California voters delivered a serious victory for Democrats nationwide Tuesday — and presumably for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s political ambitions — by passing a redistricting plan that would assist the get together seize as many as 5 congressional seats within the 2026 midterm elections.
The poll measure was seen as a searing denunciation of President Trump and his administration’s insurance policies, which have included divisive immigration raids, steep tariffs, cuts to healthcare and a navy occupation of Los Angeles.
Proposition 50 was launched at warp velocity in August in an try and counter President Trump’s profitable try and stress Republican-led states, most notably Texas, to gerrymander their very own states to maintain Democrats from gaining management of the U.S. Home of Representatives after the 2026 midterm elections. If Democrats acquire energy they might imperil his agenda and launch investigations into his administration.
“After poking the bear, this bear roared,” Newsom mentioned Tuesday evening shortly after the polls closed and the Related Press decided Proposition 50 had handed.
Newsom mentioned he was pleased with California for standing as much as Trump and referred to as on different states with Democrat-controlled legislatures to move their very own redistricting plans.
“I hope it’s dawning on folks, the sobriety of this second,” he mentioned.
The president, in the meantime, in a submit Tuesday morning on his social media web site referred to as the vote “A GIANT SCAM” and “RIGGED” and mentioned it’s “below very severe authorized and felony evaluate. STAY TUNED!” The White Home didn’t clarify what he meant by “severe authorized and felony evaluate.” After the polls closed, Trump once more posted, writing enigmatically: “…AND SO IT BEGINS.”
Newsom early Tuesday dismissed Trump’s threats as “the ramblings of an previous man that is aware of he’s about to LOSE.”
Proposition 50 will change how California determines the boundaries of congressional districts. The measure requested voters to approve new congressional district traces designed to favor Democrats for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, overriding the map drawn by the state’s nonpartisan, unbiased redistricting fee.
The measure, positioned by the poll by the Democratic-led state Legislature and pushed by Newsom, reconfigured the state’s congressional districts in favor of Democrats, shifting 5 extra Home districts into aggressive or simply winnable territory for Democrats. California has 43 Democrats and 9 Republicans within the Home; now the variety of GOP members could possibly be lower in half.
Whereas Newsom and Democratic partisans framed the passage of Proposition 50 — which they’d dubbed the Election Rigging Response Act — as a serious blow towards Trump’s iron grip on the federal authorities, it’s removed from assured to flip the steadiness of energy within the U.S. Home, the place Republicans maintain a slim majority.
For one, spurred on by Trump, Republican-led states are busy pursuing their very own redistricting plans. A number of Republican-controlled states together with North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri are transferring forward.
What’s extra, California voters within the fall of 2026 would then need to be satisfied to decide on Democratic challengers over incumbent Republicans in these newly crafted districts — and plenty of present GOP members of Congress have mentioned they don’t plan to go quietly.
“Right here’s one thing Newsom and his cronies don’t know: It gained’t work,” mentioned Congressman Darrell Issa, a San Diego-area Republican whose seat was focused by the newly redrawn maps. “The worst gerrymander in historical past has a deadly flaw. Voters get to select their representatives. Not the opposite method round. I’m not going anyplace.”
Congressman Doug LaMalfa whose Northern California district was carved up and diluted with left-leaning coastal voters, mentioned he was “standing within the combat. They’re not going to kidnap my district right here with no battle.”
What is bound, nevertheless, is that Proposition 50 is an enormous win for Newsom, who has propelled his combat with Trump onto the nationwide political stage as one of many loudest voices standing towards the brand new administration.
Campaigning for Proposition 50, Newsom mocked Trump on the social media web site X with sarcastic, Trumpesque all-caps media posts. The governor gained viral fame, visitor spots on late-night exhibits and thousands and thousands of {dollars} from Democratic donors across the nation delighted to see somebody jousting with the president. In current days, Newsom has begun speaking brazenly a few attainable run for president in 2028, after telling CBS final month that he could be mendacity if he tried to faux he wasn’t contemplating it.
The brand new congressional districts are also anticipated to set off a mad scramble amongst formidable Democratic politicians.
