2026 Elections Redistricting Virginia Politics

[UPDATE: YES WINS!] Live Blog: Virginia Redistricting Amendment Referendum Results (4/21/26)

April 21, 2026

0Points

5,853

UPDATE 8:50 pm: From Zachary Donnini – “YES is currently on track to win by roughly 4–4.5 percentage points tonight. Accounting for provisional and late-arriving mail ballots, which are expected to modestly favor YES, the final margin is likely to increase by approximately 0.4 points after Election Night.” (AP also called it)

UPDATE 8:29 pm: Ben Tribbett has called it. (“PROJECTION 8:23 PM- THE YES VOTE HAS PREVAILED.”) 🙂 🙂 🙂 State Navigate also called it – ” Virginia will pass the redistricting amendment which enacts a Democratic gerrymander that will elect 10 Democrats and 1 Republican this year to the US House.”

UPDATE 8:25 pm: With 2,013 of 2,534 precincts reporting, it’s now YES with a lead of 50.2%-49.8% – and tons more deep-blue Fairfax to come. So obviously, this is looking great for YES! 🙂

UPDATE 8:18 pm: With 1,907 of 2,534 precincts reporting, it’s now NO with a 50.71%-49.29% lead, but tons of deep-blue, gigantic Fairfax County still to come, plus a bunch of deep-blue Richmond and Henrico…

UPDATE 8:13 pm: Per Sam Shirazi, “This is very polarized election Blue areas generally swinging blue Red areas generally swinging red Given blue tilt of Virginia, headed towards single digit Yes win”

UPDATE 8:02 pm: With 1,728 of 2,534 precincts reporting, it’s now NO 898,454 (51.68%) vs. YES 840,053 (48.32%). But still not a single vote from gigantic, blue Fairfax County, plus most of deep-blue Richmond and Henrico still to report…

UPDATE 7:59 pm: I wasn’t watching it myself, but I was told by a reporter that Dave Wasserman said on his live stream a few minutes ago, “It’s very clear that the yes side is going to prevail.””

UPDATE 7:54 pm: Per Zachary Donnini, “Well, we got a pretty good hint about how Black voters in urban areas will break. Norfolk City EV is better for YES than it was for Jay Jones in 2025. I am thinking YES by 5-6% right now.”

UPDATE 7:51 pm: Ben Tribbett says “With what’s totally in there are good signs for “no” in rural areas, but a terrific result for “yes” in Loudoun that is almost totally in. Still too early to call but I like where yes is right now.”

UPDATE 7:48 pm: Per Kyle Kondik, “Northampton, 100% estimated reporting, Yes 51.5-48.5 Basically the same margin for Jones in 2025. So good result for “yes”” and “Mathews now at 100% of expected reporting. 73-27 no. So a little better than Miyares but, remember, Miyares lost statewide by a little under 7 pts.”

UPDATE 7:38 pm: VoteHub says “We are getting a lot of fully reported counties outside of Northern Virginia and YES is running okay, about 2 points ahead of what we would expect in a tied race. But Loudoun County is fully complete and YES is outrunning it’s goal by 8 points. And Prince Williams AB/EV is great for YES.” All three major prediction markets – Kalshi, Polymarket and PredictIt – have YES with a 98%-99% chance of winning.

UPDATE 7:36 pm: As DJSokeSpeaking says, “No is getting close to what it needs in smaller localities, but it’s flopping bad in big ones right now. Loudoun has 96/111 precincts in and it’s Yes +21.8. Harris won Loudoun by 16 – and keep in mind late mail + provisionals will boost Yes a bit as well.”

UPDATE 7:31 pm: With 800 of 2,534 precincts reporting, it’s now NO 412,646 (51.17%) vs. YES 393,697 (48.83%). Lots of big, blue jurisdictions (e.g., Fairfax, Henrico and Richmond) haven’t reported yet at all. Polymarket now up to a 99% chance of YES winning.

