In 2020 Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to lose Virginia twice since William Howard Taft. Then in 2024 Trump lost once more, this time to Kamala Harris. Now he has in effect lost it a fourth time as Virginia voters approved on Tuesday a fiercely contested referendum redrawing congressional districts to favor Democratic congressional candidates in the 2026 midterm elections. “This is really a country election. The whole country is watching,” Trump said.
If so, it watched Trump suffer a major blow – one that will prompt renewed questions about his political acuity and judgment. It was Trump, after all, who kicked off the spate of gerrymandering in August 2025 by demanding that Texas Republicans engage in geographic contortions to deprive Democrats, as far as possible, from capturing the House of Representatives. He went on to insist that Indiana do so as well only to see its state legislators balk at carrying out his peremptory use. But even in the states that heeded his wishes such as Texas, his mounting unpopularity may subvert his electoral designs. It now appears that the Democrats may win not only the House but also the Senate.
The Democratic victory in Virginia will instill even more fear and loathing in Trump about the midterms
This unexpected turn of events has its origins in Trump’s ill-advised foray into Iran and concomitant failure to revive the economy. The mood in America has soured. A new AP-NORC poll indicates that soaring fuel prices have caused Trump’s overall popularity rating to fall to a dismal 33 percent. Only 30 percent of voters approve of his handling of the economy and 23 percent of his approach to cost of living issues.
Trump’s fusillade of self-contradictory statements about Iran have done little to inspire confidence in his presidency. One minute he has vowed to bomb the country back to the Stone Age. The next he has proclaimed that peace is at hand. On Tuesday he climbed down from his latest threats to extend the ceasefire indefinitely.
Meanwhile, Iran is winning the propaganda war, issuing a stream of LEGO AI videos skewering Trump and his associates for their bluff and bombast, not to mention FBI Director Kash Patel’s alleged bouts of crapulosity as reported in the Atlantic magazine. In response he’s lodged a $250 million defamation suit against it.
The best that can be said for the turmoil is that there’s never a dull moment in Trump’s Washington. But voters are reacting allergically. Some Virginia voters explained their readiness to vote for the referendum, which is expected to add an additional four seats for the Democrats, by contending that desperate times call for desperate measures. The idea is that saving democracy requires crimping democracy. A 10-1 ratio of Democrats to Republicans hardly reflects the political complexion of the state. But the same can be said of Republican states that have sought to banish Democratic candidates.
The Democratic victory in Virginia will instill even more fear and loathing in Trump about the midterms. He is increasingly a cornered president. So far, the Republican Party has remained largely loyal to him. The splits on the right that have occurred are mostly among influencers and pundits such as Tucker Carlson or Ann Coulter.
It is in Trump’s interest to provoke as much chaos as possible around the elections. His Justice Department is making serial attempts to seize election ballots from the 2020 elections, but has failed to make any of its claims about potential election fraud stick.
Trump wants dominion. But the results from the Old Dominion State have further complicated his efforts to upend the midterm elections. The Democrats are on a path to win them.
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