California voters will decide in November whether to approve a redrawn congressional map designed to help Democrats win five more U.S. House seats next year, after Texas Republicans advanced their own redrawn map to pad their House majority by the same number of seats at President Donald Trump’s urging.
California lawmakers voted mostly along party lines Thursday to approve legislation calling for the special election. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has led the campaign in favour of the map, then quickly signed it — the latest step in a tit-for-tat gerrymandering battle.
“This is not something six weeks ago that I ever imagined that I’d be doing,” Newsom said at a news conference, pledging a campaign for the measure that would reach out to Democrats, Republicans and independent voters. “This is a reaction to an assault on our democracy in Texas.”
Voters in California in 2010 gave the power to draw congressional maps to an independent commission, with the goal of making the process less partisan. Democrats have unveiled a proposal that could give that state’s dominant political party an additional five seats among the state’s 52 in the U.S. House of Representatives. Democrats currently hold a 43-9 advantage.
The Texas House has approved redrawn congressional maps that would give Republicans a bigger edge in midterm elections in 2026. The gerrymandering plan launched weeks of protests by state Democrats and a widening national battle over redistricting.
Republicans, who have filed a lawsuit and called for a federal investigation into the plan, promised to fight the measure at the ballot box as well.
James Gallagher, the state’s Republican minority leader, said Trump was “wrong” to push for new Republican seats elsewhere, contending the president was just responding to Democratic gerrymandering in other states. But he warned that Newsom’s approach, which the governor has dubbed “fight fire with fire,” was dangerous.
“You move forward fighting fire with fire, and what happens?” Gallagher asked. “You burn it all down.”
‘He’s trying to rig the election’: Newsom on Trump
Texas’s redrawn maps still need a final vote in the Senate, but the Republicans control that chamber. After that, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature will be all that is needed to make the map official.
Texas acted amid Trump’s push for Republican-controlled states, like Florida, Indiana and Missouri, to also revise their maps to add more winnable seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Ohio Republicans were also already scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan.
At the behest of state Republicans, the Texas House of Representatives passed a redistricting map on Wednesday after the return of Texas Democrats who were absent from the capitol for two weeks. Now, Democrats have been barred from leaving the capitol without signing a permission slip and agreeing to be watched by a police escort. Some of them are protesting the new rules. Texas Democratic Rep. Mihaela Plesa joins Power & Politics to discuss.
In a CNBC interview earlier this month, Trump erroneously claimed he received the “highest vote in history in Texas” and that “we are entitled to five more seats.”
Historically, the incumbent president’s party usually loses congressional seats in the midterms, and Trump is underwater on a number of issues in multiple polls, including on immigration and the economy — two issues seen as strengths for him as he completed his remarkable political comeback in the 2024 presidential campaign.
“We got here because the president of the United States is one of the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history,” said Newsom. “We got here because he recognizes that he will lose the [2026] election.”
“He’s trying to rig the election. He’s trying to set up the conditions where he can claim the elections were not won fair and square,” he added.
Trump, in his decade-long political career, has raised suspicions about unfavourable outcomes without evidence, beginning with his 2016 Iowa loss to Ted Cruz in the Republican primaries. Trump’s weeks-long campaign after losing the 2020 presidential election led to a riot led by his supporters at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, and his own impeachment in the House.
Newsom has sparred with Trump and MAGA Republicans on a number of issues, fighting for federal aid for damaging wildfires in Southern California in January, and opposing Trump’s deployment of California National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles to quell protests that began over federal immigration raids.
Redistricting typically occurs once a decade, immediately after a census. While some states have their own limitations, there is no national impediment to a state trying to redraw districts in the middle of the decade.
The U.S. Supreme Court has said the constitution does not outlaw partisan gerrymandering, only using race to redraw district lines.
In Texas, outnumbered Democrats turned to unusual steps to try to delay passage, leaving the state to delay a vote by 15 days. Upon their return, they were assigned round-the-clock police monitoring.
Obama, Schwarzenegger differ on plan
Texas Republicans embraced that when their House of Representatives passed its revision Wednesday.
“The underlying goal of this plan is straightforward: improve Republican political performance,” state Rep. Todd Hunter, the Republican who wrote the bill revising Texas’s maps, said.
On Thursday, California Democrats noted Hunter’s comments and said they had to take extreme steps to counter the Republican move.
“What do we do, just sit back and do nothing? Or do we fight back?” Democratic state Sen. Lena Gonzalez said. “This is how we fight back and protect our democracy.”
Democrats in Maryland and New York are also reconsidering their maps for mid-decade redraws.
Democrats have sought a national commission that would draw lines for all states but have been unable to pass legislation creating that system.
Former president Barack Obama, who’s also backed a nationwide non-partisan approach, said Tuesday that Newsom’s was a “smart, measured approach,” but former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican and longtime opponent of partisan redistricting, signalled he is not in favour.
The measure would have the California map last only through 2030, after which the state’s commission would draw the next decade’s map.
