MORNING RANT: The Virginia Redistricting Vote, Arlington & Alexandria Retrocession, and DC Statehood

As anyone who reads political blogs knows, voters in Virginia just approved* a redistricting plan that is designed to change its 11-person congressional delegation from a 6/5 Democrat/Republican split to a new map with a 10/1 split. This is being done by carving up the very blue Washington DC suburbs and attaching those hard-left voters to rural red counties. Fairfax County alone will be part of five different congressional districts. (*As Ace has documented, the redistricting election is facing challenges in Virginia courts.)

There has been much chatter since the election about having President Trump punch back by contesting the 19th century retrocession of Arlington and Alexandria from Washington DC to Virginia. The District was established in 1790 from land ceded by Maryland and Virginia, and was originally square in shape, straddling both shores of the Potomac River. But as Matt Margolis explains in this Townhall piece, the District had abolished slavery, so in 1847 the Virginia portion was retroceded back to Virginia to protect the slaveholders in Alexandria and Arlington. Several presidents since then have challenged the constitutionality of that action, and the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on it.

Since Alexandria and Arlington are populated by people who are dependent on Washington, returning those counties to DC would be an overdue homecoming.

In the 2024 presidential election, Arlington and Alexandria voted for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump at a ratio of 78% to 19%, with a margin of 121,000 votes. Although that number exceeds the margin of vote difference in this week’s redistricting vote, it would not have been enough in 2024. Kamala won Virginia by 259,000 votes, receiving 52% of the ballots cast counted.

Fairfax County is the great blue whale in Virginia. Fairfax voted 66% for Kamala in 2024, and provided her a massive 209,000 vote margin. Fairfax needs to be given to DC too.

DC statehood is a generally awful idea that won’t go away, and the next time Democrats control all levers of government, they plan to stuff it down our throats, with the intention of getting two more senators. But – DC statehood could be a politically helpful thing if we could just include Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax in the new state, which I’ll call “WaNoVa DC” for simplicity. Throwing Loudon County and Prince William County into the new state would leave Virginia beet red.

Here is what would really be great – the two current Democrat senators from Virginia actually represent metro DC, and they could continue to do so if they run for Senate from the new state. Virginia meanwhile would suddenly get two new Republican senators. The net result of WaNoVa DC statehood in the US Senate would be two new Senators, but they’d both be Republicans, not Democrats! Virginia would also then be free to elect an overwhelmingly Republican congressional delegation too, rather than being shut out as was voted for this past week.

At a bare minimum, simply returning Alexandria and Arlington to DC would make Virginia a purplish state rather than a blue state. Retrocession is a legitimate option that Republicans need to push. It also needs to be a poison pill inserted into any discussion of DC statehood.

Other Stuff I’m Writing About

My latest piece at the The American Spectator has been published. “Under the Radar of the ‘Doomcasting’ Media, There Is Massive Industrial Investment Occurring in the U.S.” discusses the explosive industrial growth occurring in the U.S., and how companies engaged in industrial construction are seeing record sales and a huge backlog of new orders.

The media will not stop trying to spin economic news as being bad for President Trump, but the simple fact is that his effort to re-shore American industry is proving wildly successful. The explosive industrial growth in the U.S. and the cheap natural gas to fuel it have put us in a position for a period of remarkable economic growth and job creation.

This piece is not behind a paywall. I’d be honored if you’d give it a read.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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