districts

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.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris and a slew of other national and California Democrats on Saturday rallied supporters to stay fired up in seeking passage of a ballot measure to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the midterm elections.

While polling suggests Proposition 50 is likely to pass Tuesday, volunteers must continue knocking on doors, phone banking and motivating voters through Election Day, they said. Newsom told volunteers they ought to follow the model of sprinters, leaving it all on the field.

“We cannot afford to run the 90-yard dash. You Angelenos, you’ve got the Olympics coming in 2028. They do not run the 90-yard dash. They run the 110-yard dash. We have got to be at peak on Election Day,” Newsom told hundreds of supporters at the Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles. “We cannot take anything for granted.”

Hours earlier, Republican spoke out against the ballot measure at John Wayne Park in Newport Beach, before sending teams into neighborhoods to drum up votes for their side.

“What Proposition 50 will do is disenfranchise, meaning, disregard all Republicans in the state of California,” said state Assembly member Diane Dixon (R-Newport Beach). “Ninety percent of 6 million [Californian Republicans] will be disenfranchised.”

Proposition 50 would redraw California’s congressional districts in an attempt to boost the number of Democrats in Congress. The effort was proposed by Newsom and other California Democrats in hope of blunting President Trump’s push in Texas and other GOP-led states to increase the number of Republicans elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterm election. But even if voters approve the ballot measure that could flip five California districts currently represented by Republicans, it’s unclear whether that will be enough to shift control of the House unless there is a blue wave in the 2026 election.

The party that wins control of the House will shape Trump’s final two years in the White House — whether he is able to continue enacting his agenda or faces a spate of investigations and possibly another impeachment attempt.

The special election is among the costliest ballot measures in state history. More than $192 million has flowed into various campaign committees since state lawmakers voted in August to put the proposition on the ballot. Supporters of the redistricting effort have raised exponentially more money than opponents, and polling shows the proposition is likely to pass.

As of Friday, more than a quarter of the state’s 23 million registered voters had cast ballots, with Democrats outpacing Republicans.

Newsom was joined Saturday by Harris, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, other Democrats and labor leaders.

Harris, in a surprise appearance at the gathering, argued that the Trump administration is implementing long-sought GOP goals such as voter suppression.

“This fight is not about sitting by and complaining, ‘Oh, they’re cheating,’” the former vice president said. “It’s about recognizing what they are up to. There is an agenda that we are witnessing which feels chaotic, I know, but in fact, we are witnessing a high velocity event that is about the swift implementation of a plan that has been decades in the making.”

Several of the speakers referred to the immigration raids that started in Los Angeles in June and deep cuts to federal safety nets, including the nutrition assistance program for low-income families and a health coverage for seniors and the disabled.

“We know there’s so much on the line this Tuesday. And a reminder, Tuesday is not Election Day — it’s the last day to vote,” Padilla said. “Don’t wait till Tuesday. Get your ballots in folks…. As good as the polls look, we need to run up the score on this because the eyes of the country are going to be on California on Tuesday. And we need to win and we need to win big.”

Padilla, a typically staid legislator, then offered a modified riff of a lyric by rapper Ice Cube, who grew up in South Los Angeles.

“Donald Trump — you better check yourself before you wreck America,” said Padilla, who is considering running for governor next year.

Nearly 50 miles southeast, about 50 Republican canvassers fueled up on coffee and donuts, united over the brisk weather and annoyance about Newsom’s attempt to redraw California’s congressional districts.

Will O’Neill, chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, equated this final push against Proposition 50 as the California GOP’s game 7 — a nod to tonight’s World Series battle between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays.

“Orange County right now is the only county in Southern California that has a shot of having more Republicans than Democrats voting,” said O’Neill. “We expect that over the next three days, around 70% of everyone who votes is gonna vote ‘no’ on 50. But we need them to vote.”

