BRIDGEWATER – Against a patriotic background of an American flag and the first Air Force One plane at Dynamic Aviation on Saturday, a who’s who of current and former Republican elected officials including Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson, made the case that Virginians should reject the redistricting proposal that is on the ballot for a special April 21 election and tell their friends and families to do the same.
Del. Tony Wilt, R-34, began the program, which drew about 300 attendees, with prayer.
Before the gathering, Wilt stated his objections to the proposed redistricting, which the ballot says will be temporary.
“They say it’s going to be temporary, but will it truly be temporary?” he said. “Folks don’t readily give up power once they have it.”
Del. Chris Runion, R-35, and State Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-2, also participated in the program.
“Are we going to let Fairfax pick our congressman out here?” Obenshain asked attendees who yelled, “No.”
Attendees came not only from Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, but also from Shenandoah County and Augusta County, and a smaller contingent from Page County.
Obenshain, who would live in the 7th Congressional district if the redistricting referendum passes, said that the proposed map would favor “not just Democrats but specific Democrats.”
While others have suggested that the 7th District, which resembles a lobster on the proposed map, was drawn to favor Democratic incumbent Dan Helmer, Obenshain said he believed it was drawn to favor Dorothy McAuliffe, the wife of former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe.
“They believe that Dorothy McAuliffe, supported by Nancy Pelosi, ought to represent us in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia,” he said. “What do you think about that?”
The crowd booed.
“I, for one, am not going to trade in Ben Cline for a Nancy Pelosi-supported member of Congress,” he said. “We’re going to get out there and win.”
This statement was met with cheers.
Cline was one of the Virginia congressmen in attendance at the rally, but he wasn’t the only one.
Navy Seal Veteran John McGuire, who represents the 5th District, which currently includes Charlottesville, proudly stated that he was “the first Republican in the country endorsed by President Trump for re-election” this year.
“Democrats are trying to steal your voice,” McGuire told the crowd.
McGuire referenced a misleading billboard that suggested that Trump was supporting redistricting and said, “If you’ve got to lie to win, that’s not good. Truth will win.”
While there are misleading billboards suggesting that Trump supports redistricting, there are also misleading yard signs suggesting that Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who supports the redistricting referendum, opposes it.
Referencing the Bible, McGuire acknowledged that a win on redistricting would be a tough fight like “David versus Goliath. But who won that fight?”
To which the crowd responded, “David.”
McGuire also asked attendees not only to pray but also to make phone calls and knock on doors, urging people to oppose the redistricting proposal and to vote as soon as possible.
“I know Republicans don’t like to vote early. Please vote early,” he said Saturday. “If you vote today, you’ve got 10 more days to get 10 more people to vote.”
McGuire also mentioned Spanberger, suggesting that she ran a deceptive campaign.
“She ran as a moderate,” he said. “She ran on affordability, and within a week or so, they proposed over 50 new taxes. Does that sound moderate to you? Does that sound like affordability to you?”
Attendees said no.
Congressman Jen Kiggans, R-2, a Navy veteran, mother, and nurse practitioner, who represents the Virginia Beach/Hampton Roads area, said it was important for people who opposed the redistricting proposal to not only vote but also bring people to the polls.
“The reason I came all the way over here from Virginia Beach is to tell you about the importance of voting,” she said.
Kiggans said that while Republicans currently have the majority in the House and the Senate and control the White House, “It’s a little different story here in Virginia. We see an unpopular governor whose popularity is tanking, and it’s going to go further south the more they continue to push this affordability plan that they lied to us about all of last year. It’s insanity.”
Kiggans said that what Virginia does regarding redistricting matters.
“This is the place that the whole country is watching right now,” she said.
Kiggans said that the presidential election results, which were split nearly evenly along party lines, with Democrats having a 52% share of the vote and Republicans having a 47% share of the vote, are accurately represented in the current districts, of which Democrats represent six and Republicans represent five.
“The way they want to change it, they want to change it so that we have 10 Democrats, and one Republican [leaning district],” she said. “That’s 92 percent of the Commonwealth represented by the Democratic Party. I don’t care which way you look at that, that’s unconstitutional, that’s illegal, and it’s un-American, and we’re not going to put up with that.”
Republican Congressman Rob Wittman, who represents the First Congressional District, which includes the Richmond suburbs, began his portion of the rally by saying, “Good afternoon, patriots.”
He asked a series of questions, including: “Are you ready to say ‘no’ to their effort to destroy fairness?”
