CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten did not mince words regarding the implications of Virginia’s new redistricting plan on the Republican Party.

On Tuesday, voters in Virginia approved a Democratic-backed constitutional amendment to dramatically redraw the state’s congressional map ahead of the midterm elections this fall.

The move could hand Democrats an additional four congressional seats that Republicans currently hold, and has been widely interpreted as a rebuke of President Donald Trump’s administration ― a point which Enten reiterated on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” late Tuesday.

Democrats, he said, are now “going to gerrymander this state rotten. They’re basically gonna lock Republicans out of power in a state where Donald Trump got 46% of the vote back in 2024.”

“This vote in Virginia means so very much,” he added, “and that’s why all that money was spent on it, my goodness gracious.”

Watch CNN’s Harry Enten discuss Virginia’s redistricting plan below.

The outcome in Virginia follows the passage of California’s Proposition 50, which will allow the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature to redraw its congressional districts in 2025.

Many political experts have suggested such victories indicate that the Democratic party-wide coalition that appeared to fracture after Trump was reelected in 2024 may be reemerging.

Not surprisingly, Trump swiftly denounced the results of the Virginia vote and deemed Tuesday’s election “RIGGED.”

“All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory!” he wrote Wednesday in post on his Truth Social platform. “As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they!”

Though Virginia’s plan is expected to face additional legal hurdles, it’s worth noting that Trump is now seen as trailing in a partisan gerrymandering fight that, by all accounts, he started.

Last year, the president began pressuring Republican-controlled states to redraw their congressional maps mid-decade in order to stave off anticipated Democratic victories in the midterm elections this fall, and scored early victories favorable to the GOP in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina.

Speaking to NPR’s “Morning Edition” Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) praised Virginia voters for having “understood the assignment,” adding: “It was an extraordinary undertaking.”

“Donald Trump indicated that he was going to rip away 10, 12 or 15 seats from the people of this country in states like Texas and Missouri and North Carolina as part of an effort to rig the midterm elections,” he said. “That effort has now been thwarted.”

Former HuffPost journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin has been detained for

days in Kuwait. He must be freed immediately.

Learn more here.

Credit: Grace Rivera

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