Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas stood before cameras in 2020 and demanded a fair, nonpartisan commission to draw the voting lines.
Today she's the architect of the most extreme partisan gerrymander in Virginia history.
A new TV ad just made sure every Virginia voter sees both versions of Louise Lucas – and Democrats have fifteen days to explain the difference.
Virginians for Fair Maps Launches First TV Ad Using Louise Lucas Against Herself
Virginians for Fair Maps launched its first TV spot Thursday and it is brutal in the most effective way possible.
No attack music.
No narrator calling anyone a liar.
Just Democrats' own words playing back-to-back against what they're doing right now.
It starts with a number: 66% of Virginians voted in 2020 to end partisan gerrymandering – both parties behind it, the whole state behind it.
Then comes the clip – Lucas on video from that campaign, promising "We want a fair, nonpartisan commission to draw the lines."
Then it shows you what Lucas is actually pushing in 2026: a map designed to flip Virginia's congressional delegation from 6-5 Democrat to 10-1 Democrat.
Four Republican seats erased.
Forty-eight percent of Virginians moved into completely different districts.
The Shenandoah Valley carved into four pieces so no community can vote as a bloc.
Lucas herself put her position plainly when this fight started – "We said 10-1 and we meant it."
The woman who promised a fair nonpartisan process meant 10-1 all along.
Spanberger Called Gerrymandering Detrimental to Democracy and Then Signed the Map
Lucas isn't the only Democrat caught in her own words.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger said in 2019 that gerrymandering was "detrimental to our democracy" and called opposing it "a bipartisan priority."
She signed the legislation enabling every bit of this.
House Speaker Don Scott said on the record that manipulating election maps "overrides the will of the people."
He is now championing the most aggressive partisan map in the country.
Rep. Don Beyer said it directly – "Gerrymandering is cheating."
Barack Obama spent years warning that gerrymandering was tearing the country apart.
Now his face is on mailers urging Virginians to vote yes.
The anti-redistricting campaign pulled Obama's 2017 video clip and put it in their own ad – the former president warning that gerrymandering drives parties further apart and makes common ground harder to find.
An affiliated group is mailing flyers featuring Obama's own words from X: "For too long, gerrymandering has contributed to stalled progress and warped our representative government."
Large block letters on the mailers say: Vote No.
A.C. Cordoza, the chairman of Democracy and Justice PAC, made the point directly – no one can refute the accuracy of the quotes.
They said these things.
They meant them when it helped them.
Now it doesn't.
Virginia Redistricting Referendum Early Voting Has Democrats Panicking
Democrats have poured roughly $33 million into ads pushing the yes vote.
Republicans have spent about $3 million.
House Majority Forward – a national Democrat dark money nonprofit – dropped $15 million into Virginia alone.
California and Illinois and New York money flooding a Virginia special election to tell Virginians that their 2020 constitutional amendment never really counted.
Former Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares called it David versus Goliath.
Then he said: "David won."
The early voting numbers are proving him right.
Republican-leaning districts are posting ballot totals that have Virginia Democrats in full panic mode – the five GOP-held seats running ahead of all six Democratic-held seats combined in early returns.
Roanoke College polling shows 52% of Virginians would vote against the amendment right now – even though 61% disapprove of President Trump.
That gap is the whole story.
Virginians are separating their feelings about Trump from whether Richmond Democrats get to tear up a constitutional amendment that 66% of them passed six years ago.
What the Virginia Redistricting Power Grab Actually Proves About Democrats
Democrats have a talking point for the hypocrisy – they say Trump started this by pushing Texas to redistrict, so they're just fighting back.
Louise Lucas said it herself: "You all started it and we f—ing finished it."
But here's what that argument actually proves.
They never believed what they said in 2020.
The commission, the fairness, the bipartisan promise – it was always conditional.
It was only a principle when they thought the principle would benefit them.
The moment the math changed, so did the principle.
That's not responding to Trump.
That's confirming that everything they said about democracy and fairness was a talking point, not a conviction.
Virginia conservatives built this commission.
They voted for it in good faith because Democrats stood on camera and promised it was the right thing for everyone.
Now those same Democrats want a 10-1 map, they want to blow up the commission they celebrated, and they're spending $33 million of out-of-state money to convince Virginians that doing the exact thing they called "detrimental to democracy" is actually the heroic move.
The voters aren't buying it – and the first ad just made sure they know exactly why they shouldn't.
Sources:
- Washington Times, "Virginians for Fair Maps airs first TV ad campaign fighting Democrats' partisan redistricting plan," April 6, 2026.
- Washington Times, "Virginia redistricting referendum becomes fight to the finish," April 1, 2026.
- Fox News, "Virginia Democrats push 10-1 gerrymandering map despite promises otherwise," March 2, 2026.
- Fox News, "Va. Dems were against 'Scotty-mander' before new push; Senate leader blames Trump," October 28, 2025.
- Virginia Mercury, "Four weeks before April 21 referendum, early voting shows stronger turnout in GOP-leaning areas," March 24, 2026.
- Virginia Mercury, "In historic change, Virginia voters approve bipartisan commission to handle political redistricting," November 4, 2020.
