california republicans

California Republicans in Congress are vastly outnumbered by their Democratic counterparts in the state — and it may get worse.

Five of the nine GOP seats are at risk after California voters passed Proposition 50 in Tuesday’s special election. The measure, put on the ballot by the Democratic-led state Legislature, reshaped California congressional districts in a way that was specifically designed to unseat Republican incumbents.

The new maps target areas held by Reps. Kevin Kiley and Doug LaMalfa in Northern California, Rep. David Valadao in the Central Valley, and Reps. Ken Calvert, Young Kim and Darrell Issa in Southern California. The radical reconfiguration not only put Republicans in danger, but probably protects vulnerable Democratic officeholders by adding more voters from their own party into their reconfigured districts.

Already, California’s Republican members hold just nine seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, while Democrats have 43.

Proposition 50’s passage also sets off an intraparty fight for a newly created Republican seat in Riverside and Orange counties, which will pit two GOP incumbents against one another — Calvert of Corona and Kim of Anaheim Hills — knocking one of them out of office. Calvert and Kim on Wednesday announced they planned to run for that seat.

“With the passage of Prop. 50, Californians were sold a bill of goods, allowing [Gov.] Gavin Newsom and his radical allies in Sacramento an unprecedented power grab to redraw the Congressional map and silence those who disagree with his extreme policies,” Calvert said in a statement.

Newsom and other Democratic leaders argue that redistricting, which normally happens once a decade by an independent commission, was necessary after GOP leaders in Texas redrew their own congressional districts — at the request of President Trump — in a bid to add more seats for their party and retain Republican control of the House.

The passage of Proposition 50 will boost Democratic efforts to win control of the House after the 2026 election, a victory that likely would stifle parts of Trump’s agenda and open the president and his administration to a litany of congressional investigations.

Proposition 50 is expected to exacerbate the political isolation that millions of Republicans in California already feel, especially in the state’s vast northern and inland territories, and conservative suburban enclaves.

Trump won 38% of the presidential vote in California last year. About a quarter of the state’s registered voters are Republicans. Yet, Democrats have held every statewide office since 2011, and have an iron grip on the California congressional delegation.

Some California Republicans may be left asking: “Who in Congress is representing our views and who do we turn to?” said Mark Baldassare, survey director of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Cook Political Report, which tracks elections, changed 11 California congressional district race ratings Tuesday, with all but one district moving in Democrats’ favor.

Political consultant Rob Stutzman remains skeptical that Democrats will win all five congressional seats targeted by Newsom in the 2026 midterm elections. Some of the GOP representatives have deep roots in the community and have survived past challenges by Democrats, Stutzman said.

Newsom and others “may have overpromised what Prop. 50 could do,” Stutzman said.

Here are the top six Republicans whose districts were changed by Proposition 50 and who may find their political future at risk.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale)

In Northern California, LaMalfa appears likely to run in one of two redesigned districts: One that stretches toward Mendocino National Forest and south toward Santa Rosa, or another that runs along the Oregon border and down the coast to the San Francisco Bay Area.

His current district, which spreads across the deeply conservative northeast corner of California to the Sacramento suburbs, was carved up by Proposition 50 and replaced with three districts that favor Democrats.

“They’re not going to kidnap my district here without a battle,” LaMalfa, 65, said Tuesday.

Democrats running for Congressional District 1’s seat — the seat that includes Mendocino National Forest — include Audrey Denney, an education director who unsuccessfully challenged LaMalfa in 2018 and 2020.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin)

Kiley’s new district takes in neighborhoods in and around Sacramento, pulling in Democratic voters and losing former Republican communities along the Nevada border.

He hasn’t said which district he’ll seek.

“My current district is split six different ways,” Kiley, 40, said Wednesday. “In that sense, I have a lot of options.”

On Tuesday night, he promised to “work across party lines to find a national solution to the age-old plague of gerrymandering, and in particular, to the more recent affliction of mid-decade gerrymandering.”

Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford)

Valadao’s predominantly Latino district in the Central Valley extends north post-Proposition 50, gaining more registered Democrats.

Still, more Democratic voters doesn’t necessarily translate to a Democratic victory, given the conservative attitudes in the region. A dairy farmer, Valadao, 48, has survived past challenges, in part due to poor turnout among Democrats and his popularity among moderate voters in the Central Valley.

Among those who have announced their intention to challenge Valadao is Visalia school board trustee Randy Villegas, a Democrat.

Valadao was among the few Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, increasing his appeal to Democratic voters. But he could also be vulnerable because of his support for Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which cut medical benefits for roughly two-thirds of his constituents. The representative argued his district will get concessions for rural hospitals, water infrastructure and agricultural investments in the legislation.

