Tens of millions of dollars — much of it dark money from undisclosed donors — poured into Virginia this year ahead of Tuesday’s vote on a congressional redistricting referendum that, if passed, could give Democrats a significant boost in the battle for the U.S. House majority in this year’s midterm elections.
If the ballot measure is successful, it would give the Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature — rather than the state’s current nonpartisan commission — temporary redistricting power through the 2030 election. It could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge.
The referendum, which follows President Donald Trump’s push for rare but not unheard-of mid-decade redistricting in Republican-led states, could give Democrats an edge as they try to win back control of the House from Republicans, who are defending a fragile majority.
Supporters of redistricting have dramatically outraised and outspent groups opposed to the referendum, with Democrat-aligned Virginians for Fair Elections raising roughly three times as much as GOP-allied Virginians for Fair Maps. But despite the Democrats’ funding advantage, public opinion polling suggests support for the ballot initiative is only slightly ahead of opposition amid a surge in early voting, which ended Saturday.
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“They have outspent us three to one. They’ve raised over $70 million. And yet this is a close vote,” former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, one of leaders of the GOP effort to defeat the referendum, told Fox News Digital on the eve of the election.
Much of the funding raised by both sides came from so-called “dark money” from nonprofit public policy groups known as 501(c)(4) organizations that are not required to disclose their donors. This according to a Fox News Digital review of state campaign finance records and records from the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), which tracks public spending in Virginia..
“It points to the importance of this referendum,” David Richards, political science chair at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia, told Fox News Digital, as he highlighted the influx of outside money pouring into the state.
Richards said the funding “also shows how national money can cloud these statewide elections. Virginians need to decide what’s good for them and instead, it becomes a national issue that takes away from what is good for Virginia.”
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Given the green light from the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, nonprofit public policy groups can spend unlimited funds without disclosing their donors, which often masks large contributions from corporations or wealthy individuals.
But dark money has long come under attack over a lack of transparency, with voters not knowing who is funding the political messages they are seeing. It’s been criticized as a threat to democracy for allowing wealthy interests to influence elections and policy.
“it’s because you don’t actually know where the money is coming from,” Chris Galdieri, a professor in the political science department at Saint Anselm College, told Fox News Digital. “With dark money, it’s not even traceable to a particular interest…it means that voters don’t know what the motives of the donors are.”
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On the “yes” side, House Majority Forward, which as the chief political nonprofit wing of House Democrats does not have to disclose its donors, has contributed nearly $40 million.
Other groups pumping big bucks into the Democrat effort to pass the referendum were fueled with millions of dollars from George Soros-backed dark money groups.
Meanwhile, the “no” effort has received $9 million from a group tied to tech billionaire Peter Thiel, a GOP megadonor and longtime Trump ally.
While often frowned upon, the use of dark money in politics is accelerating. Dark money groups shelled out more than $1.9 billion during the 2024 election cycle.
“Any rational person can look at the maps in Virginia and understand that this is a political game being played. It’s to benefit one party, not people,” veteran Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams argued. “What do they care if they finance their effort with dark money. It’s just another example of political gamesmanship in this process.”
Fox News’ Alec Schemmel and Leo Briceno contributed to this report.
