Scott Jennings goes off on redistricting: 'Virginia essentially ruled the Republican Party to be illegal'

Scott Jennings delivered a no-nonsense assessment of the Democrats’ power grab in Virginia, remaining the voice of sanity on a CNN panel that interrupted him at every turn.

In response to the redistricting referendum, Jennings declared that Virginia essentially ruled that the Republican Party is “illegal” in the state, setting off the panel on CNN’s “The Arena” on Wednesday.

“I will just say for Texas‘s part, the legislators in Texas, as far as I last checked, are elected by the people. So these are the people‘s representatives and their maps in Texas are far more balanced and fair than what you now have in Virginia,” Jennings said.

“I mean, Virginia has now essentially ruled the Republican Party to be illegal. That‘s what [Gov.] Abigail Spanberger has basically done. This was the revenge of the D.C. bureaucrats,” he continued before being interrupted with the counter-claim that “no one has said the Republican Party is illegal in Virginia.”

“I mean, go from 6 to 5 to 10 to 1, and you‘ve got five of the 10 that are going to live within 10 miles of each other,” Jennings fired back as host Kasie Hunt interjected.

“They drew the map in the most aggressive way possible. And that doesn‘t mean that it‘s illegal to be a Republican,” she claimed.

“Well, it‘s going to be pretty darn hard to make it to the congressional delegation,” Jennings responded.

“How do you think, outside of the D.C. suburbs, how do you think the rest of the state feels? They feel like they‘ve been disenfranchised; look at the vote. Look who voted no,” he continued. “It‘s everywhere that‘s going to lose their congressional representation. How do you think the people in the military feel?”

In an appearance with anchor Kaitlan Collins, Jennings weighed in on the redistricting measure.

“Virginia had — literally had — the fairest maps in the nation. They had a 6-5 map, six Democrats, five Republicans. In terms of proportional representation, they had the fairest map in the nation that was drawn, by the way, by an independent commission that the voters asked for just a few years ago,” CNN’s senior political commentator said.

The VA gerrymander narrowly passed last night. I’m not surprised – the Yes Campaign had all the money and all the lies. My take on @cnn pic.twitter.com/O5U96kBjaT

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) April 22, 2026

Now they will have the least fair maps in the nation and I’m not surprised that the yes vote won: they had all the money and all the lies, and sometimes in politics when you got those two things you can put something over the line, even something as egregious as this,” he continued, adding that it will drag Gov. Spanberger’s approval ratings “down into the toilet.”

“She lied to the people of Virginia. They had to write a ballot question that was a joke, they drew maps that were a joke. Now you’re going to have huge chunks of rural Virginia represented by five or six Democrats who all live in northern Virginia within about 15 miles of each other,” he explained. “It’s a complete joke, everybody knows it, and there’s a reason that all these national Democrats and all their money came into Virginia because, you know, they don’t really care about the people of Virginia, they just care about power.”

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Frieda Powers

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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.

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