Virginia Just Handed Your Vote to California and New York

On April 13, 2026, Governor Abigail Spanberger signed HB965 into law, making Virginia the 18th state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact — joining 17 other states and the District of Columbia. It sounds like policy. It reads like a takeover.

What the bill does

Under HB965, Virginia agrees to award all of its presidential electoral votes — not to the candidate Virginians choose — but to whoever wins the most popular votes nationally across all 50 states. It goes into effect once enough states have joined to collectively control a majority of electoral votes.

In plain terms: your vote for president in Virginia may no longer determine where Virginia's electoral votes go.

What Virginians lost

For generations, Virginia's electoral votes reflected Virginia's choice. If the majority of Virginians voted for a candidate, that candidate earned Virginia's votes. That's how it was supposed to work.

Under this new law, that connection is broken. A candidate could lose Virginia — and still receive all of Virginia's electoral votes because they won big in other states. Your voice as a Virginian, your specific concerns, your community's values — none of that determines the outcome anymore. The math from California or New York can override what you decided here at home.

Rural communities, suburban families, small towns across the Commonwealth — all effectively sidelined in presidential elections, because what happens nationally drowns out what happens locally.

This wasn't done through a constitutional amendment, which would have required broad national consensus. It was done through a state-level workaround — quietly, quickly, and over the objections of millions of Virginians.

Notice a pattern?

Every single one of the 18 states and DC in this compact is Democrat-controlled. Not one Republican governor has signed on. California. New York. Illinois. Massachusetts. And now Virginia. This is not a bipartisan effort to modernize elections. It is a coordinated, one-party strategy to concentrate presidential power in high-population, Democrat-dominated states — and drown out everyone else.

Virginia just became their newest piece on the board.

Let them hear your voice

The legislators who voted yes on this bill represent you. They answer to you. Contact them. Show up. Make noise. The only thing more powerful than a bad law is a citizenry that refuses to stay silent about it.