The Republican National Committee (RNC) secured one of the best return on investments in political history following a Virginia Supreme Court decision that overturned a referendum that could have delivered four House seats to Democrats. 

The Democratic Party’s constellation of groups spent almost $100 million on saturating the airwaves in Virginia; Republicans spent comparatively less, although Rep. Ben Cline (R., Va.), whose district would have been carved up had the referendum been implemented, went so far as to launch a grassroots organization to push back against the vote, which narrowly passed.

“Democrats just learned that when you try to rig elections, you lose,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said following the ruling. “Today, the Virginia Supreme Court sided with the rule of law and struck down Democrats’ unconstitutional maps. The RNC led the charge in court against this blatant power grab, where Virginia Democrats poured more than $66 million into an effort to lock in control and silence voters. We took them to court, and we won.” The successful lawsuit was backed by an RNC-funded amicus brief along with support from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).

Democrats like former President Barack Obama, Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D., Va.), Attorney General Jay Jones, and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) poured their political and legal capital, along with tens of millions of dollars into the fight, only to suffer a stunning setback. 

The Jeffries-aligned House Majority Forward spent the vast majority of all that was spent on both sides for the race, squandering tens of millions of dollars only to see a resumption of the status quo.

The Republican Party, by contrast, spent far less — a move that has strategists closely aligned with President Donald Trump openly celebrating. Tim Saler, one of Trump’s digital strategists, remarked that it was “important context for the $66M in real actual money Hakeem set on fire grandstanding in an illegal referendum election in Virginia,” adding a dig at Democrats’ purported ad buys that Republicans were already casting doubt on for later in the year. “Remember that $272M HMP reserve that we told you all was bullshit, pretending to spend money they don’t have in Trump +18 seats?”

Chris LaCivita, Trump’s 2024 co-campaign manager, spiked the football with James Blair, asking “where are all the people attacking us for not spending enough in Virginia?…they are laughing at Dems for wasting $60 million.”

But the Gruters-led RNC, which has emphasized election integrity fights around the country, played a critical role in helping to overturn the case in the court. The 4-3 decision by the Virginia Supreme Court was authored by a judge who was appointed by then-Gov. Mark Warner (D., Va.), and Virginia observers told the Washington Reporter that the judge could have gone either way.

Kiersten Pels, the RNC’s National Press Secretary, called the ruling “a major victory for the RNC. This fight began for the RNC back in October when we led this charge against the Democrats’ unconstitutional gerrymandering scheme led by Abigail Spanberger and the radical Democrats in Virginia.”

Democrats, Pels noted, “dumped millions of dollars into this scheme, and it was ultimately struck down because it was wrong and unconstitutional. And now the Democrats in the state are not going to get away with writing Republican representation out of the state of Virginia.”