The U.S. Supreme Court on May 15, 2026, refused to overturn the Virginia Supreme Court’s 4-3 decision that invalidated a voter-approved congressional map supported by Democrats [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Virginia Democrats had sought emergency relief to reinstate the map, which aimed to add four seats to the Democratic delegation in the 2026 midterm elections [7, 1, 2, 4, 8].

The Virginia Supreme Court ruled on May 8 that the amendment violated state constitutional procedures because the legislature’s approval came after early voting had started for the previous election, failing to meet the requirement for two separate legislative approvals with an intervening election [7, 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 5]. Democrats contended early voting should not be considered the start of the election under federal law, arguing the referendum was still valid since an election legally occurs only on Election Day [7, 1, 8, 5]. The state court rejected that interpretation [7, 2, 9, 5].

The rejected redistricting plan would have flipped up to four Republican-held U.S. House seats to Democrats, shifting Virginia’s House delegation from six Democrats and five Republicans to an overwhelming 10 Democrats and one Republican [7, 4, 6]. Governor Abigail Spanberger’s office confirmed the 2026 elections will proceed using the 2021 congressional districts after the Supreme Court’s decision [1, 2].

Democratic leaders including House Speaker Don Scott and Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell submitted the emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court following the Virginia ruling [7, 8, 10]. Surovell said, "The practical realities of our election calendar prevent candidates from running under the new maps this cycle" [8]. Senator Mark Warner criticized the ruling as "outrageous," urging candidates to focus on winning under existing maps [11]. Warner said, "It sure as heck seems like there are one set of rules for Democrats and another set of rules for Republicans" [11]. Senator Tim Kaine added, "We need to do now what we did last November and just go win a whole lot of seats on the maps we didn’t draw" [11].

Republicans praised the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene. Virginia House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore described efforts to challenge the ruling as "insane," saying, "it would be crazy to throw out judges for making the right decision" [10, 9].

Democrats’ emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court contained filing errors, including addressing the petition to the wrong court and typographical mistakes [10, 9].

Virginia Democrats filed their emergency appeal on May 11 after the state court ruling on May 8 [7, 8, 10]. The U.S. Supreme Court’s May 15 decision leaves the existing 2021 congressional district map in place for the upcoming midterms [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].