WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – I met Debbie this week while she was smoking a cigarette outside my hotel. She’s 80, great-grandmother of eight, and smokes as much as I do. She came from rural Georgia and asked me, in the sweetest voice you ever heard, what all the “yes” and “no” signs on the roads were about.
I gave Debbie a thumbnail explanation of the April 21 referendum on whether to amend the state constitution, change the U.S. House of Representatives district maps in Virginia, and move from a 6-5 Democratic advantage to a 10-1 advantage. She just smiled and said, “Nowadays everyone is shouting about something or the other.”
Signs urge early voters to vote yes or no on the Virginia redistricting referendum on Tuesday, March 31, 2026, at the Ellen M. Bozman Government Center in Arlington, Virginia. Early voting continues across the state for Virginia’s redistricting referendum. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
I was struck by her words. It had been my son’s job on the largely rural drive south through the Commonwealth to count the yard signs, a task he remembers well from the last election and which also more or less keeps him off his phone.
We found about twenty “Yes” signs and fifteen “No” signs, the former mainly in expensive suburbs, the latter in the rural areas where Democrats want to turn blue by force. One sign hung on a tractor, but through Debbie’s eyes I saw how absurd this display really was.
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It’s surreal, almost out of a Jonathan Swift novel, to drive hundreds of miles and see signs that simply say “Yes” or “No.” No context, no meaning, just pick a side. And that’s exactly what this campaign feels like in Virginia.
Jodie is a Democrat in her 40s who teaches in the Newport News area.
“This isn’t about the moral high ground,” she told me, adding, “because they don’t care about the moral high ground and if we do, we lose.”
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This was very similar to the Republicans I recently spoke to in Texas who were defending their own redistricting, which they very plausibly say was a response to the fact that New England is 40% Republican and yet has no Republican House members.
Liam, a retiree, lifelong Virginian and Republican, seemed to understand this dynamic.
President Joe Biden and then-Rep. Abigail Spanberger poses for a photo at the U.S. Capitol. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)
“It’s obviously unfair and anti-democratic, but then they say ‘Texas did it too,’ so everyone just goes with their own team,” he told me.
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Another woman intervened and heard us simply say, “It’s a bloodbath now. Nobody talks.’
From the earliest moments of our Republic, and even a hundred years earlier in England, wise leaders of government had feared that parties or factions would spell the death of constitutional government by placing their differences above the good of the nation.
In his farewell address, George Washington, who studied here in Williamsburg, warned us all about parties and about the “groundless jealousy” that can lead to “fearful despotism.”
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Virginia’s redistricting, which effectively disenfranchises thousands of Republicans, is a case in point.
To go from a 6-5 margin to 10-1 is so fabulously anti-democratic and unimaginable that many Republicans are confident that if they highlight this, saner heads will surely prevail.
The problem is that the Democratic voters I talk to know it’s vague. They know Barack Obama lies about the honesty in local TV ads, but they don’t care. To them, the Republicans are even worse and must be defeated.
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One of the ironies of this event in Virginia, the state that produced James Madison, author of our Constitution, is that the special election referendum in two weeks will have very low turnout, despite constitutional amendments that supposedly require the highest possible popularity.
This referendum could easily be the difference between President Donald Trump being in impeachment purgatory for the next two years or being free to lead. Not only will the decision be made by a very small group of people, as far as I know they barely talk to each other.
My warning to Virginia Republicans is that winning hearts and minds will not win this battle. It needs all the ground game it can muster, all the knocking on doors, and yes, all the road and yard signs, because this really will be, as they say, all about attendance.
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Ultimately, Debbie is right. Unfortunately, in the cradle of constitutional representation, this referendum has become little more than people shouting about something. I think at least this time, on the ride home, she’ll know what they’re yelling about.
Vote yes, vote no, vote yes, vote no. It’s like the old Bugs Bunny routine. Maybe one side should try the old switcheroo, the reverse psychology trick. At this point it would represent a more erudite discourse than anyone, except perhaps Debbie, seems to offer.
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