California voters sent a strong anti-Donald Trump message on Tuesday by passing Proposition 50, another big win for Democrats during the 2025 off-year election that helps the party in the nationwide redistricting frenzy that will help decide who controls the U.S. House in the final two years of the Republican president's second term.
Prop. 50 is a constitutional amendment pushed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom that would allow the nation's most populous state to temporarily stop using a nonpartisan commission to draw congressional district boundaries. Instead, California will use lines drawn by Democratic state lawmakers to increase the seats they hold in Congress.
After the 2030 U.S. Census the nonpartisan commission will resume drawing the lines.
The California measure was one of the most important issues being decided during an Election Day that saw Democrats also win their governor races in New Jersey and Virginia. It essentially negates the five new Republican-leaning congressional districts Texas created earlier this year at Trump's urging. Those boundaries have been challenged in federal court.
At least a dozen states have changed their boundary lines or are in the process of doing so before the 2026 midterms. But, with the largest Republican and Democratic delegations, respectively, all eyes have been on what Texas and California would do.
