California voters approved new congressional district boundaries Tuesday, delivering a victory for Democrats in the state-by-state redistricting battle that will help determine which party wins control of the U.S. House in 2026 and, with it, the power to thwart or advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The approval of Proposition 50 gives Democrats a shot at winning as many as five additional seats, just enough to blunt Texas Republicans’ move to redraw their own maps to pick up five GOP seats at Trump’s urging. Texas’ move and California’s response have kicked off a flurry of redistricting efforts around the country, with Republican states appearing to have an edge. Deeply blue California is Democrats’ best opportunity to make up seats.
Midterm elections typically punish the party in the White House, and Trump is fighting to maintain his party’s slim House majority. Republicans hold 219 seats to Democrats’ 213.
Tuesday’s results mark a political victory for Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cast the measure as an essential tool to fight back against Trump and protect American democracy.
Measure supported by Newsom, Obama
California’s Proposition 50 asked voters to suspend House maps drawn by an independent commission and replace them with rejiggered districts adopted by the Democratic-controlled Legislature. Those new districts would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections.
The recast districts aim to dilute Republican voters’ power, in one case by uniting rural, conservative-leaning parts of far northern California with Marin County, a famously liberal coastal stronghold across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.
The measure was spearheaded by Newsom, who threw the weight of his political operation behind it in a major test of his mettle ahead of a potential 2028 presidential campaign. Former President Barack Obama urged voters to pass it as well.
Newsom sought to nationalize the campaign, depicting the proposal as a counterweight to all things Trump.
“Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years,” Obama says in one ad. “You can stop Republicans in their tracks.”
Critics said two wrongs don’t make a right. They urged Californians to reject what they call a Democratic power grab, even if they have misgivings about Trump’s moves in Republican-led states.
Among the most prominent critics was Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie star and former Republican governor who pushed for the creation of the independent commission, which voters approved in 2008 and 2010. It makes no sense to fight Trump by becoming him, Schwarzenegger said in September, arguing that the proposal would “take the power away from the people.”
“I don’t want Newsom to have control,” said Rebecca Fleshman, a 63-year-old retired medical assistant from Norco in Southern California, who voted against the measure. “I don’t want the state to be blue. I want it to be red.”
A lopsided campaign foreshadowed the vote
After an early burst of TV advertising, opponents of the plan struggled to raise cash in a state with some of the nation’s most expensive media markets. Data compiled by advertising tracker AdImpact last week showed Democrats and other supporters with over $5 million in ad buys booked on broadcast TV, cable and radio. But opponents had virtually no time reserved, though the data didn’t include some popular streaming services like Hulu and YouTube or mail advertising.
The campaign followed an unusual trajectory. A handful of Republican congressmen who will see their districts dramatically reshaped – and their jobs endangered — mostly stayed away from the campaign spotlight. With opponents short on cash, Newsom and his supporters dominated TV screens in the critical closing weeks.
Total spending on broadcast and cable ads topped $100 million, with more than two-thirds of it coming from supporters. Newsom told people to stop donating in the race’s final weeks.
The GOP congressmen — Reps. Ken Calvert, Darrell Issa, Kevin Kiley, David Valadao and Doug LaMalfa — will see right-leaning voters reduced and left-leaning voters boosted in their respective districts in a shift that would make it likely a Democratic candidate would prevail in each race.
Issa issued a defiant statement, saying: “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll continue to represent the people of California regardless of their party or where they live. I’m not quitting on California.”
Calvert said Newsom engineered a “power grab” while housing costs, gas prices and taxes continue to strain family budgets. “I am determined to keep fighting for the families I represent,” he said in an email.
AP poll finds voters motivated by political reasons
Proposition 50 won a swift and decisive victory, as the AP declared a winner when polls closed statewide. Early returns were strongly in favor of the measure, as were preliminary results from the AP Voter Poll, an expansive survey of more than 4,000 voters in California.
Roughly 7 in 10 California voters said party control of Congress was “very important” to them, and those voters overwhelmingly supported the measure, according to the AP Voter Poll.
About 8 in 10 California voters who supported the ballot measure said it was necessary to counter the changes made by Republicans in other states, while only about 2 in 10 said they supported it because it was the best way to draw maps, AP Voter Poll found.
Trump, who overwhelmingly lost California in his three presidential campaigns, largely stayed out of the fray. A week before the election, he urged voters in a social media post not to vote early or by mail — messaging that conflicted with that of top Republicans in the state who urged people to get their ballots in as soon as possible.
In a post Tuesday on his social media platform, the president called the state’s voting process “RIGGED” and warned that it was “under very serious legal and criminal review. STAY TUNED!” Secretary of State Shirley Weber called that “another baseless claim.”
The national House map is in flux
Democrats hope to pick up as many as five seats in California if voters approve the new boundaries, offsetting the five that Republicans are looking to pick up through their new Texas maps. Republicans also expect to gain one seat each from new maps in Missouri and North Carolina, and potentially two more in Ohio.
Congressional district boundaries are typically redrawn every 10 years to reflect population shifts documented in the census. Mid-decade redistricting is unusual, absent a court order finding fault with the maps in place.
Five other GOP-led states are also considering new maps: Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana and Nebraska.
On the Democratic side, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New York and Virginia have proposals to redraw maps, but major hurdles remain.
A court has ordered new boundaries be drawn in Utah, where all four House districts are represented by Republicans, but it remains to be seen if the state will approve a map that makes any of them winnable for Democrats.
Siddhartha Deb, 52, has lived in the U.S. since he was 7 years old but he just became a citizen Tuesday. Immediately afterward he registered to vote at San Francisco City Hall and cast his ballot in favor of Newsom’s measure.
“I don’t like the way the Republican Party is basically trying to rig elections by gerrymandering,” Deb said. “And this is the only way, to fight fire with fire.”
