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Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger has completely denied that there is an agreement being made to create new boundaries for the Second Congressional District on the Eastern Shore and Virginia Beach after former Representative Elaine Luria was followed without a certain event who wanted answers.
Luria, a former Second District Democrat, is challenging Rep. Jennifer Kiggans, R-Va., in a race considered “Even” under the current map but that would upset the Democratic Alliance under newly drawn boundaries that draw heavily on Newport News and the city of Franklin while drawing limited parts of Chesapeake.
Someone photographed Luria this week as she left a dinner party in Hampton Roads and asked twice: “Did you make a backroom deal with your best friend Abigail Spanberger to re-draw the district?”
Luria ignored the man, but the video went viral on social media as observers raised questions, given the tone of the redistricting effort led by Senate President L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth.
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Then Rep. Elaine Luria sits on stage at Congress. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Luria’s campaign declined to comment and Spanberger’s camp has denied the allegations.
“There was no agreement,” Spanberger’s top spokeswoman, Libby Wiet, told Fox News Digital.
Meanwhile, Kiggans campaign spokesman Joe Link said the controversial clip “speaks for itself.”
“Young women should remember this when they vote on April 21st,” Link told Fox News Digital, speaking on the day of the special election on the Democrats’ proposed amendment.
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Lucas did not respond to a request for comment but has been vocal online about the redistricting effort, mocking opponents like Gov. Former Glenn Youngkin and Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., and insulted Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for telling him to “—ing finish[ing]”That’s what he said he started.
In January, Lucas targeted Kiggans, suggesting he was deliberately trying to unseat him. The 82-year-old posted a photo of Kiggans in a McDonald’s uniform asking if the customer “wanted[s] go with it.”
Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas blasted Sen. Ted Cruz on his criticism of Virginia’s push for redistricting, saying “Y’all started it and we f–king finished it.” (Minh Connors/The Washington Post/Nathan Posner/Anadolu/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, across the commonwealth, Republicans continue to express anger at the new map being put to voters as “reinstatement.”[ing] justice” on April 21, when the Prince William County GOP posted a photo of their outlying district “sliced” into five pieces next to a picture of a deli salami.
Prince William, Arlington and Fairfax counties are seen as anchors for many of Virginia’s congressional districts, which critics say will suppress, if not reduce, the reported 45% of people who vote Republican or live in rural areas.
In Rockingham County, which surrounds Harrisonburg and resides in the Shenandoah Valley and is currently completely represented by GOP Rep. Ben Cline of Botetourt, Del. based in Fairfax. Dan Helmer is pictured campaigning for the newly drawn 7th District, according to the local GOP.
Helmer dismissed claims that he helped draw his district, saying he was doing what Democratic leaders told him to do “to elect a Democratic majority” in his caucus role, according to the Virginia Mercury.
Del. Joe McNamara, R-Cave Spring, told reporters he still believes in Helmer’s “craft[ed] maps to their advantage, and you’re just next.”
“My role was to elect a majority of the Democrats the last two years so we could fight what Trump is doing and re-elect him this year,” Helmer told the Mercury. Helmer, who endorsed the state’s sweeping gun ban, has two previous unsuccessful congressional bids under recent maps.
The Rockingham County GOP contradicted its previous campaign promise to be the “voice of Fairfax,” suggesting, as in Kiggans’ county, that Democrats are deliberately pulling seats.
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“They have no shame,” the group said, citing a photo of Helmer campaigning in the area.
Former first lady Dorothy McAuliffe, who also doesn’t live in many of the rural areas of the newly drawn “lobster-shaped” district, is running for the seat.
JP Cooney, a prosecutor who worked under the much-reviled special counsel Jack Smith, is the third Democrat to seek the new district, further fueling Republican anger at the process.
Earlier this week, Rep. Donald Beyer, an Alexandria Democrat, acknowledged that his party’s redistricting effort is aimed specifically at reprimanding President Donald Trump.
That comment led to outrage on the right, including Virginia House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore.
Kilgore, from Gate City in Scott County near the Tennessee line, represents one of the few places that have been given safe under the new map – if not because the aforementioned 45% of Republicans had to be gathered somewhere.
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“This is not fair to the Commonwealth of Virginia. We are a 51-49 state, not a 90-10 state. If they are willing to silence nearly half of the Commonwealth’s voters in the name of ‘fairness’ what else are they willing to do?” Kilgore told Fox News Digital.
His place is represented by Rep. Morgan Griffith, a Republican who covers a number of mountain communities from Galax, Martinsville and Independence in the east to Cumberland Gap, Wise and coal-rich Grundy in the west.
