{"id":42442,"date":"2025-11-07T12:30:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T12:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/42442\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T12:30:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T12:30:37","slug":"republicans-including-cowardly-schwarzenegger-take-heat-for-lopsided-loss-on-prop-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/42442\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans, including ‘cowardly’ Schwarzenegger, take heat for lopsided loss on Prop. 50"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Republican infighting crescendoed in the aftermath of California voters overwhelmingly approving<\/a> a Democratic-friendly redistricting plan this week that may undercut the GOP\u2019s control of Congress and derail President Trump\u2019s polarizing agenda. <\/p>\n

The state GOP chairwoman was urged to resign and former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of the state\u2019s independent redistricting commission, was called \u201ccowardly\u201d by one top GOP leader for not being more involved in the campaign.<\/p>\n

Leaders of the Republican-backed committees opposing the ballot measure, known as Proposition 50, were questioned about how they spent nearly $58 million in the special election after such a dismal outcome.<\/p>\n

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, the once-prodigious Republican fundraiser, reportedly had vowed that he could raise $100 million for the opposition but ended up delivering a small fraction of that amount.<\/p>\n

Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), a conservative firebrand, called on state GOP Chair Corrin Rankin to step down and faulted other Republican leaders and longtime party operatives for their failure to defeat the measure, calling them \u201cderelict of duty and untrustworthy and incompetent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless serious changes are made at the party, the midterms are going to be a complete disaster,\u201d DeMaio said, also faulting the other groups opposing the effort. \u201cWe need accountability. There needs to be a reckoning because otherwise the lessons won\u2019t be learned. The old guard needs to go. The old guard has failed us too many times. This is the latest failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rankin pushed back against the criticism, saying the state party was the most active GOP force in the final stretch of the election. Raising $11 million during the final three weeks of the campaign, the party spent it on mailers, digital ads and text messages, as well as organizing phone banks and precinct walking, she said.<\/p>\n

\"Kevin <\/p>\n

Former Speaker of the House and California Republican Kevin McCarthy speaks to the press at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 19, 2023.<\/p>\n

(Samuel Corum \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe left it all on the field,\u201d Rankin said Wednesday morning at a Sacramento news conference about a federal lawsuit<\/a> California Republicans filed arguing that Proposition 50 is unconstitutional. \u201cWe were the last man standing \u2026 to reach out to Republicans and make sure they turned out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding to criticism that their effort was disorganized, including opposition campaign mailers being sent to voters who had already cast ballots, Rankin said the party would conduct a review of its efforts. But she added that she was extremely proud of the work her team did in the \u201crushed special election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barring successful legal challenges<\/a>, the new California congressional districts enacted under Proposition 50 will go into effect before the 2026 election. The new district maps favor Democratic candidates and were crafted to unseat five Republican incumbents, which could erase Republicans\u2019 narrow edge in the the U.S. House of Representatives. <\/p>\n

If Democrats win control of the body, Trump\u2019s policy agenda will probably be stymied and the president and members of his administration could face multiple congressional investigations.<\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/a> and other California Democrats proposed Proposition 50<\/a> in response to Trump urging elected officials in Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts to increase the number of Republicans elected to the House next year.<\/p>\n

The new California congressional boundaries voters approved Tuesday could give Democrats the opportunity to pick up five seats in the state\u2019s 52-member congressional delegation. <\/p>\n

Proposition 50 will change how California determines the boundaries of congressional districts. The measure asked voters to approve congressional district lines designed to favor Democrats for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, overriding the map drawn by the state\u2019s independent redistricting commission.<\/p>\n

Some Republicans lamented that Schwarzenegger was not more involved in the election. The movie star championed the creation of the independent commission in 2010, his final year in office. He campaigned for the creation of similar bodies to fight partisan drawing of district lines across the nation after leaving office.<\/p>\n

Shawn Steel, one of California\u2019s three representatives on the Republican National Committee, called Schwarzenegger \u201ca cowardly politician.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cArnold decided to sit it out,\u201d Steel said. \u201cArnold just kind of raised the flag and immediately went under the desk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steel said that the former governor failed to follow through on the messages he repeatedly delivered about the importance of independent redistricting.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe could have had his name on the ballot as a ballot opponent,\u201d Steel said. \u201cHe turned it down. So I\u2019d say, with Arnold, just disappointing but not surprised. That\u2019s his political legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwarzenegger\u2019s team pushed back at this criticism as misinformed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were clear from the beginning that he was not going to be a part of the campaign and was going to speak his mind,\u201d said Daniel Ketchell, a spokesman for the former governor. \u201cHis message was very clear and nonpartisan. When one campaign couldn\u2019t even criticize gerrymandering in Texas, it was probably hard for voters to believe they actually cared about fairness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwarzenegger spoke out against Proposition 50 a handful of times, including at an appearance at USC that was turned into a television ad by one of the anti-Proposition 50 committees that appeared to go dark before election day.<\/p>\n

On election day, he emailed followers about gut health, electrolytes, protein bars, fitness and conversations to increase happiness. There was no apparent mention of the Tuesday election.<\/p>\n

The Democratic-led California Legislature in August voted to place Proposition 50 on the November ballot, costing nearly $300 million, and setting off a sprint to Tuesday\u2019s special election.<\/p>\n

The opponents were vastly outspent<\/a> by the ballot measure\u2019s supporters, who contributed nearly $136 million to various efforts. That financial advantage,<\/a> combined with Democrats\u2019 overwhelming edge in voter registration in California, were main contributors to the ballot measure\u2019s success. When introduced in August, Proposition 50 had tepid support and its prospects appeared uncertain. <\/p>\n

Nearly 64% of the nearly 8.3 million voters<\/a> who cast ballots supported Proposition 50, while 36% opposed it as of Wednesday night, according to the California secretary of state\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

In addition to the state Republican Party, two main campaign committees opposed Proposition 50, including the one backed by McCarthy. A separate group was funded by more than $32 million from major GOP donor Charles Munger Jr., the son of a billionaire who was Warren Buffet\u2019s right-hand man; he bankrolled the creation of the independent congressional redistricting commission in 2010.<\/p>\n

Representatives of the two committees \u2014 who defended their work Tuesday night after the election was called moments after the polls closed, saying that they could not overcome the vast financial disadvantage and that the proposition\u2019s supporters must be held to their promises to voters such as pushing for national redistricting reform \u2014 did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Newsom\u2019s committee supporting Proposition 50 had prominent Democrats stumping for the effort, including former President Obama<\/a> starring in ads.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s in stark contrast to the opposition efforts. Trump was largely absent, possibly because he is deeply unpopular among Californians and the president does not like to be associated with losing causes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican infighting crescendoed in the aftermath of California voters overwhelmingly approving a Democratic-friendly redistricting plan this week that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4480,4970,3705,28491,1751,4416,204,16608,48,52,51,47,50,49,28490,24696,4489,1748,25297,225,1522],"class_list":["post-42442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ballot-measure","tag-california-voter","tag-campaign","tag-creation","tag-democrats","tag-effort","tag-election","tag-independent-redistricting-commission","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-new-california-congressional-district","tag-party","tag-proposition","tag-republicans","tag-schwarzenegger","tag-state","tag-voter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42442","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=42442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}