrats’ investment.
“If they had spent some money, they could have won tonight and someone’s got to own that and explain why that decision was made,” said a second Virginia-based GOP strategist.
Some Republicans turned their ire to the Indiana Legislature, where GOP lawmakers rejected the White House’s push to draw a new map that would give them two additional red-leaning seats. Chris LaCivita, Trump’s former campaign co-manager and a longtime Virginia-based GOP strategist, shared a social media post on Tuesday calling out Republicans in Indiana for not being more aggressive.
It’s now too late for the state to redraw its lines, and Trump allies have spent time and millions of dollars to defeat the GOP legislators who opposed the effort.
With most states off the table, Republicans are now looking to DeSantis as one of their last and best chances to win back the upper hand ahead of November. The Florida governor delayed a special session to take up redistricting in the state until after Virginia’s election, and he has yet to release a new map proposal.
Former Trump White House spokesperson Harrison Fields urged Republicans in Florida to respond to the Virginia outcome with an aggressive gerrymander.
“To my friends in Tallahassee: in a state that is ruby red, it’s time to respond to what we saw tonight in Virginia with a redistricting plan that reflects Florida’s true partisan lean — and adds 3–4 GOP seats to our supermajority,” Fields said in a social media post. “Virginia is a purple state being drawn as deep blue. Florida should draw a map that’s even redder — and get it passed ASAP.”
Not everyone is on board with escalating the redistricting arms race. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican-turned-independent who was targeted by California Democrats’ gerrymander, said the result was further proof that the redistricting war never should have been started.
“It’s very unfortunate that it’s happened in Texas. I think it’s very unfortunate that it happened in California and Virginia and everywhere else where it’s happened,” Kiley told Blue Light News after the Virginia race was called Tuesday evening. “Now that this whole thing has just gotten completely out of hand, there have been no winners, and it’s created such instability, maybe this is the time that we can come together and say, ‘Alright, enough is enough.’”
Yet for all the recriminations over Republicans losing ground in the president’s redistricting campaign, one person escaped largely unscathed: Trump himself.
The president mostly stayed on the sidelines until he hosted a tele-rally alongside Speaker Mike Johnson to urge people to vote “no” in the race’s final hours.
Some Republicans in the state were glad he stayed away, given his flagging national standing, particularly in a light blue state. Thirty-three percent of adults approve of Trump’s job performance, according to an AP-NORC poll released Tuesday.
“If I was the Democrats, I’d want Trump on the stump every day,” Virginia-based Republican strategist Brian Kirwin said.
Blake Jones contributed to this report.
Republicans are pointing to the World Cup in their persistent bid to force Democrats to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Millions of visitors from foreign countries have already begun their pilgrimage to the tournament, which kicked off this week.
“Hosting the World Cup is akin to having 78 Super Bowls in 38 days — a massive undertaking from a national security perspective,” the Senate GOP wrote in a post on X Friday. “Senate Democrats still let FISA 702 expire, hindering our ability to stop potential terror attacks before they happen.”
The law is all but certain to expire today as Congress remains in uproar over Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte to serve as acting director of national intelligence. Efforts to secure a short-term extension in the House and Senate both failed Thursday.
And if a terrorist attack happened at the World Cup? “It would be a lot of finger-pointing,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) told Blue Light News on Friday. “You should just pull out every stop right now to make sure that there are no problems.”
President Donald Trump announced plans to nominate the more palatable Jay Clayton for the full-time DNI job on Thursday, a choice that garnered immediate approval from Republican leadership.
Democrats, Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social, “are trying to take our national security hostage because of unrelated issues.”
But Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking member of the chamber’s Intelligence Committee, placed the blame for the stalemate squarely on Trump. Negotiations on a long-term extension were well on their way before Trump announced his Pulte pick.
“God forbid, as we move into the World Cup, that something would happen,” he told reporters Thursday. “But if something happens, it lies at the feet of the president.”
Young pushed back. The two-term senator disagreed with Trump’s call to tap Pulte for the interim nod, but he said Democrats are the ones passing up an opportunity to reauthorize the law.
“He could have also passed a 702 reauthorization that very night he uttered those words,” he said. “And he and others chose not to.”
Missouri is not launching a probe into pricing strategies employed by FIFA, a spokesperson from the state attorney general’s office told Blue Light News, as several states playing host to World Cup matches take the organization to task for allegedly misleading fans.
Colbey Stosberg, public affairs specialist at the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, said in a statement that the office is instead focusing on “the unfortunate opportunity it creates for scammers to exploit travelers and match attendees.”
Missouri’s Arrowhead Stadium will play host to four games during the World Cup group stage, as well as a round of 32 matchup and a quarterfinal. Argentina will take on Algeria next Tuesday, Kansas City’s first game of the tournament.
“We haven’t received any complaints about purportedly deceptive pricing strategies yet,” Stosberg said. “If we do happen to receive those, we will review the complaint and determine any appropriate actions to be taken.”
On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a new investigation over allegations that FIFA misled fans into spending more money for seats with premium views, only to change the seating maps.
New York and New Jersey launched their own joint investigation into ticket pricing in May. And California Attorney General Rob Bonta sent a letter to FIFA, seeking information “to assess potential violations of California law.”
House Republicans have also endorsed the change, which means the Defense Department rebrand pushed by the Trump administration could become law this year…
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