Ariana Assenmacher, of California Young Republicans, center, organizes during a gathering of Republican Party members pressing to vote no on Proposition 50 in the upcoming California Statewide Special Election at John Wayne Park in Newport Beach on Saturday, November 1, 2025.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

O’Neill labeled the measure a “hyper-partisan power grab.” If Proposition 50 passes, it will dilute Republican power in Orange County by splitting communities and roping some residents into districts represented by Los Angeles County politicians.

Dixon also rallied volunteers — which included a handful of college students from across the state: “Be polite. Just say thank you very much. Just like Charlie Kirk would. Don’t [stimulate] an argument. Just be friendly.”

“They’re squeezing out what very little representation Republicans have in the state,” said Kristen Nicole Valle, president of the Orange County Young Republicans.

“We will not be hearing from 40% of Californians if Prop. 50 passes.”

Randall Avila, executive director of the Orange County GOP, said the measure disenfranchises Latino GOP voters like himself.

Nationally, Trump managed to gain 48% of the Latino vote, a Pew Research study showed, which proved crucial to his second presidential victory.

“Obviously our community has kind of shown we’re willing to switch parties and go another direction if that elected official or that party isn’t serving us,” said Avila. “So it’s unfortunate that some of those voices are now gonna be silenced with a predetermined winner in their district.”

Not all hope is lost for Republicans if Proposition 50 is approved, Avila said. A handful of seats could be snagged by Republicans, including the districts held by Reps. Dave Min (D-Irvine) and Derek Tran (D-Orange).

“If the lines do change, that doesn’t mean we pack up and go home,” he said. “Just means we reorganize, we reconfigure things, and then we keep fighting.”

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Republican legislative leaders completed their remapping of the state’s U.S. House districts on Wednesday, intent on picking up one more seat to help President Trump’s efforts to retain GOP control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

The new boundaries approved by the state House could thwart the reelection of Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis, who currently represents more than 20 northeastern counties. The state Senate already approved the plan in a party-line vote on Tuesday.

Republicans hold majorities in both General Assembly chambers, and Democratic Gov. Josh Stein is unable under state law to use his veto stamp on redistricting maps. So the GOP’s proposal can now be implemented unless likely litigation by Democrats or voting rights advocates stops it. Candidate filing for 2026 is scheduled to begin Dec. 1.

Republican lawmakers made the intent of their proposed changes crystal clear — it’s an attempt to satisfy Trump’s call for GOP-led states to secure more seats for the party nationwide, so that Congress can continue advancing his agenda. Democrats have responded with rival moves in blue states. A president’s party historically loses seats in midterm elections, and Democrats currently need just three more seats to flip House control.

“The new congressional map improves Republican political strength in eastern North Carolina and will bring in an additional Republican seat to North Carolina’s congressional delegation,” GOP Rep. Brenden Jones said during a debate that Republicans cut off after an hour.

Democratic state Rep. Gloristine Brown, an African American who represents an eastern North Carolina county, made an impassioned floor speech in opposition, saying “You are silencing Black voices and are going against the will of your constituents.”

“North Carolina is a testing ground for the new era of Jim Crow laws,” Brown said.

Republican-led Texas and Missouri already have revised their U.S. House districts to try to help Republicans win additional seats. Democratic-led California reciprocated by asking the state’s voters to approve a map revised to elect more Democrats, and Jones accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of ramping up the redistricting fight.

“We will not let outsiders tell us how to govern, and we will never apologize for doing exactly what the people of this state has elected us to do,” Jones said.

North Carolina’s replacement map would exchange several counties in Davis’ current 1st District with another coastal district. Statewide election data suggests this would favor Republicans winning 11 of 14 House seats, up from the 10 they now hold, in a state where Trump got 51% of the popular vote in 2024.

Davis is one of North Carolina’s three Black representatives. Map critics suggested this latest GOP map could be challenged as an illegal racial gerrymander in a district that has included several majority Black counties, electing African Americans to the U.S. House continuously since 1992.

Davis is already vulnerable — he won his second term by less than 2 percentage points, and the 1st District was one of 13 nationwide where both Trump and a Democratic House member was elected last year, according to the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Davis on Tuesday called the proposed map “beyond the pale.”

