California voters fired the first return shot from Democrats in a mid-decade congressional redistricting push by President Donald Trump, passing a ballot initiative on Tuesday that will enable the state legislature to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the 2026 elections.
After Texas Republicans followed Trump’s orders to eliminate five Democratic-held seats in the state, California will now be able to do the same after Proposition 50 passed. The initiative enables the state legislature, controlled by large Democratic majorities, to temporarily set aside the state’s nonpartisan redistricting process until 2030 and redraw districts on a partisan basis. The maps Democrats are considering would flip between four and five GOP-held seats into their column.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has presidential aspirations, led the charge to put Proposition 50 in front of voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. He billed it as a direct response to Texas’ mid-decade redistricting, naming the initiative the Election Rigging Response Act, and, critically, a way for Californians to weigh their disapproval of the second Trump administration.
“California will not sit idle as Trump and his Republican lapdogs shred our country’s democracy before our very eyes,” Newsom said upon introducing the legislation that put the initiative on the ballot. “In just six months, Trump’s unchecked power has cost Americans billions and taken an ax to the greatest democracy we’ve ever known. This moment calls for urgency and action — that is what we are putting before voters this November, a chance to fight back against his anti-American ways.”
