The 'California-ization' of the Commonwealth
How Census Gerrymandering is Redrawing Virginia and America’s Destiny
The political transformation of Virginia from a reliable Republican stronghold to a deep-blue monolith was made apparent by the recent drubbing of Republicans in Virginia’s statewide races.
While economic issues were cited as one of the keys to Democrats’ strong showing last November, a closer look at the data reveals a different story not rooted in persuading American voters, but in the structural expansion of an electorate that favors Democrats.
In fact, in many ways, this political restructuring has nothing to do with American citizens at all and is instead the result of a census-driven system that, in practice, rewards states with large inflows of non-citizens, diluting the representation of American citizens while fortifying the Democratic Party's political power.
The core of this strategy lies in the Apportionment Clause.
For the purposes of Representation, the U.S. Census counts “the whole number of persons in each State. This includes legal permanent residents, temporary visa holders, and even illegal immigrants, to determine how many seats in Congress a state receives and how state legislative districts are drawn.
As recently as 2015, Republicans held nearly a majority of seats in Northern Virginia.
Today, they hold none.
This isn’t just because people were persuaded to change their minds; it’s because the map itself was reconfigured and expanded by a massive influx of residents who are either recent (legal) arrivals or those illegal immigrants who should not be a part of the American body politic at all.
In Northern Virginia (NOVA), the demographic data behind the political shift is nothing short of revolutionary, with several House Districts reporting staggering numbers of foreign-born and non-citizens among their constituents – upwards of 30% among some districts.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported that of the 76,510 new “Virginians” who entered the State from July 2023 to July 2024, seventy-three percent (56,155) were immigrants. This continued influx creates suburban, more populated districts, filled with foreign-born and illegal aliens that have the same weight or more than a rural district in the Shenandoah Valley, yet these representatives answer to a much smaller pool of *actual* American voters. This “population ballast” then justifies the existence of a seat that could otherwise belong to a region with more actual citizens, not just residents with varying degrees of legal status.
And if you think this is a conspiracy, think again. This is a reality that liberal media openly celebrate.
In November 2019, following a sweep that gave Democrats control of the Virginia statehouse, the New York Times explicitly highlighted how demographic change by way of immigration had fundamentally altered the state’s political DNA.
Of course, these demographic shifts are not enough for the modern Left as they are now attempting to force the maps to catch up with their ambitions – and Virginia has become another front in a national redistricting war.
Reporting from PBS NewsHour details a high-stakes legal battle where Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger and Attorney General Jay Jones have attempted to ram through a mid-decade redistricting referendum. Their goal is nakedly partisan to redraw congressional maps in a way that would hand Democrats four additional U.S. House seats.
This proposed map would shift the current 6-5 delegation to a staggering 10-1 Democratic advantage, effectively wiping out GOP representation everywhere but the deep southwest.
As Virginia Senate President Louise Lucas recently declared, “We said 10-1 and we meant it.”
This “mid-decade” push—recently blocked by Tazewell Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr.—is an admission that the current maps, even with their high immigrant counts, do not yet provide the total dominance the Left requires and so Virginia Democrats will continue to leverage the “imported” population in NOVA for maximum state and federal power.
But what’s happening in Virginia is not new. In fact, Virginia is following a pattern pioneered by California. By being a magnet for immigration while including non-citizens in the Census, California has maintained several extra congressional seats that would otherwise belong to states like Ohio, Missouri, or Alabama.
And so, what we are seeing is a “California-ization” of the entire country, where high-immigration “sanctuary” corridors are rewarded with more political power for the very act of ignoring federal immigration laws.
This is why the battle over the Citizenship Question on the Census was so vital. When the Trump administration attempted to add a simple checkbox—”Is this person a citizen of the United States?”—it was met with a wall of litigation. The fear was not for the immigrants, but for the continued suppression of what the data would reveal.
If the government had hard numbers on non-citizens in every district, the legal foundation for “Citizen-Only Apportionment” would be significantly strengthened.
Without that data, the 2020 Census remained a “blind count,” treating a foreign national in Fairfax County, VA, with the same political weight as a multi-generational citizen in Roanoke.
Thankfully, the GOP is attempting to fight back legislatively.
Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility), which, if signed into law, would mandate physical proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, to register to vote rather than relying on the “honor system“ flaw in our current voter registration process.
Given that foreign-born and non-citizens account for upwards of 35% of the total population in several state legislative districts across Virginia, the SAVE Act could prove to be a vital safeguard, ensuring that the “population ballast” used by Democrats to redraw the maps isn’t further mobilized as an illegal voting bloc.
However, the SAVE Act is only half the solution. America also needs the passage of the Equal Representation Act, which would mandate the citizenship question for the 2030 Census and require the President to exclude non-citizens from the population totals used for reapportionment.
If enacted, high-immigration enclaves would lose their artificial representative advantage, allowing political power to flow back to actual American citizens.
America is at a crossroads. As the New York Times confirmed years ago, the Left views these demographic shifts as the key to their political “destiny.”
Despite Trump’s gains with minorities in the 2024 election, minorities still overwhelmingly identify and vote for the Democratic Party, and as the recent PBS reporting proves, they are willing to use aggressive, potentially illegal redistricting maneuvers to secure that destiny.
We can continue down this path, where the American citizen’s voice is systematically diluted and eventually replaced through the mass importation of foreign nationals who count for representation but cannot vote (yet).
Or we can return to the fundamental principle of a Republic: that a government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed—meaning actual, legal citizens invested in the future of this nation.
The Left’s strategy is clear: transform the demographics of the United States, use those numbers to inflate legislative power through the Census, and then fight any attempt to verify the citizenship of the people on the voter rolls – while also legally stifling the deportation of illegal aliens.
If we do not end mass immigration, secure our elections, and restore citizen-only apportionment, permanently blue states like California and the political transformation of regions like Northern Virginia won’t be the exception; they will be the rule.