Republicans target Spanberger as ‘Governor Bait and Switch’ in bid to defeat Dems redistricting push

Former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares is taking aim at Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger as he helps steer Republican efforts to defeat a Democrat-backed congressional redistricting referendum that would create up to four additional left-leaning U.S. House seats ahead of the midterm elections.

"She told voters in August of 2025 that she had no plans, no intention to do redistricting. And then the very first bill that she signed into law was the enabling legislation for this monstrosity of gerrymandering to go forward," Miyares told Fox News Digital on Thursday, as he pointed to Spanberger.

Miyares’ comments come as early voting is underway in Virginia ahead of an April 21 election on the ballot initiative, which, if passed, would give the Democrat-controlled legislature — rather than the current nonpartisan commission — redistricting power through the 2030 election. It could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge.

Republicans call the Democrats' redistricting effort an "unconstitutional power grab." Democrats counter that it's a necessary step to balance out partisan gerrymandering already implemented by Republicans in other states under the urging of President Donald Trump.

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Spanberger, a former CIA officer who served three terms in Congress, won election last year by a larger-than-expected 15-point margin in a state that is usually competitive between Democrats and Republicans.

But a poll last week from The Washington Post indicated that the new governor's approval rating was barely above water, with the highest unfavorable rating for a new Virginia governor in two decades.

Miyares, speaking with Fox News Digital, argued that Spanberger "is the most unpopular governor in modern Virginia political history."

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"She's an unpopular governor with an unpopular agenda and she lied to the voters," he charged as he pointed to her comments on the gubernatorial campaign trail last year regarding redistricting.

And in a social media post on Wednesday, Miyares took aim at Spanberger, writing, "Governor 'Bait and Switch' is what people hate about self serving politicians."

Miyares is co-chair for Virginians for Fair Maps, a GOP-aligned group that is working to defeat the redistricting referendum.

The group is currently running an ad statewide on TV and online that uses a 2019 quote from Spanberger, in which she wrote, "gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy."

"Trust me, we will be putting your face on a bunch of mailers reminding voters how you lied & previously stated you wouldn’t gerrymander Virginia into oblivion and then promptly did the opposite," Miyares wrote in his social media post.

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Along with former President Barack Obama, Spanberger has become one of the most visible faces in support of the amendment.

"I'm voting yes on Virginia's redistricting amendment," the governor says in an ad by Democratic-aligned Virginians for Fair Elections, the top political group backing the ballot initiative. The group is spending seven figures to run the ad statewide.

In the spot, Spanberger says she's supporting the referendum because "it's directly in response to what other states decide to do and a president who says he's quote entitled to more Republican seats before this year's midterms. Our approach is different. It's temporary. It preserves Virginia's fair redistricting process into the future."

Virginia is the latest battleground in the high-stakes fight between Trump and the GOP versus Democrats over congressional redistricting.

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Aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterms, Trump last spring first floated the idea of rare, but not unheard of, mid-decade congressional redistricting.

The mission was simple: redraw congressional district maps in red states to pad the GOP's razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in the midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.

Trump's first target was Texas.

When asked by reporters last summer about his plan to add Republican-leaning House seats across the country, the president said, "Texas will be the biggest one. And that’ll be five."

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas called a special session of the GOP-dominated state legislature to pass the new map.

But Democratic state lawmakers, who broke quorum for two weeks as they fled Texas in a bid to delay the passage of the redistricting bill, energized Democrats across the country.

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Among those leading the fight against Trump's redistricting was Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.

California voters in November overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that temporarily sidetracked the left-leaning state's nonpartisan redistricting commission and returned the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democratic-dominated legislature.

That is expected to result in five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, which aimed to counter the move by Texas to redraw their maps.

The fight quickly spread beyond Texas and California.

Republican-controlled Missouri and Ohio, and swing state North Carolina, where the GOP dominates the legislature, have drawn new maps as part of the president's push.

In blows to Republicans, a Utah district judge late last year rejected a congressional district map drawn up by the state's GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternate that will create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the midterms.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Indiana's Senate in December defied Trump, shooting down a redistricting bill that had passed the state House. The showdown in the Indiana statehouse grabbed plenty of national attention.

Florida's next up.

Two-term Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and state lawmakers in the GOP-dominated legislature are hoping to pick up an additional three to five right-leaning seats through a redistricting push during a special legislative session that kicks off on April 20.

Hovering over the redistricting wars is the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule in Louisiana v. Callais, a crucial case that may lead to the overturning of a key provision in the Voting Rights Act.

If the ruling goes the way of the conservatives on the high court, it could lead to the redrawing of a slew of majority-minority districts across the county, which would greatly favor Republicans.

But it is very much up in the air — when the court will rule, and what it will actually do.