On CNN, Virginia Dem Lectures GOP on Jim Crow—While His State Tried to Gerrymander #Political
On Friday's CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish gave Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) free rein to lecture Republicans on the evils of partisan redistricting, complete with hyperbolic comparisons to Jim Crow poll taxes and literacy tests.
The guest warned that GOP moves in the South would backfire, as blue states could retaliate by wiping out Republican districts on the West Coast: "Republicans are gonna come to regret it... We can have a West Coast where there's not a single Republican district. That can be done."
Nice Republican districts you got there — wouldn’t want to see nuthin’ happen to them!
It took real chutzpah for Virginia Democrat Walkinshaw (who's been in office for just seven months) to condemn Republican redistricting. Virginia, under newly-elected Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger, just pushed through a mid-decade redistricting referendum in April 2026 designed to flip four Republican-held congressional seats and turn the state from competitive (6D-5R) to a near-Democratic lock (10D-1R).
During her campaign, Spanberger piously pledged “I have no plans to redistrict Virginia.” Once in office, she strongly backed the effort. Later on Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court overturned it.
When Daily Signal executive editor Rob Bluey, an MRC alum, politely pointed out the hypocrisy, Walkinshaw hid behind the fact that voters had narrowly passed a referendum approving the redistricting, unlike in Tennessee, where the legislature acted directly. But Virginia Democrats had driven the entire process and the maps, spending tens of millions of dollars and ending up with just 51.7 percent of the vote.
Message to Walkinshaw: The Constitution established a representative democracy in which the people’s elected representatives are charged with adopting legislation — including on electoral districts. Referenda are the exception, not the rule, and often provide less protection for minority rights.
Parroting the approved Democrat talking point, Walkinshaw made an absurd analogy to poll taxes and literacy tests, dutifully accusing the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling of enabling “a return to Jim Crow” in how we draw districts.
Cornish ended the segment by playing the race card against Republicans, claiming black-majority districts were necessary “to compensate for the fact that white voters did not vote for non-white candidates.”
Tell that to Black Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, whose Florida 19th District is roughly 70% white and only 6% black.
Both parties gerrymander when they hold power. The “redistricting war” Walkinshaw decried is bipartisan — with Democrats now crying foul after the Supreme Court made clear that race can’t predominate over traditional districting principles.
CNN’s selective outrage and failure to challenge Walkinshaw’s hypocrisy exemplify the network’s lopsided liberal tilt.
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
5/8/26
6:49 am EDTJAMES WALKINSHAW: Like, look, if you look at this redistricting that's taking place across the South now, where it's a grab based on race and power, Republicans are gonna come to regret it. Because in advance of the 2028 election cycle, there's a lot more blue states that can go back and redistrict again. We can have a West Coast where there's not a single Republican district. That can be done.
I don't think that's good for the country. We'd be much better off if we join hands and end this redistricting war and ban partisan gerrymandering, but clearly, that's not the direction Republican-controlled states are going.
AUDIE CORNISH: Can I go back to you really quickly, because I feel like people don't fully understand that when the Supreme Court made this ruling, it wasn't just saying you can devalue race as an issue in doing maps, that that isn't right. They also, to my reading, elevated partisanship. It is now legal to say that. If someone takes you to court and you say, "Look, we're doing this for partisan advantage," that's kosher, that's legally it.
ROB BLUEY: I would argue that it's no different than what Abigail Spanberger and Gavin Newsom did in Virginia and California, because they were obviously trying to maximize the Democrats' advantage too.
. . .
WALKINSHAW: I think it's important to note, you mentioned California and Virginia. A big difference is, Gavin Newsom and Abigail Spanberger didn't decide on the maps in California and Virginia. The voters of California and Virginia decided to redraw the maps. Big difference between that and what we just saw happen in Tennessee.
. . .
I'm from the Commonwealth of Virginia. I live very close to the Fairfax County Courthouse. And from roughly 1904 until the 1960s, if you were black and you wanted to vote at that courthouse, you had to do a poll tax, pay a poll tax, or perform a literacy test. And they said, "It's not about race, right? There's no racist intent here. We just have some standard for everyone who votes."
Supreme Court's basically saying the same thing. It's a return to Jim Crow in terms of how we draw districts.
CORNISH: I just want to bring up one other thing I've been thinking about. You know, there's been an exodus of black Republicans from Congress. And one of the things that these black districts were supposed to do is kind of compensate for the fact that white voters did not vote for non-white candidates, right?
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