final<\/a>\u00a0version of what’s officially known as Proposition 50.<\/p>\nGov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed map is likely to affect five Republican seats<\/p>\n
Current legislative districts<\/p>\n
Proposed legislative districts<\/p>\n
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GOP could be left with just four House seats in California<\/p>\n
If approved in California, it\u2019s possible the new political map could\u00a0slash\u00a0five Republican-held House seats while bolstering Democratic incumbents in other battleground districts. That could boost the Democratic margin to 48 of California\u2019s 52 congressional seats, up from the 43 seats the party now holds.<\/p>\n
Liberal-tilting California has long been a quirk in House elections \u2014 the state is heavily Democratic but also is home to a string of some of the most hotly contested congressional districts in the country, a rarity at a time when truly competitive House elections have been dwindling in number across the U.S.<\/p>\n
The contours of the race have taken shape, with Newsom framing the contest as a battle to save democracy against all things Trump, while Republicans and their supporters decry the proposal as a blatant power grab intended to make the state\u2019s dominant Democrats even more powerful while discarding House maps developed by an independent commission. Democrats crafted the proposed lines behind closed doors.<\/p>\n
Republicans hold a 219-213 majority in the U.S.\u00a0House, with three vacancies.<\/p>\n
New maps are typically drawn once a decade after the census is conducted. Many states, including Texas, give legislators the power to draw maps. California is among states that rely on an independent commission that is supposed to be nonpartisan \u2014 the Democratic ballot proposal would shelve that group’s work and postpone its operation until the next census.<\/p>\n
Creative boundary lines create districts to favor Democrats<\/p>\n
In some cases, the recast districts would slice across California, in one case uniting rural, conservative-leaning northern California with Marin County, a famously liberal coastal stronghold north of San Francisco. In others, district lines are left unchanged or have only minor adjustments.<\/p>\n
With rural and farming areas in some cases being combined in new districts with populous cities, there is \u201cworry about us losing our voice,\u201d said John Chandler, a partner in almond-and-peach grower Chandler Farms in the state\u2019s Central Valley farm belt. \u201cIt hurts us,\u201d Chandler said during an online event organized by proposition opponents.<\/p>\n
Proposed redistricting in California<\/p>\n
Current legislative districts<\/p>\n
Proposed legislative districts<\/p>\n
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Who will vote?<\/p>\n
Democrats come to the contest with significant advantages \u2014 they outnumber registered Republicans in the state by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, and a Republican candidate hasn’t won a statewide election in nearly two decades.<\/p>\n
Still, ballot questions can be\u00a0unpredictable.\u00a0Voters are in a\u00a0grumpy\u00a0mood nationally and hold\u00a0mixed\u00a0views of both political parties.<\/p>\n
It’s difficult to determine precisely who might show up in an election with no candidate on the statewide ballot \u2014 only a question involving a constitutional amendment on the arcane subject of redistricting, or the realignment of House district boundaries. And campaigns are competing for attention in a nation of nonstop distraction, from wars abroad to the political stalemate in Washington.<\/p>\n
Supporters and opponents are running a cascade of ads in the state’s big media markets. Trump is trying to \u201csteal congressional seats and rig the 2026 election,\u201d one ad from supporters warns. Opponents are spotlighting a recent appearance by\u00a0Schwarzenegger, who in one ad clenches his fist and says, \u201cDemocracy \u2014 we’ve got to protect it and we’ve got to go and fight for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the state’s Central Valley, Kelsey Hinton is working to mobilize infrequent Latino voters hitched to hectic jobs and child care who are often overlooked by major campaigns. Her group, the Community Water Center Action Fund, dispatches canvassers to knock on doors to explain the stakes in the election.<\/p>\n
Operating separately from Newsom\u2019s campaign, and backed by funding from a left-leaning political group known as the Progressive Era Issues Committee, they hope to boost voter participation in an area where turnout can be among the sparsest in the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What to Know The last day to register to vote for the Nov. 4 Statewide Special Election is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":282617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,69,90,1854,2961,224,5337,80,4352],"class_list":{"0":"post-282616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-gavin-newsom","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-trump-administration"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115329513846787722","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}