GOP members could be cut in half. <\/a> <\/p>\nWhile Newsom and Democratic partisans framed the passage of Proposition 50 \u2014 which they had dubbed the Election Rigging Response Act \u2014 as a major blow against Trump\u2019s iron grip on the federal government, it is far from guaranteed to flip the balance of power in the U.S. House, where Republicans hold a slim majority. <\/p>\n
For one, spurred on by Trump, Republican-led states are busy pursuing their own redistricting plans. Several Republican-controlled states including North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri are moving ahead. <\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, California voters in the fall of 2026 would then have to be convinced to choose Democratic challengers over incumbent Republicans in those newly crafted districts \u2014 and many current GOP members of Congress have said they don\u2019t plan to go quietly. <\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s something Newsom and his cronies don\u2019t know: It won\u2019t work,\u201d said Congressman Darrell Issa, a San Diego-area Republican whose seat was targeted by the newly redrawn maps. \u201cThe worst gerrymander in history has a fatal flaw. Voters get to pick their representatives. Not the other way around. I\u2019m not going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Congressman Doug LaMalfa whose Northern California district was carved up and diluted with left-leaning coastal voters, said he was \u201cstanding in the fight. They\u2019re not going to kidnap my district here without a battle.\u201d <\/p>\n
What is sure, however, is that Proposition 50 is a big win for Newsom, who has propelled his fight with Trump onto the national political stage as one of the loudest voices standing against the new administration. <\/p>\n
Campaigning for Proposition 50, Newsom mocked Trump on the social media site X with sarcastic, Trumpesque all-caps media posts. The governor won viral fame, guest spots on late-night shows and millions of dollars from Democratic donors around the country delighted to see someone jousting with the president. In recent days, Newsom has begun talking openly about a possible run for president in 2028, after telling CBS last month that he would be lying if he tried to pretend he wasn\u2019t considering it. <\/p>\n
The new congressional districts also are expected to set off a mad scramble among ambitious Democratic politicians. <\/p>\n
Already, Audrey Denney, a strategist and education director, has announced she will once again mount a campaign against LaMalfa, who represents an area that has been split into two districts saturated with Democratic voters. Former state Sen. Richard Pan, meanwhile, has indicated he intends to target Congressman Kevin Kiley, who saw his hometown of Rocklin yanked out of his district and replaced with parts of more-Democratic Sacramento. <\/p>\n
One of the biggest effects of the measure may be the way it has enraged many of the state\u2019s rural voters, and left even those who are registered Democrats feeling as though state leaders don\u2019t care about their needs. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey think our voices are so small that we don\u2019t count, and because we\u2019re red,\u201d fumed Monica Rossman, the chairwoman of the Glenn County Board of Supervisors in rural Northern California. \u201cThis is just one more way of them squeezing us rural people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rossman described Newsom in obscene terms this week and added that \u201cpeople from urban areas, they don\u2019t realize that us people from One-Taco-Bell-Towns don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to drive by a dealership and see nothing but battery-operated vehicles. By traffic, we mean Ted\u2019s cows are out again and we have to wait for them to get out of the way. We\u2019re going to have people making decisions about areas they know nothing about.\u201d<\/p>\n
But as they headed to polling places across the state, many voters said the Trump administration\u2019s actions in California \u2014 from funding cuts to the prolonged immigration raids \u2014convinced them that radical measures were necessary. <\/p>\n
Adee Renteria, who came to vote at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in East Los Angeles decked out from head to toe in celebratory Dodgers gear, said she was voting yes on Proposition 50 because \u201cI want a fricking voice.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI want our people to be able to walk the streets without getting kidnapped,\u201d she said, adding that she believed the measure would allow Democrats a chance at fighting back against policies that she said had sown terror in her community. <\/p>\n
In Buena Park, Guarav Jain, 33, said he had braved long lines to cast his ballot \u201cto prove that we can fight back on the crazy things Trump says.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first chance to make our voice heard since the [presidential] election last November,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
The path to Proposition 50, which ranks as the fourth most expensive ballot measure in California history, began in June. That was when Trump\u2019s political team began pushing Texas Republicans to redraw the lines for that state\u2019s 38 congressional districts to gain five Republican seats and give his party a better shot at holding the House after the midterm elections. <\/p>\n
When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed on to the idea, Newsom jumped in to announce that California, which has 52 representatives, would counter by redrawing its own districts to try to pick up as many as five seats for Democrats.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re giving the American people a fair chance,\u201d Newsom said in August, adding that California was \u201cresponding to what occurred in Texas.\u201d <\/p>\n
The move outraged California Republicans and also angered some people, such as former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who are no fans of Trump. Some opponents argued that it was an affront to an independent congressional redistricting commission that California voters created in 2010 with the passage of Proposition 20 \u2014 an effort to provide fair representation to all Californians. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are trying to fight for democracy by getting rid of the democratic principles of California.\u2026 It is insane to let that happen,\u201d Schwarzenegger said at an event at USC in September.<\/a> \u201cDoesn\u2019t make any sense to me \u2014 that because we have to fight Trump, to become Trump.\u201d <\/p>\nBut Schwarzenegger didn\u2019t do much to actively campaign against the measure and the No side was far outgunned financially. Proponents raised more than $100 million, according to campaign finance reports, while the No side raised about $43.7 million. <\/p>\n
A star-studded cast of Democratic leaders also flooded the airwaves to support the measure, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. President Obama spoke on the issue in ads that aired during the World Series. \u201cDemocracy is on the ballot Nov. 4,\u201d the former president said. <\/p>\n
The new congressional district maps are only temporary. They will be in place for elections next year and in 2028 and 2030. After that, California\u2019s independent redistricting commission will resume its duties in drawing the maps. <\/p>\n
What may be longer lasting, some rural representatives said, is a sense among many in California\u2019s heartland that their voices don\u2019t count. <\/p>\n
LaMalfa, the congressman who saw his deep red district divided into two blue urban areas, said many of his constituents \u2014 who work in farming, timber and ranching \u2014 believe many state policies are \u201cstacked against them and they have nowhere to go.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they do have is a voice that understands their plight and is willing to speak for them. I am one of the people who does that,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have that anymore if you have taken all those folks and just drawn them into urban voters districts.\u201d <\/p>\n
Times staff writers Sonja Sharp, Katie King and Katerina Portela contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California voters delivered a major victory for Democrats nationwide Tuesday \u2014 and possibly for Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s political…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,4761,1751,16612,4973,3290,26866,592,6283,4489,225,1519,10605,1522,2805],"class_list":["post-39134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-congressional-district","tag-democrats","tag-measure","tag-midterm-election","tag-newsom","tag-passage","tag-people","tag-president","tag-proposition","tag-state","tag-trump","tag-voice","tag-voter","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39134","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=39134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}