Newsom accuses MAGA of rigging election after Virginia decision
Newsom cries 'MAGA rigged the system' after Virginia's highest court tosses Democrat-drawn maps that would have handed his party extra seats.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom went straight to election denial on Friday, branding a Virginia Supreme Court ruling against a new Democratic congressional map as proof that "MAGA has rigged the system." The decision undid voter-approved boundaries Democrats had drawn to their advantage, prompting Newsom to tally up projected Republican gains elsewhere: one seat each in Tennessee and Missouri, two in North Carolina, four in Florida, and five in Texas.
Newsom, who positioned himself as a counterweight to President Trump’s push for red states to redraw maps ahead of the midterms, had engineered Proposition 50 in California last year. That ballot measure aimed to deliver Democrats four or five additional congressional seats this fall. His X post framed the Virginia outcome not as a legal correction but as systemic theft by Republicans.
The irony lands heaviest in the commentariat: Newsom backed Virginia Democrats who attempted their own redistricting maneuver, only to see the state’s highest court reject it. One Free Republic poster captured the reversal neatly: "Says the guy who supported the VA Democrats who tried to rig redistricting." Others noted that California itself has spent decades diluting Republican votes through aggressive gerrymandering, a practice Democrats long defended until the mapmaking tables turned.
Critics on the thread labeled Newsom an "election denier" for the outburst and mocked his selective reverence for "a nation of laws" that evaporates when it costs his party seats. One observed that Democrats had imported millions of illegal immigrants specifically "for the sole purpose of gaining 25+ congressional seats," suggesting their current complaints about rigging ring hollow. Another reminded readers that recent shifts in Texas and Louisiana followed court orders striking down Democrat-mandated additional Black districts, restoring maps long sought since the last census.
Newsom’s broader record drew sharper fire: described as "a corrupt, dyslexic, liar and adulterer whose only goal is power." His Proposition 50 push and the Virginia map fight reveal a consistent pattern, maximize Democratic advantage under the banner of fairness, then decry the same tools when Republicans finally wield them.
The episode leaves one question hanging: if every court loss and redistricting reversal now equals "rigging," how does Newsom explain the decades when his own party drew the lines in states like California without similar outrage? The projection is hard to miss.
Original reporting: Freerepublic.com.
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