SACRAMENTO – California voters have a big decision to make on Nov. 4 with Proposition 50, which would temporarily redraw the state’s congressional lines to boost Democrats. But a bigger question looms if the measure passes: With Republican-leaning states redrawing their own districts, how much will Prop 50 matter in the battle over control of the House?
North Carolina lawmakers on Wednesday adopted new congressional maps designed to flip a seat from Democratic to Republican control, joining Republicans in Texas and Missouri who have already done the same. Texas maps are designed to flip five seats, while Missouri’s maps are designed to flip one.
Prop 50 aims to counteract some of those moves by flipping up to five seats to Democratic control in the 2026 midterms. On Thursday, Democrats in Virginia said they will redraw their maps, too. But most other states that may pass new maps are Republican-leaning.
Experts who analyze elections say Prop 50 could still affect who controls the House in 2026.
House Speaker Dustin Burrows tries to keep order as Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, speaks in favor of a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin on Aug. 20, 2025. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman)
Currently, Republicans hold 219 seats in the House, compared with Democrats’ 213.
Maps in most states were already drawn to favor the party in power in that state. But most maps were designed primarily to keep incumbents in power, rather than to maximize one party’s gains in the House, said Erin Covey, who leads House race coverage for the Cook Political Report. Incumbents generally don’t like redistricting because it forces them to adapt to a new district.
President Donald Trump changed that dynamic by inserting himself into House races, pushing Republican-dominated state Legislatures to redraw their maps. That has created new opportunities for Republicans to flip seats, even in states that already had gerrymandered maps.
Before Texas redrew its congressional districts, Democrats were favored to take control of the House, said Eric Schickler, a political science professor at UC Berkeley. That would follow a common pattern in midterm elections, when a president’s party typically loses seats as voters sour on their policies.
Nationwide, across all House races, Democrats would need to win by only a small margin to retake control of the chamber, Schickler said.
“If no redistricting happened anywhere, (Democrats) would need a pretty small bump to retake the House,” Schickler said. “They would be overwhelming favorites.”
California is an outlier because its maps are drawn by an independent commission, not by a political party. It’s also an outlier because of its size – as the most populous state, it has the most congressional districts. Democrats hold 43 of California’s 52 congressional seats.
Prop 50 would replace California’s congressional maps, drawn by the independent commission, with new maps drawn by Democrats in the state Legislature. They would be in place until California’s independent redistricting commission draws new maps following the 2030 census.
Flipping five seats in California would be significant, Covey said, because there are so few truly competitive congressional districts across the country.
Since Texas redrew its maps, the Cook Political Report rates just 38 congressional seats across the country as competitive: 17 rated as tossups, 10 that lean Republican and 11 that lean Democratic.
Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, listens to the debate of a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin on Aug. 20, 2025. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman)
Other Republican-leaning states can make only marginal gains by redrawing their maps. The maps North Carolina lawmakers passed Monday are designed to flip one seat. Missouri’s governor in late September signed a new map designed to flip another, though that map is being challenged, and could be overturned – or affirmed – by voters in a referendum.
Republican-leaning Florida, Louisiana, Kansas and Indiana have also discussed the possibility of redrawing their maps ahead of the 2026 midterms. And Republicans in Ohio may try to further expand their dominance in the state, where map-drawing is ongoing.
“If California counters at least five of those, then we’re back in a world where (Democrats) need a pretty good bump, but not something that’s unusually big,” Schickler said. But if Prop 50 fails, “it puts Democrats at a big disadvantage.”
Democrats have a pickup opportunity in Utah, where a judge is forcing state lawmakers to draw new maps after they rejected maps from an independent redistricting commission created by voters. That could result in one of the state’s four districts flipping from Republican to Democratic control, but it’s unclear at this point how the process will play out.
Leaders in Democratic-leaning Illinois have also discussed redrawing their districts.
People gather at the Missouri statehouse in Jefferson City on Sept. 10, 2025, to protest the legislature’s efforts to change the state’s congressional district maps. (Tammy Ljungblad/TNS)
Even if Democrats don’t pick up any other seats with new maps outside of California, Prop 50 would still keep the battle for the House competitive, Covey said.
Nationwide, Democrats are favored on a generic national ballot, according to polling, though not by as much as in 2017. Trump is about as unpopular as he was then.
Longer-term, however, things could get much bleaker for Democrats. This week, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority indicated it was willing to significantly weaken a portion of the Voting Rights Act, which would impact how congressional districts are drawn in the future.
The case focuses on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in voting practices. Republican lawmakers and activists argue drawing districts in a way that takes Black voters into account is itself race-based gerrymandering, and appear to have support from several conservative justices.
Gutting Section 2 could allow Republicans to redraw districts to flip at least 19 districts, according to a recent report by voting rights groups Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter, “enough to cement one-party control of the U.S. House for at least a generation.”
This article originally published at How much does California’s Prop 50 matter in the battle for control of the House?.