Wittman argued that the redistricting initiative is problematic because it “would put all the power into Fairfax.”
He asked, “Do you think that a member of Congress who has a majority population in Fairfax County will ever come to the Shenandoah Valley?”
“This is purely a power grab,” he said. “It’s purely about silencing you, disenfranchising your voices and saying, ‘You don’t matter. What does matter is political power and what does matter is concentrating it in Northern Virginia.'”
Wittman argued that maps that concentrate power in NOVA hurt “all of us.”
Wittman said that it was especially important to resist what he viewed as a power grab.
“This is one of those elections of a lifetime,” he said. “This is an all-hands-on-deck call, folks, to use a Navy term,” he said.
He urged attendees to pull out their legal pads when they got home and “write down names of at least 20 of your friends and family, and I want you to make sure that you call them, and I want you to ask them, ‘Have you gone to the polls and voted ‘no’ against this attempted takeover of Virginia by the Democrats?'”
Referring to the founding fathers and calling Virginia “the birthplace of freedom and liberty,” Wittman said, “Ten Democrats and one Republican. Does that represent what this nation was founded upon? Does that represent what our patriots here in the Commonwealth of Virginia fought and died for?”
Wittman said he is confident that “when we turn people out, we will win.”
Winning in Virginia, Wittman said, would send a message throughout the nation.
Referencing George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and James Madison, Wittman said, “Virginia has always led.”
Republican Ben Cline, who represents the 6th Congressional District, which currently includes both Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, thanked Johnson for helping to pass “great bills like the Big Beautiful Bill, that’s helping us say no to taxes on overtime, no to taxes on tips, and say yes to keeping more money in your pocket.”
Cline, who was raised in Rockbridge County, said he learned the values of faith, family and community from growing up in the Shenandoah Valley.
Cline argued that the Shenandoah Valley should remain one congressional district because “it is a community of interest just like the Roanoke Valley, just like Southside, just like the Northern Neck.”
Cline said “what these liberals in Richmond are doing” by attempting to break up coherent communities like the Shenandoah Valley is “an insult to the values that we were raised on here in the Shenandoah Valley.”
“They’re trying to steal your voice, your voice in Washington, and the voice of rural Virginia, when we stand up for agricultural issues, when we stand up for rural transportation issues, when we stand up for family and faith issues,” Cline said. “They are trying to steal that voice from you. We’re not going to let them, are we?”
Cline said, “They’re trying to steal your Virginia right out from under you… and they’re doing it with an explicit design to elect Hakeem Jeffries as the next speaker of the House.”
“Are we going to let them elect Hakeem Jeffries as the next speaker of the House?” Cline asked.
To which the crowd responded, “No!”
Cline then said, “They are working overtime, 20 to 30 million dollars spent by George Soros from across the country working to elect Hakeem Jeffries and steal these four seats. These Democrats are playing dirty, ladies and gentlemen. … Talk about fairness. Well, 10-1 doesn’t sound very fair to me. Does it sound very fair to you?”
Former attorney general Jason Miyares, taking the stage next, said that Spanberger’s platform was “the greatest bait switch in modern political history. What did Abigail Spanberger run on? Affordability, right?”
To which one audience member yelled, “Lies!”
Miyares said that Spanberger promised to be a non-partisan unifier, but Miyares said, “She’s kind of like a really bad used car salesman.”
The former attorney general argued that Spanberger promised to lower energy costs but instead raised them by adding a carbon tax. He also said that Spanberger is increasing consumer costs by taxing services like Netflix and DoorDash, as well as goods like mattresses.
He also criticized her record on crime.
“She said that she would work with law enforcement, but her first executive order was ordering law enforcement not to cooperate with immigration authorities. When the ink was not even dry, just two weeks later, Stephanie Minter was at the bus stop in Fairfax after a long day, and an illegal immigrant stabbed her to death.”
Miyares said that the man who murdered Minter had been previously arrested 30 times, and “that’s what sanctuary policies get us.”
Miyares said that Spanberger also broke her promise on redistricting, which she previously said she didn’t plan to support.
“See that map on the right,” he said, indicating the proposed map. “That’s what happens when you’re drunk to power, or maybe you’re just drunk… You all may not know this, but you’re big fans of seafood here. So you know where you are now? The proposed district? They call this the lobster district because it starts at the Pentagon, you can see it, and it makes it all the way down to the West Virginia border with one claw … and the other claw goes all the way outside of Goochland, outside of Richmond. Here’s a general rule. If you have to use animals to describe what a district looks like, maybe you gerrymandered.”
