A Fox News columnist drove through southern Virginia last week and saw something that made Oliver Anthony's "Rich Men North of Richmond" feel less like a song and more like a warning.
He was right – and the warning expires today.
What he found in a Virginia parking lot tells you everything about today’s vote.
What the Columnist Saw
Fox News contributor David Marcus was finishing a meal at a restaurant outside Williamsburg when he spotted an elderly couple walking in – both wearing American flag sweaters.
He didn't have the heart to quiz them on politics. He didn't need to.
Their message was painted on the side of their vehicle in the parking lot. One line stopped him cold: a quote from Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger herself.
"Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy."
The same governor who said that signed the legislation in February clearing the path for the most aggressive partisan gerrymander in the country – a map that would give Democrats 91 percent of Virginia's congressional seats in a state Trump lost by just six points.
Marcus called it exactly what it is: a class war.
"This is the loafer and cardigan set sticking it to the men and women with callouses on their hands," he wrote, "and stealing their votes."
The Song Became Real Life
What makes the Marcus piece land so hard is the Oliver Anthony frame, because it isn't metaphor – it's geography.
The new Democratic maps don't just rearrange congressional lines. They reach from the wealthy Democratic suburbs of Northern Virginia hundreds of miles into Republican farming country – stitching together communities that share nothing except their usefulness to a Democratic mapmaker.
Republican farmers in the Shenandoah Valley would be drawn into the same congressional district as the K Street consultants of Fairfax and McLean, 90 miles away. Residents of Harrisonburg and Augusta County – same congressman as the Beltway professionals Anthony was singing about.
"We're 100% rural. We have lots of farming, small business," said one opponent of the maps at a rally in Bridgewater. "I can't believe they're gonna give me a congressman from Fairfax."
That is the whole point. Rural areas are where the Republican votes are – so eliminating rural influence is precisely what the Democratic map is designed to accomplish. Republicans across Southside Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley would be locked out of meaningful congressional representation until 2032.
Former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares put it plainly on Fox News: Spanberger "told voters in August of 2025 that she had no plans, no intention to do redistricting. And then the very first bill that she signed into law was the enabling legislation for this monstrosity of gerrymandering to go forward."
Two-Thirds of Virginians Already Answered This Question
Spanberger's reversal isn't just a broken promise.
In 2020, two-thirds of Virginia voters – 66 percent – approved a constitutional amendment creating a bipartisan redistricting commission specifically to take map-drawing out of politicians' hands. Spanberger backed it then.
Running for governor in 2025, she told reporters: "I have no plans to redistrict Virginia."
Virginia elected her. One of the first bills she signed cleared the path for this referendum.
The current maps – drawn by bipartisan court-appointed experts after the commission deadlocked – earned some of the highest fairness ratings in the country from independent analysts. Princeton's Gerrymandering Project graded them as balanced. Either party could win on a strong night.
Democrats want to scrap them permanently through 2030.
Virginia Senate President Louise Lucas summed up the Democratic position in six words when unveiling the proposed map: "We said 10-1 and we meant it."
The Men and Women With Callouses on Their Hands
Marcus ended his piece with a line that deserved more attention than it got from the national GOP.
The Virginia Republican Party, he wrote, has been "flat-footed, ineffective and worse, more interested in the rich men north of Richmond than the plain folks of the south and west."
He's not wrong. Democrats have outspent Republicans in this race by a massive margin – and former Gov. George Allen's challenge to Spanberger for a public debate went unanswered.
The RNC sued to block the referendum. A Virginia judge initially ruled it unlawful – finding Democrats violated their own procedures rushing it through. The state Supreme Court overruled the block and let the vote proceed, but reserved the right to issue its own ruling afterward. That legal cloud means Tuesday's vote may not be the final word.
But the political reality is what it is. If Virginia's working class loses today, it won't be because Democrats hid what they were doing. Louise Lucas told them. The maps told them. The tentacles running from Fairfax County into the Shenandoah Valley told them.
Oliver Anthony wrote it three years ago. A Fox News columnist drove through it last week and reported back.
Today, rural Virginia finds out whether anyone was listening.
Sources:
- David Marcus, "Rich Men North of Richmond Try to Steal Votes of Rural Virginians," Fox News, April 12, 2026.
- "Republicans Target Spanberger as 'Governor Bait and Switch' in Bid to Defeat Dems Redistricting Push," Fox News, April 2026.
- "Spanberger Endorses Virginia Redistricting Ballot Measure After Years Denouncing Gerrymandering," The Daily Wire, March 5, 2026.
- "Virginia Use of Legislative Congressional Redistricting Map Amendment (April 2026)," Ballotpedia, April 2026.
- "A 10-1 Map Would Give Virginia the Most Aggressive Gerrymander of Any Other State," Cardinal News, February 5, 2026.
- "Worried About the Midterms, Republicans Mobilize Rural Virginia Voters Against Redistricting," CNN, April 15, 2026.
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