A federal court ruling means the new Utah voting districts that give Democrats an improved shot at winning a U.S. House seat can be used in this year’s election. The court ruling Monday turns aside a Republican request to block the new map. It's the second setback in recent days for Republicans, who also lost an appeal at the state Supreme Court. A Utah judge imposed the new districts last November after striking down the congressional districts that the Republican-led Legislature had adopted after the 2020 census. The judge ruled that the Legislature had circumvented anti-gerrymandering standards passed by voters.

A Virginia court is temporarily blocking Democrats from preparing for an April voter referendum to redraw the state’s congressional maps. The ruling hands Democrats another setback in their efforts to pick up four more U.S. House seats in the national redistricting battle. The Tazewell Circuit Court in Virginia granted a temporary restraining order requested by the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee over the ballot referendum’s timing and phrasing.

Virginia voters will get to cast ballots on a congressional redistricting plan that could help Democrats in this year's midterm elections. On Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court said an April 21 referendum can go forward while it considers a legal challenge to the redistricting plan. A lower court ruled last month that the proposed constitutional amendment allowing mid-decade redistricting was invalid because of the way state lawmakers passed it. Democrats appealed. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. But it wont be resolved before the April referendum. The Virginia plan is part of a national redistricting battle between some Republican and Democratic states.