Quoting the Washington Post, Miyares said that those running the pro-redistricting campaign are “‘brazenly dishonest.’ Think about that. The Washington Post covers D.C. politics, and it even shocks them.”
Miyares suggested that the pro-redistricting proposal was problematic because it could create a situation where “we’re gonna have five congressmen living within a 15-minute radius of each other up in Northern Virginia.”
“You can be a hardcore conservative or a passionate progressive, but when you decide that your neighbor doesn’t deserve a voice, you lose something much bigger than that,” Miyares said.
Virginia Democrats have argued that redistricting in Virginia is being done in response to pro-Republican gerrymandering in other states like Texas
to help President Donald Trump maintain Republican control of the House in the November elections. Virginia Democrats say that they are seeing what pro-Trump states are doing and fighting back.
But Miyares argues that this argument is “based on a lie. The first state to do mid-cycle redistricting was not Texas. You know where it was? New York.”
Miyares, referencing the film “The Untouchables,” which tells the story of Elliot Ness’ takedown of Al Capone, turned to the audience and repeatedly asked, “What are you prepared to do?”
He then asked, “Are you prepared to fight?” To which audience members yelled “yes.”
Miyares told audience members to “vote, and vote now because when you vote, you save us money.”
That money can then be spent on sending out reminders to other would-be voters, he said.
“This right now is a toss-up,” Miyares said. He compared Virginia’s fight against the redistricting proposal to America’s fight for independence against Great Britain in the late 1700s.
“Two hundred and fifty years ago, we had a king telling Virginians you don’t deserve a voice,” he said.
Miyares said that the vote wasn’t about left versus right but rather about “right versus wrong. It is wrong to take away your neighbor’s voice as part of a political power grab.”
Following Miyares, former Governor Glenn Youngkin took the stage as “Spirit in the Sky” played.
“Vote no,” Youngkin told attendees. “It’s that simple. Vote no against gerrymandering. Vote no against being silenced. Vote no against being lied to. Vote no, and demonstrate to the United States of America that Virginians lead. We do not follow. That’s what this is about.”
The proposed map is “beyond shameful,” Youngkin said. “It’s an abomination.”
Youngkin said that aside from being a Christian and having his wife accept his marriage proposal, “There has been no greater honor than serving all of you in Virginia.”
Youngkin said it was important for elected officials to fulfill their promises, as he did as governor. He touted his accomplishments of backing law enforcement, bringing jobs to the state, and reducing taxes.
Youngkin said he doesn’t believe in demeaning and demoralizing, but what “Abigail Spanberger has done is lie to everybody in the Commonwealth.”
He said it’s not surprising that polls show Virginians are angry with Spanberger.
“The poll this week had her rated as the most unpopular governor in modern times,” he said. “And that’s because they know she lied to them.”
This is especially true, Youngkin said, given Spanberger’s claim of having no interest in redistricting. He said that it’s time for Virginians to stand up and demonstrate the same principles “that made Virginia the crucible of democracy.”
“America was made in Virginia,” he said he recently told a South Carolina crowd, who may not have fully appreciated his enthusiasm for their northern neighbor. “Here’s our chance to once again lead and vote no.”
Youngkin told people that the issue was urgent.
“We’ve got ten days, ten days to save the Commonwealth,” Youngkin said Saturday. “Ten days to demonstrate that we choose liberty. It’s an extremely easy argument. Just show ’em the maps.”
After his talk, Youngkin said he was honored to introduce Johnson, a “god-fearing man, a man who loves others before himself in a way that is so Christlike.”
Johnson returned the compliment, saying that he admired Youngkin and viewed Miyares as a “great American patriot.”
Johnson added, “Virginia has some of the greatest members of Congress who have ever served in the halls. They are the leaders. They are leading to fulfill promises to the people of this country.”
Johnson said that voters needed to protect congresspeople like Cline and McGuire, as well as the House majority.
“The eyes of America are upon you, because you have power in your hands,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that Virginians have to stand up to elected officials like Spanberger.
“She talks like a moderate, and she governs like a Marxist,” he said.
Johnson added that the battle between Democrats and Republicans is a contest between “commonsense and crazy.”
If voters don’t vote no on redistricting, Johnson said, not only might the House end up with Jeffries as speaker, but the president might be impeached.
