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EXCLUSIVE: Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger would never have been given airtime in the Democrats’ official response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union if it weren’t for her support of the commonwealth’s controversial redistricting and adherence to the party line, a top Republican said.
A new congressional map credited to Virginia Senate Leader L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, would eliminate Virginia’s 6–5 Republican-to-Democrat congressional ratio and leave only southwestern Virginia Republican Rep. Morgan Griffith in a favorable seat if a constitutional amendment to redraw the maps passes in April.
Lucas and House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, have spearheaded the redistricting plan, while also facing headwinds from a Tazewell County lawsuit supported by the Republican minority.
Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., whose district runs from the Roanoke suburbs along U.S. 11 and Interstate 81 to the West Virginia line near Berryville, would be one of the Republicans likely unseated by sheer math if Democrats have their way.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, left; Rep. Ben Cline, right. (Marvin Joseph/Getty Images; Bill Clark; Getty Images)
Cline told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that Spanberger’s support for redistricting belies her prior public comments lambasting the idea of gerrymandering or redistricting in a partisan way.
He added that it is Spanberger’s current support that has made her a darling of her national party to the point they are showcasing her as the State of the Union respondent.
“Governor Spanberger is trying to play the national Democrats to raise her profile and try and get on the national scene on the agenda by acquiescing to this partisan gerrymandering of the Virginia legislature,” Cline said.
“She campaigned on not gerrymandering; on saying that gerrymandering was wrong, and that flips when push comes to shove and she gets a chance to reward those leaders in the national party like Barack Obama and Hakeem Jeffries.”
Cline said he’s not surprised by the news, adding that Spanberger also made “misstatements” about key issues during her campaign against former Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears last year.
Cline said he recalls working with then-Rep. Spanberger in Congress – and that the two of them were often united in support of key Virginia industries like agriculture – but that he no longer recognizes the governor in that light.
“Abigail Spanberger was on the House Agriculture Committee and loved to talk about her connection to Virginia agriculture. But my district is currently the most agriculture-based district in Virginia and she has chopped it into five different districts and parceled it out to Northern Virginia Democrats to use to make their numbers work,” he said.
Cline said the move is offensive to Virginia farmers, as the new map strips them of a collective voice in Washington and instead forces them to lobby whichever liberal-suburb-sourced district their community falls into.
Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., arrives for the House Republicans’ caucus meeting at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“She should be ashamed of herself,” Cline said, adding that if Spanberger had kept to her pre-governorship position that gerrymandering is wrong, “the Democrats wouldn’t have given her a second look, because she wouldn’t have been playing along with a plan that they have for actually seizing the House majority through this gerrymandering effort.”
Instead, she’s being “rewarded” for pivoting to the party line, he said.
People in his district are also sounding the alarm about Spanberger beyond the gerrymandering plans, citing affordability commentary and other promises as well.
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“They’re very upset with the way she’s flipped from her campaign pledges to the way she’s actually governing. And I don’t think they’re going to respond well on April 21. I think they are going to vote down this effort to gerrymander Virginia.”
Concerns also arose over the legislature-approved language of the amendment — set to go before voters April 21 — which asks if they want to “restore fairness,” a phrase Cline and other opponents, including Del. Wren Williams, R-Stuart, have said is misleading and essentially benefits partisan Democratic politicians.
Cline said the redistricting is the marquee of Spanberger and Richmond Democrats’ efforts to radically change election laws, economic policy, taxation, cooperation agreements with federal immigration authorities and more.
“What Governor Spanberger did by withdrawing from our 287-G agreement with the state police is unacceptable. It makes us a sanctuary state for violent, illegal immigrants who are trying to escape being held accountable for their crimes. They come to Virginia, and Governor Spanberger refuses to allow state police to work with ICE,” he said.
“And so this type of reckless behavior, not only by Governor Spanberger but also the state assembly, is definitely having an impact out here in the western part of Virginia,” he said.
The Mill Mountain Star dots the Roanoke skyline in Virginia. (Jeff Greenberg/Getty Images)
Under the new map, Cline’s current 6th district would be divided between the new 10th, 11th, 7th, 6th and 9th district, with the 9th being Griffith’s.
Instead of one southwest to northeast oval following the general path of the Colonial-era “Valley Pike” — Cline, who lives in Botetourt County, would find himself in the 6th or 9th.
The 10th, near Winchester, would be connected to liberal Washington suburbs like Reston, the 11th would serpentine from Luray to Washington, leaving room for the “scorpion” 7th jutting in two “pincers” toward Mount Sidney in the west and Powhatan in the east, and the 6th connecting blue cities in the rural interior like Charlottesville, Harrisonburg and Roanoke.
Heavily-populated, liberal Fairfax County will have a piece of five different districts extending into less-populated, conservative areas.
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The new 2nd District, currently comprising Cape Charles, Accomac and Virginia Beach, will shift just westward enough to slice off dense, Democrat-friendly parts of the city of Chesapeake.
Critics have also compared it to the former Maryland 3rd – a district one federal judge denounced as a “pterodactyl” shape that relied upon the Patapsco River and Chesapeake Bay rather than land to connect its several disjointed sections between Annapolis and Baltimore.
A new, slightly more streamlined district is currently represented by Rep. Sarah Elfreth, an Elkridge Democrat.
Fox News Digital reached out to Spanberger for comment.
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