{"id":21088,"date":"2025-10-24T08:52:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T08:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/21088\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T08:52:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T08:52:19","slug":"voting-begins-on-california-measure-to-redraw-us-house-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/21088\/","title":{"rendered":"Voting begins on California measure to redraw US House maps"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 The midterm elections might be a year away, but the fight for control of the U.S. House is underway in California<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Voting opened statewide Monday on whether to dramatically reshape California\u2019s congressional districts<\/a> to add as many as five Democrat-held seats<\/a> in Congress \u2014 a possible offset to President Donald Trump\u2019s moves in Texas and elsewhere to help Republicans in the 2026 election. <\/p>\n

The outcome of the 70-word, \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d question could determine which party wins control of the closely divided House, and whether Democrats will be able to blunt Trump\u2019s power in the second half of his term on issues from immigration to reproductive rights. <\/p>\n

The proposal is \u201ca starting point for the 2026 race,\u201d said Democratic consultant Roger Salazar. <\/p>\n

\u201c2026 is the whole ball game,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The national implications of California\u2019s ballot measure are clear in both the money it has attracted and the figures getting involved. Tens of millions of dollars are flowing into the race \u2014 including a $5 million donation to opponents from the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC tied to House Speaker Mike Johnson. Former action-movie star and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has spoken out to oppose<\/a> it, while former President Barack Obama is in favor, calling it a \u201csmart\u201d approach to counter Republican maneuverings aimed at safeguarding House control. <\/p>\n

The election that concludes Nov. 4 will also color the emerging 2028 presidential contest in which Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom \u2014 the face of the campaign<\/a> for the new, jiggered districts \u2014 is widely seen as a likely contender. <\/p>\n

So goes California, so goes the nation?<\/p>\n

\u201cHeaven help us if we lose,\u201d Newsom wrote in a recent fundraising pitch to supporters. \u201cThis is an all-hands-on-deck moment for Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n

An election gamble that could check Trump\u2019s power<\/p>\n

The unusual special election amounts to a Democratic gambit to blunt Trump\u2019s attempt in Texas<\/a> to gain five Republican districts ahead of the midterms, a move intended to pad the GOP\u2019s tenuous grip on the House. <\/p>\n

The duel between the nation\u2019s two most populous states has spread nationally<\/a>, with Missouri redrawing House maps<\/a> that are crafted state by state. Other states<\/a> could soon follow, while the dispute also has become entangled in the courts.<\/p>\n

A major question mark has emerged in Texas<\/a>, where a panel of federal judges is considering whether the state can use a redrawn congressional map<\/a> that boosts Republicans. <\/p>\n

If the Texas map is blocked even temporarily, it\u2019s not clear how that decision would influence California \u2014 if at all \u2014 where voting is underway. Newsom has previously indicated that California could keep its current map if other states pull back efforts to remake districts for partisan advantage, but that language was not included in the final<\/a> version of what\u2019s officially known as Proposition 50.<\/p>\n

GOP could be left with just four House seats in California<\/p>\n

If approved in California, it\u2019s possible the new political map could slash<\/a> five Republican-held House seats while bolstering Democratic incumbents in other battleground districts. That could boost the Democratic margin to 48 of California\u2019s 52 congressional seats, up from the 43 seats the party now holds.<\/p>\n

Liberal-tilting California has long been a quirk in House elections \u2014 the state is heavily Democratic but also is home to a string of some of the most hotly contested congressional districts in the country, a rarity at a time when truly competitive House elections have been dwindling in number across the U.S. <\/p>\n

The contours of the race have taken shape, with Newsom framing the contest as a battle to save democracy against all things Trump, while Republicans and their supporters decry the proposal as a blatant power grab intended to make the state\u2019s dominant Democrats even more powerful while discarding House maps developed by an independent commission. Democrats crafted the proposed lines behind closed doors.<\/p>\n

Republicans hold a 219-213 majority in the U.S. House<\/a>, with three vacancies. <\/p>\n

New maps are typically drawn once a decade after the census is conducted. Many states, including Texas, give legislators the power to draw maps. California is among states that rely on an independent commission that is supposed to be nonpartisan \u2014 the Democratic ballot proposal would shelve that group\u2019s work and postpone its operation until the next census.<\/p>\n

Creative boundary lines create districts to favor Democrats<\/p>\n

In some cases, the recast districts would slice across California, in one case uniting rural, conservative-leaning northern California with Marin County, a famously liberal coastal stronghold north of San Francisco. In others, district lines are left unchanged or have only minor adjustments.<\/p>\n

With rural and farming areas in some cases being combined in new districts with populous cities, there is \u201cworry about us losing our voice,\u201d said John Chandler, a partner in almond-and-peach grower Chandler Farms in the state\u2019s Central Valley farm belt. \u201cIt hurts us,\u201d Chandler said during an online event organized by proposition opponents.<\/p>\n

Who will show up and vote?<\/p>\n

Democrats come to the contest with significant advantages \u2014 they outnumber registered Republicans in the state by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, and a Republican candidate hasn\u2019t won a statewide election in nearly two decades. <\/p>\n

Still, ballot questions can be unpredictable.<\/a> Voters are in a grumpy<\/a> mood nationally and hold mixed<\/a> views of both political parties. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to determine precisely who might show up in an election with no candidate on the statewide ballot \u2014 only a question involving a constitutional amendment on the arcane subject of redistricting, or the realignment of House district boundaries. And campaigns are competing for attention in a nation of nonstop distraction, from wars abroad to the political stalemate in Washington.<\/p>\n

Supporters and opponents are running a cascade of ads in the state\u2019s big media markets. Trump is trying to \u201csteal congressional seats and rig the 2026 election,\u201d one ad from supporters warns. Opponents are spotlighting a recent appearance by Schwarzenegger<\/a>, who in one ad clenches his fist and says, \u201cDemocracy \u2014 we\u2019ve got to protect it and we\u2019ve got to go and fight for it.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the state\u2019s Central Valley, Kelsey Hinton is working to mobilize infrequent Latino voters hitched to hectic jobs and child care who are often overlooked by major campaigns. Her group, the Community Water Center Action Fund, dispatches canvassers to knock on doors to explain the stakes in the election. <\/p>\n

Operating separately from Newsom\u2019s campaign, and backed by funding from a left-leaning political group known as the Progressive Era Issues Committee, they hope to boost voter participation in an area where turnout can be among the sparsest in the state. <\/p>\n

What are they finding? \u201cPeople don\u2019t even know there is an election,\u201d Hinton said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 The midterm elections might be a year away, but the fight for control of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4302,4932,7,9,8,536,989,457,17120,11292,13,991,17121,6140,6141,6139,1710],"class_list":["post-21088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-arnold-schwarzenegger","tag-barack-obama","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-john-chandler","tag-mike-johnson","tag-politics","tag-redistricting","tag-roger-salazar","tag-u-s-democratic-party","tag-u-s-republican-party","tag-united-states-house-of-representatives","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}