UPDATE 7:26 pm: With 592 of 2,534 precincts reporting, it’s now YES 339,968 (50.77%) vs. NO 328,690 (49.23%). Satte Navigate now has the odds of YES winning at 82%/

UPDATE 7:23 pm: With 434 of 2,534 precincts reporting it’s now YES 281,243 (52.72%) vs NO 252,58 (47.28%). Sam Shirazi says “Loudoun is over 90% including all of early vote and mail; Above the 60-40 margin needed for a comfortable Yes win; Will take a while for an official call; But this looks like a redo of the 2025 AG race; Shy Yes voters were a thing”

UPDATE 7:21 pm: With 338 of 2,534 precincts reporting, it’s now YES 199,297 (52.46%)-NO 180,640 (47.54%). State Navigate now has the odds of YES winning at 85%.

UPDATE 7:17 pm: Excellent news from Loudoun County, bodes VERY well for the YES campaign, as Sam Shirazi points out!

UPDATE 7:15 pm: With 149 of 2,534 precincts reporting, YES now leads 121,800 (58.08%) to 87,904 (41.92%)

UPDATE 7:13 pm: With 115 of 2,534 precincts reporting, YES now leads 73,686 (52.03%) to 67,929 (47.97%).

UPDATE 7:08 pm: A few deep-red areas (Mathews, Nottoway, Amherst) starting to report; definitely wouldn’t read much into that. Currently, State Navigate has the odds of YES winning at 83%, with NO at 17%.

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As always, I’ll be live blogging Virginia’s election results as they come in tonight, with results and calls from the State Department of Elections, VPAP, State Navigate, etc. after polls close at 7 pm. I’d say a great night for Democrats would be winning the redistricting referendum by double digits, with a more likely result being a 5-7 point win. In the end, of course, we’ll just take a win by any margin, but the larger the better, both to send a clear message and also to deter any possible temptation by the VA Supreme Court to step in.

With that, here are a few things to keep in mind as results start coming in tonight:

1) Statewide turnout in November 2025 was over 3.4 million, with about 1.5 million votes being cast early in that election. In this election, the early vote was at 1.36 million after Saturday voting, so closing in on the 2025 early vote total. According to State Navigate’s model, the early vote is at about 59.1% Democratic vs. 40.9% Republican; and according to L2 Political, it’s about 54.7% Democratic vs. 39.7% Republican. Now, we need to see how turnout looks on election day itself. Obviously, if turnout is heavy in “Trumpy” areas in SW Virginia and light in the “blue” areas (e.g., NoVA, Hampton Roads, the Richmond area), etc., that’s not a great sign for the YES campaign; conversely, if turnout is “meh” in the red areas and strong in the blue areas on election day, YES could/should win comfortably. Something to keep an eye on.

2) The latest polling heading into election day can be seen here: per State Navigate (which nailed the 2025 elections, by the way), YES led by about 6 points (51%-45%); according to the WaPo/Schar poll, YES led by 5 points (52%-47%) among likely voters, and by 9 points (53%-44%) among registered voters. My understanding is that the YES campaign’s “internal” numbers have it something around a 5-7 point lead for YES. So…fingers crossed!

3) As results come in, you can compare to 2025 results by jurisdiction. Here are a few examples, with results for Spanberger: Fairfax 74% (329,977 votes for Spanberger); Prince William 67% (111,198 votes for Spanberger); Loudoun 64.5% (108,594 votes for Spanberger); Henrico 69% (103,559 votes for Spanberger); Chesterfield 59% (100,494 votes for Spanberger); Virginia Beach 56% (94,339 votes for Spanberger); Arlington 84% (83,657 votes for Spanberger); Richmond 87% (79,019 votes for Spanberger); Alexandria 83% (52,230 votes for Spanberger); Norfolk 76% (48,599 votes for Spanberger); Stafford 56% (35,327 votes for Spanberger); Spotsylvania 52% (30,748 votes for Spanberger); etc.

4) The betting/prediction/whatever-they-are markets, for what it’s worth (maybe not much) have it as follows: Kalshi‘s had YES’s chances of winning at over 80% throughout April; Polymarket has it very similar to Kalshi; as does PredictIt.

5) See below for other predictions (for the record, I’m thinking this will pass by 5-7 percentage points) and observations, things to look for, etc.