A Valadao spokesperson didn’t immediately respond for a request for comment Tuesday night.

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and Rep. Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills)

Nearly all of Calvert’s district was moved north, and now takes in the Los Angeles County communities of Pomona, Ontario and Fontana.

However, Calvert, 72, announced he would run for the newly formed 40th Congressional District, which includes western Riverside County and eastern Orange County, including his hometown of Corona, as well as Murrieta and Mission Viejo. It’s a strongly Republican district now shared by Republican colleague Kim of Anaheim Hills.

“Californians in the newly drawn 40th District deserve a proven conservative they can trust and a fighter who has delivered results for Riverside and Orange County for decades,” Calvert said in a statement Wednesday. “No one else comes close to my record of service to the new 40th. I’ve lived here my entire life and already represent the majority of this district in Congress.”

Calvert praised Trump’s economic record and efforts to “secure our borders,” a direct appeal to the president’s MAGA base living in the region.

Michael Moodian, public policy researcher at Chapman University, expects Calvert will face a “tough fight” with Kim in the 2026 election.

Calvert is the longest-serving Republican member of California’s congressional delegation and is well known among voters in the area, while Kim is a strong fundraiser and has a moderate tone given that her current district is politically divided, Moodian said.

Kim, 63, one of the first Korean American women elected to Congress, last year won a third term.

Kim on Wednesday boasted that she was one of the most prominent Republican fundraisers in Congress and had a proven record of winning tough races.

“I’m running because California needs proven fighters who will stand with President Trump to advance a bold America First agenda that restores law and order in our communities, strengthens our national security, and protects the American Dream for future generations,” Kim said in a statement.

Calvert has survived previous redistricting rounds, including in 2021, when the overwhelmingly liberal Palm Springs — the first city in the nation to elect an all-LGBTQ+ city council — was added to his district and the Republican-heavy Temecula was taken out.

In 2024, Calvert fended off former federal prosecutor Will Rollins, besting the young Democrat 51.7% to 48.3%.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall)

Post-Proposition 50, Issa’s Republican stronghold in Southern California becomes more narrowly divided among Democrats and Republicans and gets a larger share of Latino voters. Like Calvert and Kim, Issa may decide to run in the new Republican-majority seat in Riverside and Orange counties.

“California is my home,” Issa said Tuesday night. “And it’s worth fighting for,”

He called Proposition 50 “the worst gerrymander in history” and vowed to continue to represent “the people of California — regardless of their party or where they live.”

Issa, 72, lost a legal challenge last week over the new maps, which he sought to block.

According to the complaint filed in federal court, Issa claimed he would be harmed because he would lose “seniority advantages in committee proceedings” and have “reduced influence over legislative priorities and committee work affecting my constituents,” NBC7 in San Diego reported.

Democratic San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert and perennial candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar are among those challenging Issa in his new seat.

Generally speaking, it’s a grand time to be a Republican in the nation’s capital.

President Trump is redecorating the White House in his gold-plated image. The GOP controls both houses of Congress. Two-thirds of the Supreme Court was appointed by Republican presidents.

In California, the outlook for the GOP is far bleaker. The party hasn’t elected a statewide candidate in almost two decades; Democrats hold a nearly 2-to-1 voter registration edge and have supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature.

That’s long been the story for a state party stuck in the shadows in a deep-blue coastal state.

Will O’Neill, chairman, Republican Party of Orange County, Mark Mueser, Dhillon Law Group, Shawn Steel, RNC National Committeeman, Garrett Fahy, chair, Republican National Lawyers Association, and California State Assembly member David Tangipa during the Redistricting Lawfare in 2025 session at the California GOP Convention in Garden Grove, CA on Saturday, September 6, 2025.

(Eric Thayer / For The Times)

However, amid a sea of “Trump 2028” T-shirts, red MAGA hats and sequined Americana-themed accessories, California Republicans had a brief reprieve from minority status this weekend at their fall convention in Orange County.

Members of the California GOP — often a fractious horde — were energized and united by their opposition to Proposition 50, the ballot measure crafted by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democratic leaders to redraw the state’s congressional districts to counter gerrymandering efforts in GOP-led states. Newsom accused Republicans of trying to “rig” the 2026 election at Trump’s behest to keep control of Congress.

Voters will decide its fate in a Nov. 4 special election and receive mail ballots roughly four weeks prior.

“Only one thing really matters. We’ve gotten people in the same room on this issue that hated each other for 20 years, probably for good reasons, based on ego,” said Shawn Steel, one of California’s three members of the Republican National Committee and the chairman of the party’s anti-Proposition 50 campaign, on Saturday. “But those days are over, at least for the next 58 days. … This is more than just unity. It’s survival.”