Hundreds of Democratic and liberal activists swarmed the legislative complex this week, blasting GOP legislators for doing Trump’s bidding with what they called a power grab through a speedy and unfair redistricting process.

“If you pass this, your legacy will be shredding the Constitution, destroying democracy,” Karen Ziegler with the grassroots group Democracy Out Loud, told senators this week. She accused the state GOP of “letting Donald Trump decide who represents the people of North Carolina.”

Democrats said this map is a racial gerrymander that will dismantle decades of voting rights progress in North Carolina’s “Black Belt” region. Republicans counter that no racial data was used in forming the districts, and the redrawing was based on political parties, not race.

Based on last week’s arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in a Louisiana redistricting case, the Democrats may lose this line of attack. A majority of justices appears willing to neuter a key tool of the Voting Rights Act that has protected political boundaries created to help Black and Latino residents elect favored candidates, who have tended to be Democrats.

State GOP leaders say Trump won North Carolina all three times that he’s run for president — albeit narrowly last year — and thus merits more GOP support in Congress. Senate leader Phil Berger called it appropriate “under the law and in conjunction with basically listening to the will of the people.”

Robertson writes for the Associated Press.

Supporters of the November ballot measure to reconfigure California’s congressional districts — an effort led by Gov. Gavin Newsom to help Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives next year — have far out-raised the opposition campaigns, according to fundraising disclosures filed with the state.

The primary group backing Proposition 50 raked in $77.5 million and spent $28.1 million through Sept. 20, according to a campaign finance report that was filed with the secretary of state’s office on Thursday.

The committee has $54.4 million in the bank for the final weeks of the campaign, so Californian should expect a blizzard of television ads, mailers, phone calls and other efforts to sway voters before the Nov. 4 special election.

The two main groups opposing the ballot measure have raised $35.3 million, spent $27.4 million and have roughly $8.8 million in the bank combined, campaign finance reports show.

Despite having an overwhelming financial advantage, the campaign supporting Proposition 50 has tried to portray itself as the underdog in a fight to raise money against opposition campaigns with ties to President Trump and his supporters.

“MAGA donors keep pouring millions into the campaign to stop Prop. 50 in the hopes of pleasing their ‘Dear Leader,’” said Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for the Yes on 50, the Election Rigging Response Act campaign. “We will not take our foot off the gas — Prop. 50 is America’s best chance to stop this reckless and dangerous president, and we will keep doing everything we can to ensure every Californian knows the stakes and is ready to vote yes on 50 this Nov. 4th.”

A spokesperson for one of the anti-Proposition 50 campaigns, which was sending mailers to voters even before the Democratic-led California Legislature placed Proposition 50 on the November ballot, said their priority was to help Californians understand the inappropriateness of redrawing congressional boundaries that had been created by a voter-approved, state independent commission.

“We started communicating with voters early about the consequences of having politicians draw their own lines,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for a coalition that opposes the ballot measure. “We are confident we’ll have the resources necessary to continue through election day.”

A spokesperson for the other main anti-Proposition 50 group agreed.

“When you’re selling a lemon, no amount of cash can change the taste. We’re confident in raising more than sufficient resources to expose Prop. 50 for the blatant political power grab that it is,” said Ellie Hockenbury, an advisor to the No on 50 – Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab campaign. Newsom “can’t change the fact that Prop. 50 is nothing more than a ploy for politicians to take the power of redistricting away from the voters and charge them for the privilege at a massive cost to taxpayers.”

The special election is expected to cost the state and the counties $282 million, according to the secretary of state’s office and the state department of finance.

If approved, Proposition 50 would have a major impact on California’s 2026 congressional elections, which will play a major role in determining whether Trump is able to continue enacting his agenda in the final two years of his tenure. The party that wins the White House frequently loses congressional seats two years later, and Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the House.

After Trump urged GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts to increase the number of Republicans elected to Congress in next year’s midterm election, Newsom and other California Democrats responded by proposing a counter-effort to boost the ranks of their party in the legislative body.