Already, Audrey Denney, a strategist and training director, has introduced she’s going to as soon as once more mount a marketing campaign towards LaMalfa, who represents an space that has been cut up into two districts saturated with Democratic voters. Former state Sen. Richard Pan, in the meantime, has indicated he intends to focus on Congressman Kevin Kiley, who noticed his hometown of Rocklin yanked out of his district and changed with elements of more-Democratic Sacramento.
One of many greatest results of the measure stands out as the method it has enraged most of the state’s rural voters, and left even those that are registered Democrats feeling as if state leaders don’t care about their wants.
“They assume our voices are so small that we don’t rely, and since we’re crimson,” fumed Monica Rossman, the chairwoman of the Glenn County Board of Supervisors in rural Northern California. “This is only one extra method of them squeezing us rural folks.”
Rossman described Newsom in obscene phrases this week and added that “folks from city areas, they don’t understand that us folks from One-Taco-Bell-Cities don’t know what it’s wish to drive by a dealership and see nothing however battery-operated automobiles. By site visitors, we imply Ted’s cows are out once more and we now have to attend for them to get out of the best way. We’re going to have folks making selections about areas they know nothing about.”
However as they headed to polling locations throughout the state, many citizens mentioned the Trump administration’s actions in California — from funding cuts to the extended immigration raids —satisfied them that radical measures had been vital.
Adee Renteria, who got here to vote at Our Woman of Guadalupe Church in East Los Angeles decked out from head to toe in celebratory Dodgers gear, mentioned she was voting sure on Proposition 50 as a result of “I desire a fricking voice.”
“I need our folks to have the ability to stroll the streets with out getting kidnapped,” she mentioned, including that she believed the measure would enable Democrats an opportunity at preventing again towards insurance policies that she mentioned had sown terror in her neighborhood.
In Buena Park, Guarav Jain, 33, mentioned he had braved lengthy traces to solid his poll “to show that we are able to combat again on the loopy issues Trump says.”
“That is the primary likelihood to make our voice heard because the [presidential] election final November,” he added.
The trail to Proposition 50, which ranks because the fourth costliest poll measure in California historical past, started in June. That was when Trump’s political staff started pushing Texas Republicans to redraw the traces for that state’s 38 congressional districts to achieve 5 Republican seats and provides his get together a greater shot at holding the Home after the midterm elections.
When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed on to the thought, Newsom jumped in to announce that California, which has 52 representatives, would counter by redrawing its personal districts to attempt to decide up as many as 5 seats for Democrats.
“We’re giving the American folks a good likelihood,” Newsom mentioned in August, including that California was “responding to what occurred in Texas.”
The transfer outraged California Republicans and likewise angered some folks, reminiscent of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who’re no followers of Trump. Some opponents argued that it was an affront to an unbiased congressional redistricting fee that California voters created in 2010 with the passage of Proposition 20 — an effort to offer truthful illustration to all Californians.
“They’re attempting to combat for democracy by eliminating the democratic ideas of California.… It’s insane to let that occur,” Schwarzenegger mentioned at an occasion at USC in September. “Doesn’t make any sense to me — that as a result of we now have to combat Trump, to turn into Trump.”
However Schwarzenegger didn’t do a lot to actively marketing campaign towards the measure and the No aspect was far outgunned financially. Proponents raised greater than $100 million, in line with marketing campaign finance reviews, whereas the No aspect raised about $43.7 million.
A star-studded solid of Democratic leaders additionally flooded the airwaves to assist the measure, together with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. President Obama spoke on the problem in adverts that aired in the course of the World Collection. “Democracy is on the poll Nov. 4,” the previous president mentioned.
The brand new congressional district maps are solely momentary. They are going to be in place for elections subsequent yr and in 2028 and 2030. After that, California’s unbiased redistricting fee will resume its duties in drawing the maps.
What could also be longer lasting, some rural representatives mentioned, is a way amongst many in California’s heartland that their voices don’t rely.
LaMalfa, the congressman who noticed his deep crimson district divided into two blue city areas, mentioned a lot of his constituents — who work in farming, timber and ranching — imagine many state insurance policies are “stacked towards them and so they have nowhere to go.”
“What they do have is a voice that understands their plight and is keen to talk for them. I’m one of many individuals who does that,” he mentioned. “You don’t have that anymore in case you have taken all these people and simply drawn them into city voters districts.”
Instances workers writers Sonja Sharp, Katie King and Katerina Portela contributed to this report.
