John Avlon walked onto CNN with a race card and walked off with nothing.
Republicans haven't elected a black governor since Reconstruction, Avlon announced – confident, self-righteous, completely certain he had the room.
Then Scott Jennings said two things that broke the segment wide open.
What Jennings Said That Silenced the Panel
Avlon was deep into his argument. The Supreme Court had just handed down its ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, curtailing the use of race in drawing congressional districts – and the left was furious. Democrats needed Republicans to be the racist party. They needed the narrative. So Avlon went there.
"We haven't had an African American Republican governor since Reconstruction," he told the panel. "There's unfortunately an imbalance in the two parties."
Jennings didn't let him finish the thought.
"The Republicans tried to elect one in Virginia."
Avlon went silent. CNN cut to commercial.
Because Jennings was right. In November 2025, Virginia Republicans nominated Winsome Earle-Sears – a Black woman, a Marine veteran, and the sitting lieutenant governor – as their candidate for governor. She had already made history as the first Black woman elected to statewide office in Virginia. Republicans gave her the top of the ticket.
Democrats beat her with Abigail Spanberger – a white woman who won by over 15 points.
Then Jennings finished it: "Then you got a white Democrat who gerrymandered the state."
https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2049837542317449246“>https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2049837542317449246
The Gerrymander Nobody Wants to Talk About
That isn't a metaphor. It is exactly what happened.
After Spanberger won the governor's mansion, Virginia Democrats moved immediately to redraw the state's congressional districts – bypassing the bipartisan redistricting commission Virginia voters had approved just four years earlier. They pushed through a constitutional amendment at a special legislative session originally called to handle budget matters.
Every Democrat in Richmond voted for it. Every Republican voted against it.
The new map, signed by Governor Spanberger herself in February 2026, is designed to shift Virginia's congressional delegation from a 6-5 Democratic edge to a 10-1 Democratic advantage – locking Republicans out of nearly every competitive district in the state for the next four years.
Republicans went to court. A circuit judge in January ruled the amendment unconstitutional, finding that Democrats violated their own procedural rules. Democrats appealed. Voters narrowly ratified the amendment in a special election on April 21 by a margin of 50.7 to 49.3 percent. The Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments on the Republican challenge just this week, and as of today the injunction blocking the map's certification remains in place.
Spanberger signed it. A white Democrat drew the map. She did it after her party defeated a Black Republican woman who was trying to become the first Black governor in Virginia's history.
What the Left Was Actually Arguing
The Callais ruling Avlon was fuming over delivers something conservatives have argued for years: the Voting Rights Act cannot require racial sorting of voters. A majority-Black district drawn explicitly to concentrate Black voters was unconstitutional. The Court said so 6-3.
Jennings had a response to that too. He noted that 58 members of the House of Representatives are Black – and the majority represent districts where white voters are the plurality. White voters, in majority-white districts, elected Black representatives. They did it without a map engineered to produce the outcome.
"We're so racist in America," Jennings said on air, "that you've got white people electing Black members of Congress."
The assumption buried in every Democratic argument about racial gerrymandering is that Black candidates cannot win without a specially drawn district protecting them from the voters. Winsome Earle-Sears disproved that. She won statewide in a purple state as a Black Republican woman. She was ready to do it again at the top of the ticket.
Democrats chose the white candidate. Then they redrew the map.
Scott Jennings put it in two sentences. CNN ran the commercial.
Sources:
- Western Journal Staff, "Watch: Scott Jennings Leaves Race-Baiting Journalist Sputtering on Camera," The Western Journal, April 30, 2026.
- Matt Vespa, "Watch Scott Jennings Wreck This Lib's Talking Point About the Voting Rights Act in Seconds on CNN," Townhall, April 30, 2026.
- Matt Margolis, "Scott Jennings Humiliates Former Daily Beast Editor Over Gerrymandering and Race," PJ Media, April 30, 2026.
- Ballotpedia Staff, "Virginia Use of Legislative Congressional Redistricting Map Amendment (April 2026)," Ballotpedia, April 2026.
- Staff, "Virginia voters back redistricting amendment after months of legal and political battles," Virginia Mercury, April 21, 2026.
- PBS NewsHour Staff, "Virginia Supreme Court considers GOP challenge to voter-approved redistricting plan," PBS NewsHour, April 27, 2026.
