In a massive blow to Virginia Democrats and the national party’s hopes for the midterms, the Virginia Supreme Court threw out the 10-1 gerrymander passed narrowly by voters last month as unconstitutional, finding its result “null and void.”
The Court’s 4-3 ruling is a vindication for critics like former attorneys general Jason Miyares and Ken Cuccinelli, both of whom were loud critics of the process that put the referendum on the ballot in the first place.
This wasn’t even about the bizarre nature of the Democrat-favoring map itself, with its now notorious lobster-shaped district. The court ruled that the General Assembly failed to meet the Commonwealth’s constitutional requirements, which include an intervening election. The fact that early voting had already led to almost half of Virginia voters casting their ballots meant the session that General Assembly Democrats used to spark the referendum process in an October 31 vote didn’t pass muster.
“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,” Justice Arthur Kelsey wrote for the majority.
Everyone involved on the Democratic side now has egg on their face. The 10-1 redistricting referendum dominated the political conversation of Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s first months in office, squandering any goodwill among independents toward the faux-moderate. It set a pile of money on fire to the tune of more than $70 million from Democrats nationwide pouring into ads, promotions, and social media.
Spanberger isn’t the only victim of this hubris, caught as she was in an immediate flip-flop on the issue and forced by state Senate President pro tempore Louise Lucas — the most powerful Democrat in Richmond, who this week had her offices and businesses raided by the FBI — to accept such an extreme map. National Democrats flocked to push for the measure, including noted constitutional scholar Barack Obama.
The Democrats still have major backing heading into the midterms, and history says they should sweep into power in the House of Representatives. But their biggest investment and most extreme move in the redistricting game blew up in their faces, and Virginians can rejoice that the state Supreme Court found their methods to violate the rules and the law.
As for House Democrats, this statement to Axios, offered on condition of anonymity, is a good summary of their mood: “F*****ck!!”
Americans and Utahns who took the surveys, conducted April 15-20 by Morning Consult, were asked if they plan to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday.
Utahns (64%), more than other Americans (48%), said they were planning on celebrating the anniversary, and Republicans were far more likely than Democrats and independents to say they will celebrate. In Utah, 80% of Republicans plan to celebrate compared to just 31% of Democrats. Nationally, 65% of Republicans have plans to celebrate and 37% of Democrats say the same.
The survey found that both in Utah and nationwide, the youngest age group, 18 to 34, were the least likely to say they would celebrate. Nationally, 44% of that age group plan to celebrate, and in Utah, 58% say they plan to celebrate the 250th.
A recent survey conducted by YouGov and NewsGuard asked Americans about the three attempts on Trump’s life — the Butler, Pennsylvania shooting, the thwarted attempted at the president’s golf course, in West Palm Beach, and the shooting at the Washington Hilton just weeks earlier. According to the survey, just 38% of respondents believed all three assassination attempts were legitimate. Additionally, 54% of respondents said all three were staged or that they weren’t sure.
Perhaps predictably, the numbers showed extreme variations between party lines. The report continued:
The contention that the three events may have been staged correlates strongly with party identification. Across all three events, Democrats were far more likely than Republicans to endorse the “staged” framing.
In total, 21 percent of Democrats responded that they thought all three events were staged, as did 11 percent of Independents and three percent of Republicans.
Of the 12 percent of Americans who said that all three attempts were staged, 55 percent were Democrats, 38 percent were Independents, and seven percent were Republicans.
Of the respondents who said that all three incidents were authentic, only 15 percent were Democrats. Thirty-eight percent were Independents and 47 percent were Republicans.
For the most recent event — at the April 25, 2026, White House Correspondents’ Dinner — 34 percent of Democrats and 13 percent of Republicans said it was staged, a 21-point gap.
“I have seen much war in my lifetime and I hate it profoundly. But there are worse things than war; and all of them come with defeat. The more you hate war, the more you know that once you are forced into it, for whatever reason it may be, you have to win it. You have to win it and get rid of the people that made it and see that, this time, it never comes to us again.”
