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Early voting is now underway in California in a special election that will make a huge impact on next year’s battle for the U.S. House majority.
California voters are deciding whether to pass a ballot proposition this November 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. Ballots began being mailed out on Monday.
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.
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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.”
The push by Trump and Republicans for 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.
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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.
But unlike Texas and Missouri, 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 his fundraising pitch. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for Democrats.”
Proponents and opponents of Proposition 50 reported raising more than $215 million as of Oct. 2, 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 Newsome and the Democrats is labeling their effort “Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab.”
Also getting into the fight is 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.
“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 says in an ad against Proposition 50. “Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”
As ballots start reaching mailboxes across California, a panel of federal judges in Texas is hearing a case in the legal battle over the passage of the new congressional maps.
If redistricting in Texas is blocked, it’s not clear how the ruling would impact California.
Newsom this summer indicated that California could continue with its nonpartisan redistricting commission if other states rescinded their efforts to change their maps. But that language was not included in the proposition now on the ballot.
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 the GOP-dominated states of Indiana and Florida are also mulling congressional redistricting. And Democrats in heavily blue Maryland are weighing a redistricting push.
Other states considering altering their maps are Democrat-dominated Illinois and red states Kansas and Nebraska.
Meanwhile, Democrats could pick up a seat in Republican-dominated Utah, where a judge recently ordered the GOP-controlled legislature to draw new maps after ruling that lawmakers four years ago ignored an independent commission approved by voters to prevent partisan gerrymandering.
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