Virginia has suddenly taken center stage in the national redistricting wars as Old Dominion Democrats attempt to seize map-making powers back from a nonpartisan redistricting commission that voters approved in 2020. But while liberals croon that their gerrymandering crusade is about “protecting democracy,” the proposed maps highlight a disturbing story about rigging democracy through demographic change.
When looking at the hypothetical new congressional map that would scrap the Commonwealth’s current 6-5 Democrat-Republican split in favor of a likely 10-1 Democrat gerrymander, the first thing that becomes immediately apparent is the immense influence of Northern Virginia (NOVA). Five of the proposed new districts are anchored in densely populated and deeply liberal NOVA before snaking out to gobble up Republican votes in the Shenandoah Valley and other rural areas.
The new map underscores the new political reality in Virginia: NOVA dominates. The state’s shift from Republican stronghold to purple battleground to now becoming a safe haven for Democrats has been almost entirely driven by a population explosion in NOVA. As one commentator noted on X, Republicans controlled nearly half of the state legislative seats based in NOVA as recently as 2015. Now, they control zero.
But this political restructuring has less to do with internal migration and more to do with the mass importation of voters from abroad – part of an intentional strategy by Democrats to weaponize immigration to rig the game against Republicans. In many parts of NOVA, more than a quarter of the population is foreign-born – a trend that has coincided with growing Democrat dominance.
In total, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that of the 76,510 new individuals who entered the state from July 2023 to July 2024, 73 percent (56,155) were immigrants. This continued influx has created more populated suburban districts filled with foreign-born and illegal aliens that have the same or more political influence as a rural district in the Shenandoah Valley, yet these representatives answer to a much smaller pool of American citizen voters. This “population ballast” then justifies the existence of a seat that could otherwise belong to a region with more actual citizens, not just residents with varying degrees of legal status.
Before you dismiss this as a xenophobic conspiracy theory, consider that The New York Times was openly bragging about this development back in 2019. “The fields of Loudoun County are disappearing,” the paper reported. “In their place is row upon row of cookie-cutter townhouses… Unlike three decades ago, the residents are often from other places, like India and Korea. And when they vote, it is often for Democrats.”
“Once the heart of the confederacy, Virginia is now the land of Indian grocery stores, Korean churches and Diwali festivals,” the Times continues. “One in 10 people eligible to vote in the state were born outside the United States, up from one in 28 in 1990. It is also significantly less white.”
This trend has only accelerated since that story was published nearly seven years ago. Now, if Democrats get their way, the NOVA neighborhoods with heavy foreign-born voting populations will control 45 percent of Virginia’s congressional seats – forming the heart of the liberal effort to effectively disenfranchise the vast majority of Republican voters in Virginia.
But what’s happening in Virginia is not new. In fact, Virginia is following a pattern pioneered by California. By being a magnet for immigration while including non-citizens in the Census, California has maintained several extra congressional seats that would otherwise belong to states like Ohio, Missouri, or Alabama.
The core of this strategy lies in the Apportionment Clause. For the purposes of representation, the U.S. Census counts “the whole number of persons in each State.” While the Trump administration is challenging the inclusion of illegal aliens for apportionment calculations, tens of millions of illegals – heavily concentrated in blue states – were included in the 2020 Census.
In this sense, what’s happening in Virginia is just one part of the “California-ization” of the entire country, where high-immigration “sanctuary” corridors are rewarded with more political power for ignoring federal immigration laws.
This is why the battle over the Citizenship Question on the Census was so vital. When the Trump administration attempted to add a simple checkbox asking, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” in 2020, it was met with a wall of litigation. Democrats’ fear was not for illegal aliens who might be deported, but rather for what the data would reveal about just how much power they wield as a result of flouting immigration law.
Moreover, if the government had hard numbers on non-citizens in every district, the legal foundation for “citizen-only apportionment” would be significantly strengthened.
Without that data, the 2020 Census remained a “blind count,” granting an illegal alien in Fairfax County, Virginia, the same political weight as a citizen in Roanoke whose family has lived here for 100 years or more.
Thankfully, the GOP is attempting to stop this injustice, although progress has been frustratingly slow.
Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) Act, which, if signed into law, would mandate physical proof of citizenship to register to vote rather than relying on the “honor system” flaw in our current voter registration process.
Given that foreign-born and non-citizens account for upwards of 35 percent of the total population in several state legislative districts across Virginia, the SAVE Act could prove to be a vital safeguard, ensuring that the “population ballast” used by Democrats to redraw the maps isn’t further mobilized as an illegal voting bloc.
However, the SAVE Act is only half the solution. America also needs the passage of the Equal Representation Act, which would mandate the citizenship question for the 2030 Census and require the president to exclude non-citizens from the population totals used for reapportionment.
If enacted, high-immigration enclaves would lose their artificial representation advantage, allowing political power to flow back to actual American citizens.
America is at a crossroads. As The New York Times confirmed years ago, the Left views demographic shifts as the key to their political “destiny.” Their strategy is clear: transform the demographics of the United States, use those numbers to inflate legislative power through the Census, and then fight any attempt to verify the citizenship of the people on the voter rolls – while also stifling the deportation of illegal aliens.
If we do not end mass immigration, secure our elections, and restore citizen-only apportionment, permanently blue states like California and the political transformation of regions like Northern Virginia won’t be the exception – they will be the rule.
Adam Johnston is a writer whose work has been featured in The Federalist, The Blaze, and the Daily Caller. He is also the creator of the Substack publication “Conquest Theory” where he regularly writes about politics, history, philosophy, and technology. You can find him on X @adamkjohnston.
