Trump bemoans Virginia redistrcting plans approved by voters

US President Donald Trump sharply rebuffed on Wednesday a Virginia redistricting plan approved by voters in response to his appeal to Republican-led states to carry out favorable redistricting of their own.

"A rigged election took place last night in the great Commonwealth of Virginia!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

"In addition to everything else, the language on the referendum was purposefully unintelligible and deceptive. As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they! Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of 'Justice,'” he added.

The referendum passed with 51.5% of voters approving the measure, according to The Associated Press.

The vote came amid a fierce mid-decade redistricting battle initiated by Trump, who urged Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps to boost the Republican Party's chances of winning the midterm elections in the fall, and maintaining their majority in Congress.

Texas was the first state to redraw its congressional maps to potentially add five Republican seats, which were approved by the state's Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott without voter approval.

The state of California countered those gains when voters approved new congressional maps that would potentially add five Democratic seats. The measure was approved by the Democratic-led state legislature and backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom before being presented to voters.

But other Republican-led states joined Texas, with Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio passing congressional redistricting plans that added four more potential Republican seats in Congress.

The new Virginia redistricting maps would potentially nullify that by potentially adding four Democratic congressional seats in the state, which tends to lean Democratic after long-leaning Republican, but still has the potential to go either way.

Tuesday's vote, however, may be short-lived, as Virginia's state Supreme Court is now weighing whether the new congressional maps are illegal. Legal challenges by Republicans are still before the state's highest court, which upheld a ruling by a lower court to allow the redistricting plan to be placed on Tuesday's ballot.