If approved, Proposition 50 could cost Republicans five seats in the closely divided U.S. House of Representatives and determine control of Congress during Trump’s final two years in office.

More than $40 million has already poured into campaigns supporting and opposing the effort, according to reports of large donations filed with the secretary of state’s office through Saturday.

Spending has been evident as glossy pamphlets opposing the effort landed in voters’ mailboxes even before lawmakers voted to put Proposition 50 on the ballot. This weekend, ads supporting the measure aired during the football game between the University of Michigan and the University of Oklahoma.

At the state GOP convention, which drew 1,143 registered delegates, alternates and guests to the Hyatt Regency in Garden Grove, this priority was evident.

Republican candidates running for governor next year would normally be focused on building support among donors and activists less than a year before the primary. But they foregrounded their opposition to Proposition 50 during the convention.

“I’m supposed to say every time I start talking, the No. 1 most important thing that we can talk about right now is ‘No on 50,’” Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a GOP gubernatorial candidate, said Saturday as he addressed the Log Cabin Republicans meeting. “So every conversation that you have with people has to begin with ‘No on 50.’ So you say, ‘No on 50. Oh, how are you doing?’”

Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton are the two most prominent Republican candidates in the crowded race to succeed Newsom, who will be termed out in 2026.

The walls of the convention hotel were lined with posters opposing the redistricting ballot measure, alongside typical campaign fliers, rhinestone MAGA broaches and pro-Trump merchandise such as T-shirts bearing his visage that read “Daddy’s Back!” and calling for his election to an unconstitutional third term in 2028.

Though California Republicans last elected statewide candidates in 2006, they have had greater success on ballot measures. Since 2010, the party has been victorious in more than 60% of the propositions it took a position on, according to data compiled by the state GOP.

“We need you to be involved. This is a dire situation,” state Assemblyman David Tangipa (R-Fresno) told a packed ballroom of party activists.

The California GOP Convention in Garden Grove, CA on Saturday, September 6, 2025. (Eric Thayer / For The Times)

Attendees of the Redistricting Lawfare in 2025 session at the California GOP Convention in Garden Grove. (Eric Thayer / For The Times)

Tangipa urged the crowd to reach out to their friends and neighbors with a simple message that is not centered on redistricting, the esoteric process of redrawing congressional districts that typically occurs once every decade following the U.S. census to account for population shifts.

“It’s too hard to talk about redistricting. You know, most people want to get a beer, hang out with their family, go to work, spend time,” he said. “You need to talk to the Republicans [and ask] one question: Does Gov. Newsom and the legislative body in Sacramento deserve more power?”

“No!” the crowd roared.

Should the measure pass, lawyers would challenge the new lines in federal court the next day, attorney and former GOP candidate Mark Meuser said during a separate redistricting panel.

But rather than rely on the courts, panelists hoped to defeat the measure at the ballot box, outlining various messaging strategies for attendees to adopt. Voter outreach trainings took place during the convention, and similar virtual classes were scheduled to begin Monday.

Even with the heavy focus on the redistricting ballot measure, gubernatorial candidates were also skittering around the convention, speaking to various caucuses, greeting delegates in the hallways and holding private meetings.

More than 80 people have signaled their intent to run for governor next year, according to the secretary of state’s office, though some have since dropped out.

Despite being rivals who both hope to win one of the top two spots in the June primary and move on to the November 2026 general election, Bianco and Hilton amicably chatted, a two-man show throughout some of the convention.

Hilton, after posing alongside Bianco at the California MAGA gathering on Friday, argued that the number of Californians who supported Trump in the 2024 election shows that there is a pathway for a Republican to be elected governor next year.

Pointing to glittery gold block letters that spelled MAGA, he said he wanted to swap the first A for a U, so that the acronym stood for “the most useless governor in America, Gavin Newsom.”

“The worst record of any state, the highest unemployment, the highest poverty, the highest taxes, the highest gas prices,” Hilton said. “If we can’t rip these people apart, then we don’t deserve to be here. They’re going to be asking for another four years. They don’t deserve another four minutes.”

California gubernatorial candidate Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco speaks at the California GOP Convention in Garden Grove.

(Eric Thayer / For The Times)

At a Saturday gathering of roughly 60 delegates from the conservative northern swath of California, Bianco said he would never say a bad word about his Republican opponents. But, he argued, he was the only candidate who could win the election because of his ability to siphon off Democratic votes because of his law enforcement bona fides.

“Democrats want their kids safe. They want their businesses safe. They want their neighborhoods safe. And they can say, ‘I’ll vote for public safety.’ They’re not even going to say I’m voting for a Republican,” Bianco promised.

