• ICYMI

ICYMI: Eric Holder Rallies Support for Voting YES on Virginia’s Redistricting Referendum

Washington, D.C. – Ahead of the April 21 special election, Attorney General Holder joined a canvass kick-off event in Arlington, Virginia, with Congressman Don Beyer to support GOTV efforts and talk to voters about the importance of voting “YES” on Virginia’s redistricting referendum to level the playing field against Republicans’ egregious power grabs in Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina. 

Ahead of the event, he spoke with Virginia Mercury and Amanda Nelson of Amanda’s Mild Takes about the stakes of the election. While there, he spoke with WUSA 9 and online content creators to highlight the stakes to their audiences, including Elizabeth Booker Houston of BookerSquared.

Attorney General Holder was an early endorser of Virginia’s redistricting referendum, and his latest visit to Virginia builds on the NDRC’s efforts to support the YES campaign. Just last month, President Barack Obama partnered with NDRC to urge Virginians to vote “YES” on the measure. Under AG Holder’s leadership, NDRC and its affiliates have continuously mobilized their grassroots networks to get out the vote and have worked to combat disinformation from MAGA-aligned groups. NDRC and affiliates have also deployed staff to go to Virginia to support get-out-the-vote efforts.

In case you missed it, here’s a sample of the coverage of Attorney General Holder’s efforts to rally support for voting YES in Virginia:

Virginia Mercury: ‘We have to do something’: Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder supports Virginia redistricting

“They’re afraid that if we have a fair election, they’re going to lose the midterms,” Holder said of Republicans ahead of congressional elections later this year that are seen as a litmus test of whichever party controls the White House and Congress. 

…

“I think what the Republicans expected from Democrats was that we would write op-eds. I’d go on television (and) do interviews with you and say: ‘oh Charlotte, this is terrible.’” Instead, he added, “What we said is, ‘no, we’re going to be tough.’”

…

Holder said his organization and Democrats in Virginia and other states seeking to counter-redistrict “didn’t want this fight.”

“But we have to do something,” he said, to balance the field that Republicans altered. “It’s a temporary measure for an extraordinary moment,” he said of Virginia’s proposal to redraw its map.

WUSA 9: Virginia voters head to polls over pivotal redistricting decision

“What we’re trying to do here in Virginia is to level the playing field,” said former US Attorney General Eric Holder, while rallying in Arlington. “We have to do something in order to ensure that the system remains fair. So, we have a temporary solution now to a terrible crisis.”

Amanda’s Mild Takes: Attorney General Eric Holder says vote yes, Virginia!

“Here’s the deal. Donald Trump is afraid that they’re going to lose the midterms because their policies are wildly unpopular. They’ve got an unpopular war. They said they were going to lower prices; they’re going through the roof. You’ve got Robert Kennedy being against vaccines. There’s a whole variety of things that they have done that makes them unpopular and makes them sure to lose a fair midterm election in 2026. So what we’re asking people in Virginia to do is to simply do something that is temporary in nature—allow us to come up with ways we can have additional Democratic seats in the House of Representatives to counter what Republicans have already done in Texas, in North Carolina, in Missouri, so that we have a fair 2026 election election and we put a check on Donald Trump for the next two years of his presidency.”

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