MAGA group draws attention with deceptive redistricting referendum mailer

A shadowy MAGA group is sending out mailers to Black voters in Virginia using imagery from 1960s era civil rights demonstrations urging the voters to vote against the congressional redistricting constitutional amendment.

The very little that we know about the group, which calls itself Democracy and Justice PAC, is that it is affiliated with a MAGA operative named Christopher Woodfin, a lawyer in Williamsburg who heads up an outfit that calls itself the Campaign Compliance Center.

This Woodfin guy isn’t a connected guy – from a few minutes on the Google machine, it appears that he works with small-fry House of Delegates and local city council and boards of supervisor candidates.

My hunch is that we’ll find out later that he didn’t spend much on this mailing, and that the goal was to leverage a small buy to get media attention, with the intention being to dogwhistle racist White voters, more than to confuse Black voters with the civil rights tie-ins.

The language on the mailers seems more pointed in that direction: across the top of the mailer, the lettering spells out:

“Our ancestors fought to represent us. Now Richmond politicians are trying to take our districts away.”

Yeah, that’s aimed at the crackers.

And we’re falling for the trickeration.

“As Virginia’s first Black attorney general, I take very seriously the history that is being invoked in these mailers,” said Jay Jones, the first-year attorney general of Virginia, said in a statement issued on Monday.

“Reports indicate that a group opposing the redistricting referendum has sent materials to Black voters that misuse imagery from the civil rights movement and even invoke Jim Crow while falsely suggesting the measure threatens Black representation. My parents and grandparents lived through the reality of Jim Crow in Virginia. They experienced firsthand what it meant when the law and the political system were used to silence Black voices. That history is not a political prop, and it should never be exploited in a misleading attempt to confuse voters.

“Virginians deserve honest information about the choices before them. Invoking the pain and sacrifice of the civil rights movement while spreading misleading claims about this referendum disrespects the very people who fought to secure the right to vote and have their voices heard,” Jones said.

I mean, I get it, you’ve gotta say something.

I just think we’re amplifying their message for free in so doing.

“These mailers are offensive and deceptive,” said Keren Charles Dongo, campaign manager of Virginians for Fair Elections, a group leading the push to change the state’s congressional districts. “A MAGA-linked group is sending mailers to Black voters misusing imagery from the civil rights movement and even invoking Jim Crow — weaponizing one of the darkest chapters in our history to scare people into voting no and help Republicans rig the 2026 midterms. The same MAGA Republicans pushing gerrymandered maps in states like Texas and Florida are now trying to manipulate voters in Virginia.

“Virginians will see these tactics for what they are and vote YES to level the playing field and make sure the 2026 midterms are decided by voters — not politicians manipulating our elections,” Dongo said.