As he raised his hands to the crowd with a grin, Bianco’s closely cropped high-and-tight haircut and handlebar mustache instantly telegraphed his law enforcement background, even though his badge and holstered pistol were hidden beneath a gray blazer.

Later, after Bianco addressed a crowd of Central Coast delegates sporting more cowboy hats and fewer button-down shirts, Hilton walked to the front of the room and spoke in his clipped British accent about how another attendee had promised to take him pig hunting.

California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks at the California GOP Convention in Garden Grove.

(Eric Thayer / For The Times)

“We weren’t talking about police officers, I want to make that clear!” a man yelled from the crowd.

“Exactly,” Hilton continued, explaining how his family had a salami business in Hungary and he had gotten his hands plenty dirty in the past, “doing every aspect of making sausage, including killing the pigs.”

When billionaire casino mogul and top Republican donor Steve Wynn was accused of a decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct in the midst of the #MeToo movement, elected officials across the country quickly distanced themselves from him.

The news broke in January 2018, and some Republicans immediately called on their colleagues to return donations from Wynn, who was accused of pressuring employees to perform sex acts.

Sen. Susan Collins told CNN, “I don’t even think it’s a close call to return the money.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham also chimed in: “We should do of ourselves what we ask of the Democratic Party. So I don’t think we should have a double standard for ourselves.”

Within months, Wynn started to donate again, and by 2020, he was once again a major GOP donor, giving millions of dollars to conservative super PACs, President Trump’s reelection campaign, candidates and state Republican parties across the nation.

This year, Wynn gave more than three-quarters of a million dollars to a joint fundraising committee aimed at helping Republicans retake control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and that group gave donations to dozens of incumbents across the country, including nearly every member of California’s Republican delegation to Congress.

The recipients include Reps. Mike Garcia of Santa Clarita and David Valadao of Hanford, whose seats will be hotly contested in next year’s midterm elections because they are key to GOP hopes to retake control of the House.

Elections experts said Wynn’s reemergence in the political arena and the candidates’ willingness to take his money were unsurprising, and unlikely to move voters.

“In politics in general, I think the hope of people who have been accused of wrongdoing is that we’re all amnesiacs. And eight times out of 10 we are,” said Jessica Levinson, an election law professor at Loyola Law School. “Republicans in tight races — very few people are going to vote against them because they got money from a PAC that got money from Steve Wynn.

“At this point, because we’re not in that cycle of breaking news about Steve Wynn, I think it’s probably a pretty reasonable calculation, one, because time has faded and two, because it’s not a direct contribution.”

Wynn donated $771,900 — the maximum allowed — to the Take Back the House 2022 joint fundraising committee on March 26, according to the Federal Election Commission. From that day through the end of the month, the committee, which is controlled by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, sent $5,800 max-out donations to more than 40 members of Congress, with FEC documentation citing Wynn as the source of the money.

The California Republicans who received these donations are Reps. Devin Nunes of Tulare, Darrell Issa of Bonsall, Doug LaMalfa of Richvale, Tom McClintock of Elk Grove, Michelle Steel of Seal Beach, Valadao, Garcia and McCarthy. Rep. Young Kim of La Habra also received a donation from Take Back the House 2022 on March 31, but her FEC filing does not identify the donor.

McCarthy was the only one to respond to requests for comment.

Asked about the new donations, McCarthy said in a statement, “Steve Wynn is one of the great innovators in the history of modern capitalism. I thank him for his continued support, and I look forward to working with him to retake the House Majority.”

In 2018, McCarthy reportedly gave a Wynn contribution to charity in the aftermath of the sexual misconduct allegations.

Three years ago, a Wall Street Journal investigation found that Wynn had engaged in sexual misconduct for decades. Among the cases cited was one by a casino hotel manicurist who claimed Wynn forced her to have sex with him and who received a $7.5-million settlement, the Journal reported.

Wynn, now 79, responded to the investigation by denying that he had ever assaulted any woman and by blaming his ex-wife for airing the allegations as she sought to revise their divorce settlement.

Though Wynn was never charged criminally, the fallout was severe. He resigned as the head of his namesake company. Gambling regulators in Nevada and Massachusetts fined Wynn Resorts tens of millions of dollars for its executives covering up or ignoring Wynn’s alleged behavior. Wynn agreed to pay Wynn Resorts $20 million to partly settle shareholder lawsuits against the company.

Wynn, who previously had supported Democrats including President Obama, stepped down as finance chair of the Republican National Committee. His name was stripped off a commons at the University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater where he once served as a trustee.

