Virginia beats back Trump's redistricting gamble
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Stephen Fowler, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Stephen Fowler. I also cover politics. And I'm Domenica Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Today on the show, the midterm battle lines are getting clearer with election results from Virginia last night. |
| 0:26.1 | Voters there narrowly approved a ballot measure to redraw congressional district lines, |
| 0:30.4 | a mid-decade redistricting that significantly favors Democrats. This was just the latest turn in a redistricting arms race. |
| 0:35.1 | President Trump kicked off last year when he pressed Texas lawmakers |
| 0:38.5 | to draw the state's congressional map to favor Republicans. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries |
| 0:44.3 | talked about the results on NPR's Morning Edition. Donald Trump indicated that he was going to |
| 0:50.8 | rip away 10, 12 or 15 seats from the people of this country in states like |
| 0:56.4 | Texas and Missouri and North Carolina as part of an effort to rig the midterm elections. |
| 1:03.3 | That effort has now been thwarted. |
| 1:06.6 | Before we get to what this means more broadly in the midterms, let's talk about what happened in |
| 1:10.7 | Virginia. What do you two read into the midterms, let's talk about what happened in Virginia. |
| 1:11.7 | What do you two read into the results? |
| 1:13.8 | Well, I mean, I don't know if Hakeem Jeffries knows how to do the icky shuffle or any, I don't know what his touchdown dance is, but that's sort of what it seemed like there. |
| 1:25.3 | Yes, he was doing, he was spiking the football. |
| 1:28.1 | Yeah. |
| 1:28.5 | Because the fact is, Trump started this fight. |
| 1:31.7 | As a lot of the bumper stickers in Virginia said, Texas started it. |
| 1:36.8 | And that was the argument that, yeah, you may not like gerrymandering, but we got to do it this one time to fight fire with fire. And in a year when |
| 1:46.5 | Democratic voters are upset with the Trump administration and the intensity against Trump is as high |
| 1:52.0 | as it is, this is a huge win for Democrats, provided that the state Supreme Court upholds what |
| 1:58.2 | happens here. This could net Democrats four seats, which is |
| 2:02.4 | huge, especially considering the landscape is so small and the margin is so tight. And it's also |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.