A California ballot measure that would change the state’s electoral map passed on Tuesday, paving the way for Democrats to add five congressional seats in the coming midterm elections.
With three-quarters of votes counted, Decision Desk HQ reports that around 65% of Californians voted for Proposition 50, which “authorizes temporary changes to congressional district maps in response to Texas’s partisan redistricting.” The measure, which California Governor Gavin Newsom, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other prominent Democrats supported, was slammed as overly partisan by opponents, and heavily funded by supporters. The Daily Wire reported that one of the major donors to Newsom’s ballot measure committee included Blue Shield of California, which donated $500,000.
The California Democratic Party website said that the proposal is “a direct response to a Republican power grab orchestrated by President Trump and state leaders in Texas, who redrew congressional district lines to gain five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.”
“If Texas had backed off, California would have backed off,” Pelosi posted on X last week. “But Trump insisted on Texas starting this fight — so California will meet this moment and win BIG on Tuesday to defend our health care and our democracy.”
The passage of Proposition 50 is a major win for Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential candidate. It comes just hours after voters across the country elected socialist Zohran Mamdani mayor of New York City and sent Democrats to the governors mansions in New Jersey and Virginia.
In October, Los Angeles County Republican Chair Roxanne Hoge explained that the phrasing of the measure made the race competitive.
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“If we didn’t have the crazy title in summary that they had, it would be like Prop 36, right. Overwhelming. But given the title and summary we have, it’s neck and neck,” she said at the time. Prop. 36 was a 2024 ballot measure that passed overwhelmingly to fight back against crime in the Golden State.
Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, also opposed the proposition.
“There is such extreme gerrymandering going on that in a state like Massachusetts, it has like 40% of the people voting for Trump, they only — they have zero representatives,” Schwarzenegger said in a recent CNN interview. “The Republican Party has zero representatives sent to the House. Think about that.”
“In New Mexico, 45% of the people voted for Trump and vote Republican, and zero is sent to the House, zero representatives from the Republican Party,” he added. “So there’s gerrymandering — crazy gerrymandering — going on all over the country, and we wanted to try to stop it in California, and we did stop it in California.”
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), whose seat is expected to be redrawn under Proposition 50 tells The Daily Wire that he’s “not going anywhere.”
“It was difficult to watch as Gavin Newsom and Sacramento’s special interests set about shredding the state constitution, disenfranchising millions of Californians solely because of how they vote, and delivering what they know is an undeserved advantage to Democrats,” Issa said. “But here’s something Newsom and his cronies don’t know: It won’t work.”
“Voters get to pick their representatives. Not the other way around,” the congressman continued, later adding that he’s “not quitting on California. And neither should anyone else.”