Among the politicians who returned or donated Wynn contributions were Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Rob Portman of Ohio, Dean Heller of Nevada, Tim Scott of South Carolina, and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

McCarthy is in line to take the speaker’s gavel if Republicans win control of the House next year. His Take Back the House 2022 is a joint fundraising committee of 59 members of Congress and 20 other political committees that raised nearly $22 million in the first quarter of this year, according to the Federal Election Commission. Wynn was one of 11 people who maxed out to the committee.

Wynn’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment, but he told the Associated Press that Wynn “has the same rights and entitlements as any other private citizen in the United States of America.”

Four of the Californians who received donations from the PAC — Garcia, Valadao, Steel and Kim — are among the 22 incumbent Republicans targeted by Democrats in the 2022 election. The four seats are in traditional Republican strongholds but their demographics are changing. Mirroring a national trend, these suburban districts have grown increasingly competitive as their residents have grown more diverse. Democrats won the four seats during the blue wave in 2018; Republicans flipped them back last year.

An added uncertainty is redistricting because California lost a congressional seat based on the latest census report. Garcia’s northern Los Angeles County seat, which he won by 333 votes in November, may shift closer to Los Angeles when the redistricting commission redraws the maps, a move that would make it more Democratic.

SACRAMENTO — Ratcheting up the pressure in the escalating national fight over control of Congress, the California Legislature on Thursday approved November special election to ask voters in November to redraw the state’s electoral lines to favor Democrats and thwart President Trump’s far-right policy agenda.

The ballot measure, pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state and national Democratic leaders, is the latest volley in a national political brawl over electoral maps that could alter the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections and the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.

If voters approve the redrawn lines on Nov. 4, Democrats in the Golden State would see the odds tilted further in their favor, while the number of California Republicans in the House could be halved.

Newsom initially said that new electoral districts in California would only take effect if another state redrew its lines before 2031. But after Texas moved toward approving its own maps this week that could give the GOP five more House seats, Democrats stripped the so-called “trigger” language from the amendment — meaning that if voters approve the measure, the new lines would take effect no matter what.

The ballot measure language, which asks California voters to override the power of the independent redistricting commission, was approved by most Democrats in the Assembly and the Senate, where they hold supermajorities.

California lawmakers have the power to place constitutional amendments on the statewide ballot without the approval of the governor. Newsom, however, is expected later Thursday to sign two separate bills that fund the special election and spell out the lines for the new congressional districts.

Democrats’ rush to the ballot marks a sudden departure from California’s 15-year commitment to independent redistricting, often held up as the country’s gold standard. The state’s voters stripped lawmakers of the power to draw lines during the Great Recession and handed that partisan power to a panel of independent citizens whose names are drawn in a lottery.

The change, Democrats said, was forced by an extraordinary change in circumstances: After decades of the United States redrawing congressional lines once a decade, President Trump and his political team have leaned on Republican-led states to redraw their district lines before the 2026 midterm elections to help Republicans retain control of the House.

“His playbook is a simple one: Bully, threaten, fight, then rig the rules to hang onto power,” said Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. “We are here today because California will not be a bystander to that power grab. We are not intimidated, and we are acting openly, lawfully, with purpose and resolve, to defend our state and to defend our democracy.”

Republicans in the state Assembly and the state Senate criticized Newsom’s argument that Democrats must “fight fire with fire,” saying retaliation is a slippery slope that would erode the independent redistricting process California voters have chosen twice at the ballot box.

“You move forward fighting fire with fire, and what happens? You burn it all down,” said Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher (R-Yuba City). He said Trump was “wrong” to push Gov. Greg Abbott to redraw Texas’ lines to benefit Republicans, and so was California’s push to pursue the same strategy.

Democratic Assembly member Marc Berman speaks during a meeting of the California State Assembly at the California State Capitol on August 21, 2025 in Sacramento.

(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

State Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), who co-authored the bill drawing the proposed congressional districts, said Democrats had no choice but to stand up, given the harm the Trump administration has inflicted on healthcare, education, tariffs and other policies that affect Californians.

“What do we do? Just sit back and do nothing?” Gonzalez said. “Or do we fight back and provide some chance for our Californians to see themselves in this democracy?”

Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones (R-Santee) said the effort is “a corrupt redistricting scheme to rig California’s elections” that violates the “letter and the spirit of the California constitution.”

“Democrats are rushing this through under the guise of urgency,” Jones said. “There is no emergency that justifies this abuse of process.”

Three Assembly Democrats did not vote in favor of the constitutional amendment. Jasmeet Bains (D-Delano), who is running for Congress against Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) in the San Joaquin Valley, voted no. Progressive Caucus chair Alex Lee (D-San Jose), and Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay), did not vote.

Democrats will face an unusual messaging challenge with the November ballot measure, said Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach.

