Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Virginia announced the new congressional maps for Virginia’s eleven districts that were re-drawn by the House and Senate. The maps were put together by two court appointees called special masters, and were reviewed by the court and after receiving extensive public comment on earlier drafted maps.

Prince William County’s most diverse population underwent a major shift. The earlier draft of the congressional maps had Prince William County shifted from its current state of division across three congressional districts and placed in a singular district. But instead of being contained in one district, the county is now divided between the new 7th district and tenth district.

Under the proposed changes, the 7th Congressional District will consist of the following localities: Culpeper County; Greene County; Madison County; Spotsylvania County; Fredericksburg; Caroline County; King County; and parts of Prince William and Albermarle. Meanwhile, the tenth district will consist of: Loudoun, Fauquier, Rappahanock, Manassas Park, Manassas, with partial sections of Prince William and Fairfax Counties.

This is a blow to potential Democratic candidates who were considering running in the primaries next year. The 7th district is now drawn to be more conservative than what the earlier draft suggested, and that bodes well for the incoming Youngkin Administration after sweeping the general election last month. 

(Source: VPAP)

According to a statement released by the special masters who oversaw the redistricting efforts, they placed “good government” criteria (keeping localities whole) over racial considerations.  “Only after we had drawn districts that satisfied good government criterion did we examine racial effects.”

Despite the good government criteria employed by the special masters, the western end of Prince William County was placed in the tenth district, which is overwhelmingly likely to elect a Democratic candidate to Congress, and the eastern part of Prince William was placed in a district that will have a much closer race.

After the new maps were released, Coles District Supervisor Yesli Vega announced that she will seek the Republican nomination for the 7th district.