When Politicians Choose Their Voters: Virginia and the Crisis of Vanishing Competition

By approving a new congressional map on April 21, Virginia voters handed Democrats a significant edge in the state — but the bigger story is what it means for voters: even less competition, and less say in elections.

Before the mid-decade redistricting wars, about 90% of U.S. House seats were already uncompetitive. After California’s Prop 50, that rose to 92% — making 2026 the least competitive election in modern history (with Texas and Ohio contributing to mid-decade redistricting by furthering GOP advantage, though not reducing the number of competitive seats).

If the redistricting measure ultimately passes, Virginia pushes that number even higher.

Virginia’s voter-approved congressional map would leave just one competitive U.S. House race in the state, according to Cook Political Report. Ten of its 11 seats (91%) would be decided in low-turnout party primaries this year, up from 8 uncompetitive seats in the old map. This would push the national percentage of uncompetitive U.S. House seats to 93% (403 of 435).

Let that sink in: If Virginia’s redistricting measure passes, 93% of U.S. House races are going to be uncompetitive in the general election when most people participate, and will be decided instead in this year’s primaries.

Though redrawing congressional districts (known as gerrymandering) is sold by politicians as a win for voters and a means to fairness, in reality, parties weaponize gerrymandering to preserve their own power and manipulate elections, all but guaranteeing their preferred outcome before a single ballot has been cast.

Legislators that push back against their party’s redistricting efforts do so at great peril. In Indiana, Republican state senators who resisted a GOP redistricting push faced threats, swatting and pipe-bomb scares, and warnings from Trump that they should be primaried – yet some still refused to go along. This kind of courage is rare — especially in a political system where fewer competitive elections mean fewer incentives to resist party demands. Yet it is direly needed to protect the shrinking number of elections in which voters, not party insiders, still decide the outcome.

At Unite America, we believe that independent redistricting commissions are the answer. They remove self-interested politicians from the process and put citizens and independent commissioners in charge. Independent redistricting commissions replace state legislatures as the body responsible for redrawing district lines based on population changes each decade. While they vary state to state, in general their members are chosen in a way to diminish undue influence from any one party or branch of government, and they are legally bound to draw districts based on a defined set of criteria.

The difference is not just theoretical. Research from the Brennan Center finds that congressional districts drawn by independent commissions — especially in states like Colorado and Michigan — tend to produce higher voter turnout than those drawn by legislatures, in part because they are more likely to create genuinely competitive elections. Even in uncompetitive districts, turnout under the new commissions in Colorado and Michigan was more than 10 points higher than in other uncompetitive districts across the 21 states included in the Brennan Center’s study.

What happened in Virginia is the latest warning sign in a national crisis of vanishing electoral competition, and our democracy suffers as other states follow suit. When 93% of House races are effectively decided before the general election, voters lose the power to choose their representatives and hold them accountable. 

Voters should choose their politicians, not the other way around. Redistricting reform, including independent redistricting commissions, eliminates partisan gerrymandering and gives voters a stronger voice by taking party politics out of the map-drawing process.

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