The opponents of mid-decade redistricting are stressing that the measure would “disadvantage voters,” he said, which is “wording that Democrats have primed Democrats on, for now two administrations, that democracy is being killed with a thousand cuts.”

“It’s a weird, sort of up-is-down moment,” Lesenyie said.

How did we get here?

Trump’s political team began pressuring Abbott and Texas Republicans in early June to redraw the state’s 38 congressional districts in the middle of the decade — which is very uncommon — to give Republicans a better shot at keeping the House in 2026.

“We are entitled to five more seats,” Trump later told CNBC.

Some Texas Republicans feared that mid-decade redistricting could imperil their own chances of reelection. But within a month of the White House floating the idea, Abbott added the new congressional lines, which would stack the deck against as many as five Texas Democrats in Congress, to the Legislature’s special session in July.

By mid-July, Newsom was talking about California punching back. In an interview with the progressive news site the TN Holler, Newsom said: “These guys, they’re not f—ing around. They’re playing by a totally different set of rules.”

Democrats in Texas fled the state for nearly two weeks, including some to California, to deny Republicans the quorum they needed to pass the new lines. Abbott signed civil arrest warrants and levied fines on the 52 absent Democrats while they held news conferences in California and Illinois to bring attention to the fight.

While the Texas drama unfolded, consultants for the campaign arm of House Democrats in California quietly drew up maps that would further chop down the number of Golden State Republicans in Congress. The proposed changes would eliminate the district of Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and dilute the number of GOP voters in four districts represented by Reps. Doug LaMalfa, Kevin Kiley, David Valadao and Darrell Issa.

The Democrats agreed to return to Texas last week and pointed to California’s tit-for-tat effort as one measure of success, saying the Golden State could neutralize any Republican gains in Texas.

Since then, other Republican-led states have begun to contemplate redistricting too, including Indiana, Florida and Missouri. Trump’s political allies are publicly threatening to mount primary challenges against any Indiana Republican who opposes redrawing the lines.

In California, the opposition is shaping up as quickly as the ballot measure.

California voters received the first campaign mailer opposing the ballot measure a day before the Legislature voted to approve it. A four-page glossy flier, funded by conservative donor and redistricting champion Charlie Munger Jr., warned voters that mid-decade redistricting is “weakening our Democratic process” and “a threat to California’s landmark election reform.”

Republicans have also gone to court to try and stop the measure, alleging in an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court that Democrats violated the state Constitution by ramming the bills through without following proper legislative procedure. The high court Wednesday rejected the petition.

A wave of legal challenges are expected, not only in California but in any state that reconfigures congressional districts in the expanding partisan brawl.

Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) said Thursday morning that a lawsuit challenging the California ballot measure would be filed in state court by Friday evening. He said Republicans also plan to litigate the title of the ballot measure and any voter guide materials that accompany it.

And, he said, if voters approve the new lines, “I believe we will have ample opportunity to set the maps aside in federal court.”

SACRAMENTO — California’s push to redraw the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats faced early opposition Tuesday during legislative hearings, a preview of the obstacles ahead for Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies as they try to convince voters to back the effort.

California Democrats entered the redistricting fray after Republicans in Texas moved to reconfigure their political districts to increase by five the number of GOP members of Congress after the 2026 midterm elections, a move that could sway the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections.

The proposed map of new districts in California that could go before voters in November could cost as many as five Golden State Republicans their seats in Congress.

In Sacramento, Republicans criticized Democrats for trying to scrap the independent redistricting process approved by voters in 2010, a change designed to remove self-serving politics and partisan game-playing. GOP lawmakers argued that the public and legislators had little time to review the maps of the proposed congressional districts and questioned who crafted the new districts and bankrolled the effort.

In an attempt to slow down the push by Democrats, California Republicans filed an emergency petition at the California Supreme Court, arguing that Democrats violated the state Constitution by rushing the bills through the legislature.

The state Constitution requires lawmakers to introduce non-budget bills 30 days before they are voted on, unless the Legislature waives that rule by a three-fourths majority vote. The bills were introduced Monday through a common process known as “gut and amend,” where lawmakers strip out the language from an older pending bill and replace it with a new proposal.

The lawsuit said that without the Supreme Court’s intervention, the state could enact “significant new legislation that the public has only seen for, at most, a few days,” according to the lawsuit filed by GOP state Sens. Tony Strickland of Huntington Beach and Suzette Martinez Valladares of Acton and Assemblymembers Tri Ta of Westminster and Kathryn Sanchez of Trabuco Canyon.

Democrats bristled at the questions about their actions, including grilling by reporters and Republicans about who had drawn the proposed congressional districts that the party wants to put before voters.

“When I go to a restaurant, I don’t need to meet the chef,” said Assembly Elections Committee chair Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz).

