California voters approve new US House map to boost Democrats in 2026
[November 05, 2025]
By JONATHAN J. COOPER, MICHAEL R. BLOOD and TRÂN NGUYỄN
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California voters approved new congressional district
boundaries Tuesday, delivering a victory for Democrats in the
state-by-state redistricting battle that will help determine which party
wins control of the U.S. House in 2026 and, with it, the power to thwart
or advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The approval of Proposition 50 gives Democrats a shot at winning as many
as five additional seats, just enough to blunt Texas Republicans’ move
to redraw their own maps to pick up five GOP seats at Trump’s urging.
Texas’ move and California’s response have kicked off a flurry of
redistricting efforts around the country, with Republican states
appearing to have an edge. Deeply blue California is Democrats’ best
opportunity to make up seats.
Midterm elections typically punish the party in the White House, and
Trump is fighting to maintain his party’s slim House majority.
Republicans hold 219 seats to Democrats’ 213.
Tuesday’s results mark a political victory for Democratic Gov. Gavin
Newsom, who cast the measure as an essential tool to fight back against
Trump and protect American democracy.
Speaking to reporters in Sacramento, Newsom cast the California vote as
part of a broader national rejection of Trump's policies that saw
Democratic governors elevated in New Jersey and Virginia. But he warned
the more consequential battle would come next year.
If Democrats win the House majority, they can "end Donald Trump’s
presidency as we know it,” Newsom said. “It is all on the line, a bright
line, in 2026."
Measure supported by Newsom and Obama
California’s Proposition 50 asked voters to suspend House maps drawn by
an independent commission and replace them with rejiggered districts
adopted by the Democratic-controlled Legislature. Those new districts
would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections.
The recast districts aim to dilute Republican voters' power, in one case
by uniting rural, conservative-leaning parts of far northern California
with Marin County, a famously liberal coastal stronghold across the
Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.
The measure was spearheaded by Newsom, who threw the weight of his
political operation behind it in a major test of his mettle ahead of a
potential 2028 presidential campaign. Former President Barack Obama
urged voters to pass it as well.
“Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next
election and wield unchecked power for two more years,” Obama said in
one ad. “You can stop Republicans in their tracks.”
Critics said two wrongs don’t make a right. They urged Californians to
reject the measure, even if they have misgivings about Trump's moves
elsewhere.
Among the most prominent critics was Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie
star and former Republican governor who pushed for the creation of the
independent commission, which voters approved in 2008 and 2010. It makes
no sense to fight Trump by becoming him, Schwarzenegger said in
September, arguing that the proposal would “take the power away from the
people.”
“I don’t want Newsom to have control,” said Rebecca Fleshman, a
63-year-old retired medical assistant from Southern California, who
voted against the measure. “I don’t want the state to be blue. I want it
to be red.”
A lopsided campaign foreshadowed the vote
After an early burst of TV advertising, opponents of the plan struggled
to raise cash in a state with some of the nation's most expensive media
markets.
The campaign followed an unusual trajectory. A handful of Republican
congressmen who will see their districts dramatically reshaped – and
their jobs endangered — mostly stayed away from the campaign spotlight.
With opponents short on cash, Newsom and his supporters dominated TV
screens in the critical closing weeks.
Total spending on broadcast and cable ads topped $100 million, with more
than two-thirds of it coming from supporters. Newsom told people to stop
donating in the race's final weeks.
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Voters form a line at a polling station on the UCLA campus Tuesday,
Nov. 4, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The GOP congressmen — Reps. Ken Calvert, Darrell Issa, Kevin Kiley,
David Valadao and Doug LaMalfa — will see right-leaning voters
reduced and left-leaning voters boosted in their respective
districts in a shift that would make it likely a Democratic
candidate would prevail in each race.
Issa issued a defiant statement, saying: “I'm not going anywhere.
I'll continue to represent the people of California regardless of
their party or where they live."
Calvert said Newsom engineered a “power grab” while housing costs,
gas prices and taxes continue to strain family budgets. "I am
determined to keep fighting for the families I represent," he said
in an email.
AP poll finds voters motivated by political reasons
Proposition 50 won a swift and decisive victory, as the AP declared
a winner when polls closed statewide. Early returns were strongly in
favor of the measure, as were preliminary results from the AP Voter
Poll, an expansive survey of more than 4,000 voters in California.
Roughly 7 in 10 California voters said party control of Congress was
“very important” to them, and those voters overwhelmingly supported
the measure, according to the AP Voter Poll.
About 8 in 10 California voters who supported the ballot measure
said it was necessary to counter the changes made by Republicans in
other states, while only about 2 in 10 said they supported it
because it was the best way to draw maps, AP Voter Poll found.
Trump, who overwhelmingly lost California in his three presidential
campaigns, largely stayed out of the fray. A week before the
election, he urged voters in a social media post not to vote early
or by mail — messaging that conflicted with that of top Republicans
in the state who urged people to get their ballots in as soon as
possible.
In a post Tuesday on his social media platform, the president called
the state’s voting process “RIGGED” and warned that it was “under
very serious legal and criminal review. STAY TUNED!” Secretary of
State Shirley Weber called that “another baseless claim.”
The national House map is in flux
Congressional district boundaries are typically redrawn every 10
years to reflect population shifts documented in the census.
Mid-decade redistricting is unusual, absent a court order finding
fault with the maps in place.
Beyond Texas, Republicans expect to gain one seat each from new maps
in Missouri and North Carolina, and potentially two more in Ohio.
Five other GOP-led states are also considering new maps: Florida,
Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana and Nebraska.
On the Democratic side, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New York and
Virginia have proposals to redraw maps, but major hurdles remain.
A court has ordered new boundaries be drawn in Utah, where all four
House districts are represented by Republicans, but it remains to be
seen if the state will approve a map that makes any of them winnable
for Democrats.
Siddhartha Deb, 52, has lived in the U.S. since he was 7 years old
but he just became a citizen Tuesday. Immediately afterward he
registered to vote at San Francisco City Hall and cast his ballot in
favor of Newsom's measure.
“I don’t like the way the Republican Party is basically trying to
rig elections by gerrymandering," Deb said. "And this is the only
way, to fight fire with fire.”
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Cooper reported from Phoenix and Nguyen from Sacramento, California.
Associated Press writers Amy Taxin in Norco, California, and Terry
Chea in San Francisco contributed.
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