Virginia Democrats just torched $64 million chasing four congressional seats they were never going to keep.
Their attorney general already embarrassed the party by misspelling both "Virginia" and "Senator" in official court filings.
Now Jay Jones filed the appeal for the United States Supreme Court but made an even bigger mistake that everyone will notice.
The Blunder That Exposed a Party in Panic
The Virginia Supreme Court struck down Democrats' redistricting referendum on May 8 in a 4-3 ruling.
The amendment would have redrawn Virginia's congressional map from a 6D-5R split to a 10D-1R advantage – handing Democrats four additional House seats heading into November.
The court said no.
Democrats had skipped the constitutional requirement that any amendment receive two separate legislative votes before going to voters, with a general election intervening between them.
Jones declared the court put "politics over the rule of law" and raced to appeal.
What followed was a cascade of unforced errors that put the whole operation on national display.
The first wave of filings arrived with "Virgnia" on the plaintiff line and "Sentator" in place of Senator – both mistakes sitting on the very first page.
Former Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares went straight to X: "First, if you are going to appeal to SCOTUS maybe don't misspell Virginia????"
Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, added one word: "And 'Sentator.'"
Then Jones filed the SCOTUS appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court.
The same court that ruled against them four days earlier.
Miyares posted the image and wrote: "Good News: Dems managed to spell Virginia correctly. Bad News: They sent their emergency application to SCOTUS to the wrong court. Baby steps."
https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2054179362325344692“>https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2054179362325344692
The Case They Cant Win Either Way
The filing error was almost beside the point, because this appeal was dead before it was addressed.
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled exclusively on state constitutional grounds.
The U.S. Supreme Court has no jurisdiction when a state's highest court decides a case purely on state law – even liberal justices stay out.
Jones argued in the filing that the Virginia court's decision was "deeply mistaken" and that a stay was warranted because the ruling was "interwoven with federal law."
Legal observers on the right weren't buying it.
Breitbart's John Nolte put it plainly: this is a state issue, the Virginia court has the final say, and SCOTUS has no reason to intervene.
Jones spent $64 million, won a referendum by three points, lost in court on procedure, and then filed his emergency rescue to the wrong address.
This Is What Losing Looks Like in Real Time
Jones and House Speaker Don Scott weren't acting alone in the panic.
Hakeem Jeffries flew to Virginia the weekend after the ruling to huddle with state Democrats about their options.
One option discussed: force all seven Virginia Supreme Court justices into retirement to bring the map back to life.
That scheme collapsed when a Virginia Democrat state senator publicly refused to go along with it.
So the party landed here – a misfiled brief, spelling errors still present in the latest documents, and a SCOTUS appeal that legal experts say has no viable path forward.
RNC Chair Joe Gruters said it after the original ruling: "Democrats just learned that when you try to rig elections, you lose."
That statement hits harder today than it did on May 8.
Republicans currently hold a 217-212 edge in the House.
Virginia's four seats were Democrats' most direct route to flipping the chamber in November.
Without them, and with Republicans running up the score through redistricting in Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, and North Carolina, Democrats have no margin left for error.
They didn't lose a procedural skirmish.
They lost the House – and they couldn't even spell the name of their own state on the way out the door.
Sources:
- Joe Gruters, Republican National Committee statement, May 8, 2026.
- Amy Curtis, "AG Jay Jones Tried Appealing the Virginia Supreme Court's Redistricting Ruling but Screwed Up Big Time," Townhall, May 12, 2026.
- John Nolte, "Nolte: Flailing Virginia Dems Mistakenly Address SCOTUS Request to Wrong Court," Breitbart, May 12, 2026.
- Amy DeLaura, "Virginia Democrats Roasted Over Spelling Mistakes in Redistricting Documents," Washington Examiner, May 10, 2026.
- Teri Christoph, "VA Dems Want SCOTUS to Overrule SCOVA," RedState, May 11, 2026.