Democrats unveiled their campaign to suspend the independent redistricting commission’s work Thursday, proposed maps of the redrawn districts were submitted to state legislative leaders Friday, and the three bills were introduced in the legislature Monday.

If passed by a two-thirds vote in both bodies of the legislature and signed by Newsom this week, as expected, the measure will be on the ballot on Nov. 4.

On Tuesday, lawmakers listened to hours of testimony and debate, frequently engaging in testy exchanges.

After heated arguing and interrupting during an Assembly Elections Committee hearing, Pellerin admonished Assemblymembers Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) and David Tangipa (R-Clovis).

“I would like you both to give me a little time and respect,” Pellerin said near the end of a hearing that lasted about five hours.

Tangipa and the committee’s vice chair, Assemblywoman Alexandra Macedo (R-Tulare), repeatedly questioned witnesses about issues that the GOP is likely to continue to raise: the speed with which the legislation is being pushed through, the cost of the special election, the limited opportunity for public comment on the maps, who drew the proposed new districts and who is funding the effort.

Tangipa voiced concerns that legislators had too little time to review the legislation.

“That’s insanity, and that’s heartbreaking to the rest of Californians,” Tangipa said. “How can you say you actually care about the people of California?

Berman dismissed the criticism, saying the bill was five pages long.

In a Senate elections committee hearing, State Sen. Steve Choi (R-Irvine), the only Republican on the panel, repeatedly pressed Democrats about how the maps had been drawn before they were presented.

Tom Willis, Newsom’s campaign counsel who appeared as a witness to support the redistricting bills, said the map was “publicly submitted, and then the legislature reviewed it carefully and made sure that it was legally compliant.”

But, Choi asked, who drew the maps in the first place? Willis said he couldn’t answer, because he “wasn’t a part of that process.”

In response to questions about why California should change their independent redistricting ethos to respond to potential moves by Texas, state Sen. Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) was blunt.

“This is a partisan gerrymander,” she said, to counter the impacts of Trump administration policy decisions, from healthcare cuts to immigration raids, that are disproportionately impacting Californians. “That’s what we’re talking about here.”

Her comments prompted a GOP operative who is aiding the opposition campaign to the ballot measure to say, “It made me salivate.”

California Common Cause, an ardent supporter of independent redistricting, initially signaled openness to revisiting the state’s independent redistricting rules because they would not “call for unilateral political disarmament in the face of authoritarianism.”

But on Tuesday, the group announced its opposition to a state Senate bill.

“it would create significant rollbacks in voter protections,” the group said in a statement, arguing that the legislation would result in reduced in-person voting, less opportunities for underrepresented communities to cast ballots and dampens opportunities for public input. “These changes to the Elections Code … would hinder full voter participation, with likely disproportionate harm falling to already underrepresented Californians.”

The Pew Research Center is one of the most trusted polling firms in the country, especially when it comes to Latinos. Last week, it published findings that should have been a victory lap for Donald Trump and his tortuous relationship with America’s largest minority.

According to Pew, Trump won 48% of Latino voters in the 2024 presidential election — the highest percentage ever recorded by a Republican presidential nominee and a 12 percentage point improvement from his 2020 showing.

Latinos made up 10% of Trump’s coalition, up from 7% four years ago. Latino men went with a Republican for the first time. Trump even improved his share of support among Latinas — long seen by Democratic leaders as a bulwark against their macho Trumpster relatives — by a 13-point margin, a swing even greater than that of Latino men.

These stats prove what I’ve been warning about for years: that Latinos were souring on illegal immigration — even in blue California — and tiring of a Democratic Party too focused on policies that weren’t improving their lives. This gave Trump a chance to win over Latino voters, despite his years-long bloviations against Mexico and Central American nations, because Latinos — who assimilate like any other immigrants, if not more so — were done with the Democratic status quo. They were willing to take a risk on an erratic strongman resembling those from their ancestral lands.

Pew’s findings confirm one of Trump’s most remarkable accomplishments — one so unlikely that professional Latinos long dismissed his election gains as exaggerations. Those voters could have been the winds blowing the xenophobic sails of his deportation fleet right now.

All Trump had to do was stick to his campaign promises and target the millions of immigrants who came in illegally during the Biden years. Pick off newcomers in areas of the country where Latinos remain a sizable minority and don’t have a tradition of organizing. Dare Democrats and immigrant rights activists to defend the child molesters, drug dealers and murderers Trump vowed to prioritize in his roundups. Conduct raids like a slow boil through 2026, to build on the record-breaking number of Latino GOP legislators in California and beyond.

Trump has done none of that. He instead decided to smash his immigration hammer on Los Angeles, the Latino capital of the U.S.

Instead of going after the worst of the worst, la migra has nabbed citizens and noncitizens alike. A Times analysis of data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley Law found that nearly 70% of those arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement from June 1 through June 10 had no criminal convictions.

Instead of harassing newcomers with few ties to the U.S., agents are sweeping up migrants who have been here for decades. Instead of doing operations that drew little attention, as happened under Presidents Obama and Biden — and even during Trump’s first term — masked men have thrown around their power like secret police in a third-rate dictatorship while their bosses crow about it on social media. Instead of treating people with some dignity and allowing them a chance to contest their deportations, the Trump administration has stuffed them into detention facilities like tinned fish and treated the Constitution like a suggestion instead of the law of the land.

The cruelty has always been the point for Trump. But he risks making the same mistake that California Republicans made in the 1980s and 1990s: taking a political win they earned with Latinos and turning it into trash.

Fullerton College student David Rojas calls on Fullerton High students across street to join a protest against Proposition 187 on Nov. 3, 1994. The ballot initiative sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants but instead changed California politics.

(Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the last amnesty for immigrants in the country illegally. It was signed into law by Ronald Reagan, who famously said that Latinos were Republicans who didn’t know it yet. The Great Communicator knew that the best way to bring them into the GOP was to push meat-and-potato issues while not demonizing them.

The 1986 amnesty could have been a moment for Republicans to win over Latinos during the so-called Decade of the Hispanic. Instead, California politicians began to push for xenophobic bans, including on store signs in other languages and driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, arguing that these supposed invaders were destroying the Golden State. This movement culminated in the passage of Proposition 187 in 1994, which sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants and was eventually declared unconstitutional.

We all know how that worked out.

My generation of Mexican Americans — well on our way to assimilation, feeling little in common with the undocumented immigrants from southern Mexico and Central America who arrived after our parents — instead became radicalized. We waved the Mexican flag with pride, finding no need to brandish the Stars and Stripes that we kept in our hearts. We helped Democrats establish a supermajority in California and tossed Republicans into the political equivalent of the La Brea Tar Pits.

When I covered anti-ICE protests in June outside a federal building in Santa Ana, it felt like the Proposition 187 years all over again. The Mexican tricolor flew again, this time joined by the flags of El Salvador, Guatemala and other Latin American countries. The majority of protesters were teens and young adults with no ties to the immigrant rights groups I know — they will be the next generation of activists.

I also met folks such as Giovanni Lopez. For a good hour, the 38-year-old Santa Ana resident, wearing a white poncho depicting the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, blew a loud plastic horn as if he were Joshua trying to knock down the walls of Jericho. It was his first protest.

“I’m all for them deporting the criminals,” Lopez said during a short break. “But that’s not what they’re doing…. They’re getting regular people, and that’s not right. You gotta stand up for regular raza.”

Since then, I’ve seen my social media feeds transform into a barrio CNN, as people share videos of la migra grabbing people and onlookers unafraid to tell them off. Other reels feature customers buying out street vendors for the day so they can remain safely at home. The transformation has even hit home: My dad and brother went to a “No Kings” rally in Anaheim a few weeks ago — without telling each other, or me, beforehand.

When rancho libertarians like them are angry enough to publicly fight back, you know the president is blowing it with Latinos.

People gather on Sunset Boulevard and Vin Scully Avenue to protest against immigration raids in Los Angeles as well as the Dodgers on June 21, 2025.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Back to Pew. Another report released last month found that nearly half of Latinos are worried that someone they know might get deported. The fear is real, even among Latino Republicans, with just 31% approving of Trump’s plan to deport all undocumented immigrants, compared with 61% of white Republicans.

California Assemblymember Suzette Martinez Valladares and state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh are among those GOP skeptics. They signed a letter to Trump from California Republican legislators asking that his migra squads focus on actual bad hombres and “when possible, avoid the kinds of sweeping raids that instill fear and disrupt the workplace.”

When proud conservatives like Ochoa Bogh and Valladares, who is co-chair of the California Hispanic Legislative Caucus, are disturbed by Trump’s deportation deluge, you know the president’s blowing it with Latinos.

Yet Trump is still at it. This week, the Department of Justice announced it was suing the L.A. City Council and Mayor Karen Bass, arguing that their “sanctuary” city policy was thwarting “the will of the American people regarding deportations.”

By picking on the City of Angels, Trump is letting us set an example for everyone else — because no one gets down for immigrant rights like L.A., or creates Latino political power like we do. When mass raids pop up elsewhere, communities will be ready.

Many Latinos voted for Trump because they felt that Democrats forgot them. Now that Trump is paying attention to us, more and more of us are realizing that his intentions were never good — and carrying our passports because you just never know.

You blew it, Donald — but what else is new?