It was a legit win.
Keep in mind that the Republicans had gerrymandered the state to favor them along racial lines. That map was overturned and the appeals went to the US Supreme court.
On June 26, 2018, the district court ruled 2-1 in
Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Board of Elections that 11 state legislative districts had been subject to racial gerrymandering and needed to be redrawn. The court gave the legislature until October 30, 2018, to draw new district lines. Writing for the majority, Judge
Barbara Milano Keenan said, "Overwhelming evidence in this case shows that, contrary to this constitutional mandate, the state has sorted voters into districts based on the color of their skin." On July 9, 2018, state Republicans petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to stay the district court's order pending an appeal of that court's decision. Governor
Ralph Northam (D) convened a special session of the legislature, beginning August 30, 2018, to redraw the maps. The legislature was unable to adopt a remedial map during this session. Consequently, the federal district court appointed a special master, Bernard Grofman, a political science professor at the University of California, Irvine, to draft a remedial map. State lawmakers petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to stay the ruling pending ultimate resolution of the case. The high court denied this request on January 8, 2019.
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On January 22, 2019, the district court issued an order directing Grofman to finalize the district plan for the House of Delegates selected by the court. Pending appeals, the remedial map was slated to apply to the 2019 election cycle. House Speaker Kirk Cox (R) criticized the plan: "The Eastern District Court selected a series of legally indefensible redistricting modules that attempts to give Democrats an advantage at every turn. The modules selected by the Court target senior Republicans, myself included, without a substantive basis in the law." Meanwhile, Democratic attorney Marc Elias, who initiated the suit, praised the order: "In Virginia, the Federal Court in the long-running state house redistricting case has ordered the special master to adopt the alternative-map configuration we advocated. We are one important step closer to the end of the GOP's racial gerrymander." At the time of the ruling, Republicans controlled the House of Delegates, holding 51 seats to Democrats' 48. Larry Sabato, head of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said, "[The remedial map] would nearly guarantee a Democratic takeover of the House of Delegates."
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