Greg Sargent
‪@gregsargent.bsky.social‬

Remarkable: 100% of the ads in Northern Virginia heavily featured Trump to turn out voters for the redistricting referendum in the closing days, a source tells me.

That's right, all of the ads were all about Trump. This backfired for him spectacularly.

New piece:
https://newrepublic.com/article/209383/trump-virginia-redistricting-democrats-big-win

How Trump Accidentally Handed Dems Their Big Win in Virginia
The vote yes campaign featured Trump all of its closing ads in areas where it ran up huge numbers. Voters know who started this war.
newrepublic.com
1:14 PM · Apr 22, 2026

pinkytime.bsky.social
‪@pinkytime.bsky.social‬

Trump: If the Dems win, they’ll kick me out of office.

NOVA: You don’t say!
2:48 PM · Apr 22, 2026

Politics Homepage

Greg Sargent
April 22, 2026

OWN GOAL
How Trump Accidentally Handed Dems Their Big Win in Virginia

The “vote yes” campaign featured Trump in all of its closing ads in areas where it ran up huge numbers. Voters know who started this war.


Julia Demaree Nikhinson/pool/Getty Images

On Monday night, just before Virginia voters approved a referendum Tuesday that will allow Democrats to draw up to four new House seats before the midterms, Donald Trump captured the true essence of this situation in a single sentence. “I don’t know if you know what gerrymandering is,” Trump told a conference call of Virginia supporters, “but it’s not good.”

Trump, of course, urged Texas Republicans last summer to gerrymander to help the GOP hold the House, then pressed other red states to follow suit. That prompted Democrats to retaliate in blue states. Trump initiated this arms race. So by declaring the Virginia initiative “not good,” he inadvertently confirmed the actual Trump-GOP position: Republicans should be permitted to rig elections to their maximum benefit, and Democrats should roll over and accept it.

It’s fitting that Trump laid this bare so clearly. Because as it turns out, Trump is perhaps the primary reason that the referendum passed.

In the “vote yes” campaign’s final days, 100 percent of the ads that aired in Northern Virginia markets heavily emphasized or featured very prominent imagery of Trump, a source familiar with ad buy information tells me. “Trump’s mug was all over the communications that voters were receiving, specifically among the lion’s share of the voters we needed,” the source says. “Trump’s name and face were plastered all over the mess he made.”

{snip}

Greg Sargent
Greg Sargent is a staff writer at The New Republic and the host of the podcast The Daily Blast. A seasoned political commentator with over two decades of experience, he was a prominent columnist and blogger at The Washington Post from 2010 to 2023 and has worked at Talking Points Memo, New York magazine, and the New York Observer. Greg is also the author of the critically acclaimed book An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics.