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It’s Election Day in California, where a ballot initiative will make a huge impact on next year’s battle for the U.S. House majority whether it passes or fails.
California voters are deciding whether to pass a ballot proposition which would dramatically alter the state’s congressional districts, putting the left-leaning state front-and-center in the high-stakes political fight over redistricting that pits President Donald Trump and the GOP against the Democrats.
California state lawmakers this summer approved a special proposition on the November ballot to obtain voter approval to temporarily sidetrack the state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and return the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democrat-dominated legislature. Early voting by mail in the contest has been underway for a month.
The effort in California, which could create five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts, aims to counter the passage in the reliable red state of Texas of a new map that aims to create up to five right-leaning House seats. Failure to approve what’s known as Proposition 50 would be a stinging setback for Democrats.
OBAMA ENDORSES NEWSOM CALIFORNIA REDISTRICTING PROP 50
Two-term Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is seen as a likely 2028 Democratic presidential contender, is spearheading the push to pass the proposition.
“If we lose here, we are going to have total Republican control in the House, the Senate and the White House for at least two more years,” Newsom emphasized in a recent fundraising appeal to supporters. “If we win here, we can put a check on Trump for his final two years.”
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The push by Trump and Republicans for a rare mid-decade redistricting is part of a broad effort by the GOP to pad its razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in the 2026 midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.
Trump and his political team are aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House, when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections.
Missouri last month joined Texas as the second GOP-controlled state to pass congressional redistricting ahead of next year’s elections. The new map in Missouri is likely to give the GOP another right-leaning seat.
And North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature also passed a new map, which is likely to score another congressional seat for the GOP. Republican-controlled Indiana is on deck, with a special legislative session getting underway this week.
But unlike those states, California voters need to weigh in before giving redistricting power back to the legislature in Sacramento.
“Heaven help us if we lose,” Newsom said in a fundraising pitch. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for Democrats.”
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Proponents and opponents of Proposition 50 raised hundreds of millions of dollars in fundraising, with much of the money being dished out to pay for a deluge of ads on both sides.
One of the two main groups countering Newsom and the Democrats labeled their effort “Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab.”
Getting into the fight was former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was the last Republican governor of California.
During his tenure as governor, Schwarzenegger had a starring role in the passage of constitutional amendments in California in 2008 and 2010 that took the power to draw state legislative and congressional districts away from politicians and placed it in the hands of an independent commission.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA VOTERS WEIGH IN ON PROP 50 REDISTRICTING FIGHT
“That’s what they want to do is take us backwards — this is why it is important for you to vote no on Prop 50,” Schwarzenegger said in an ad against Proposition 50. “Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”
But as Election Day neared in California, the Yes forces had dramatically outraised the No forces, and public opinion polling indicated majority support for the proposition.
Even before Trump initiated his redistricting push, Ohio was under court order to redraw its maps. That could boost Republicans in a one-time battleground state that now leans right.
Republicans in GOP-dominated Florida are also mulling congressional redistricting. And Democrats in heavily blue Maryland are weighing a redistricting push, while the Democrat-controlled legislature in Virginia is already pushing redistricting.
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Other states considering altering their maps are Democrat-dominated Illinois and red states Kansas and Nebraska.
Meanwhile, Democrats could possibly pick up a seat in Republican-dominated Utah, due to a new, more competitive map, mandated by a judge.
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