California Gov. Gavin Newsom must be kicking himself after what Democrats just managed to pull off in Virginia.

Not too long ago, Newsom was bragging about a referendum that “suspended” a constitutional amendment so Democrats could gerrymander five Republican districts out of existence.

But that still leaves four California seats that will likely be occupied by Republicans after the midterms.

And this is in a state that hasn’t seen a Republican governor in 15 years, a Republican senator in 34 years, where Democrats have a supermajority in the legislature, and the state that Kamala Harris won by a margin of 58% to 38%.

The referendum in Virginia, in contrast, will redraw its district boundaries in such a way as to leave just one Republican out of 11 representing the state, where today there are five.   

And yet Virginia is hardly as deep blue as California. After all, it elected a Republican governor in 2021 (by a 51-49 margin), had two Republican senators as recently as 2007, and is a state where Harris got less than 52% of the vote to Trump’s 46%.

But through massive party spending, a deceptively written ballot initiative, and, who knows, maybe some election fraud, Virginia did what Newsom could only dream of doing.

Virginia Democrats say that this is just an effort to block President Donald Trump’s agenda. But Trump will be out of office in 2029, while the gerrymandered districts will, if the scheme survives legal challenges, be in place until at least after the 2030 Census. This is a power grab, pure and simple, and it won’t be their last.

It makes us wonder what other plans Democrats have to turn Virginia into California East, now that they are in control and appear determined to keep it that way.

Alleged moderate Gov. Abigail Spanberger has already made Virginia a sanctuary state for illegal aliens. And Democratic lawmakers have introduced 50 measures to raise taxes, including a new 10% top marginal rate, which would place it behind only four other states (California’s is 13.3%), and would put Virginia in the No. 1 spot for the highest marginal rate on investment income.

Maybe Virginia Democrats will decide to build a bullet train that ends up years behind schedule and billions over budget, and that, if it ever gets finished, will manage only to connect Lynchburg to Charlottesville.

They could also do more to wreck their schools, fill their sidewalks with the homeless, ruin their cities, make the state unaffordable for middle-class families, and drive businesses out of the state.

Sure, California is ahead of Virginia in those categories. But Old Dominion Democrats seem intent on following the Golden State into the abyss.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board