California’s congressional districts are drawn once every decade after the U.S. Census by a voter-approved independent redistricting commission. So Democrats’ proposal to replace the districts with new boundaries proposed by state lawmakers must be approved by voters. The state Legislature voted in August to put the measure before voters in a special election on Nov. 4.

Polling about the proposition is not definitive. It’s an off-year election, which means turnout is likely to be low and the electorate is unpredictable. And relatively few Californians pay attention to redistricting, the esoteric process of redrawing congressional districts.

There are more than 30 campaign committees associated with Proposition 50 registered with the secretary of state’s office, but only three have raised large amounts of money.

Newsom’s pro-Proposition 50 effort has received several large donations since its launch, including $10 million from billionaire financier George Soros, $7.6 million from House Majority PAC (the Democrats’ congressional political arm) and $4.5 million from various Service Employees International Union groups. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife have contributed $1 million to a separate committee supporting the proposition.

The opposition groups had few small-dollar donors and were largely funded by two sources — $30 million in loans from Charles Munger Jr., who for years has been a major Republican donor in California, and a $5-million donation from the Congressional Leadership Fund, the GOP political arm of House Republicans.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. —  Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe is calling Missouri lawmakers into a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. House districts as part of a growing national battle between Republicans and Democrats seeking an edge in next year’s congressional elections.

Kehoe’s announcement Friday comes just hours after Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a new congressional voting map designed to help Republicans gain five more seats in the 2026 midterm elections. It marked a win for President Trump, who has been urging Republican-led states to reshape district lines to give the party a better shot at retaining control of the House.

Missouri would become the third state to pursue an unusual mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage. Republican-led Texas took up the task first but was quickly countered by Democratic-led California.

Kehoe scheduled Missouri’s special session to begin Sept. 3.

Missouri is represented in the U.S. House by six Republicans and two Democrats — Reps. Wesley Bell in St. Louis and Emanuel Cleaver in Kansas City. Republicans hope to gain one more seat by reshaping Cleaver’s district to stretch further from Kansas City into suburban or rural areas that lean more Republican.

Some Republicans had pushed for a map that could give them a 7-1 edge when redrawing districts after the 2020 census. But the GOP legislative majority ultimately opted against it. Some feared the more aggressive plan could be susceptible to a legal challenge and could backfire in a poor election year for Republicans by creating more competitive districts that could allow Democrats to win three seats.

Republicans won a 220-215 House majority over Democrats in 2024, an outcome that aligned almost perfectly with the share of the vote won by the two parties in districts across the U.S., according to a recent Associated Press analysis. Although the overall outcome was close to neutral, the AP’s analysis shows that Democrats and Republicans each benefited from advantages in particular states stemming from the way districts were drawn.

Democrats would need to net three seats in next year’s election to take control of the chamber. The incumbent president’s party tends to lose seats in the midterm elections, as was the case for Trump in 2018, when Democrats won control of the House and subsequently launched investigations of Trump.

Seeking to avoid a similar situation in his second term, Trump has urged Republican-led states to fortify their congressional seats.

In Texas, Republicans already hold 25 of the 38 congressional seats.

“Texas is now more red in the United States Congress,” Abbott said in a video he posted on X of him signing the legislation.

In response to the Texas efforts, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom approved a November statewide election on a revised U.S. House map that gives Democrats there a chance of winning five additional seats. Democrats already hold 43 of California’s 52 congressional seats.

Newsom, who has emerged as a leading adversary of Trump on redistricting and other issues, tauntingly labeled Abbott on X as the president’s “#1 lapdog” following the signing.

Voting rights groups filed a lawsuit this week ahead of Abbott’s signing the bill, saying the new map weakens the electoral influence of Black voters. Texas Democrats have also vowed to challenge the new map in court.

The redistricting battle could spread to other states. Republicans could seek to squeeze more seats out of Ohio, where the state constitution requires districts to be redrawn before the 2026 elections.

Republican officials in Florida, Indiana and elsewhere also are considering revising their U.S. House districts, as are Democratic officials in Illinois, Maryland and New York.

In Utah, a judge recently ordered the Republican-led Legislature to draw new congressional districts after finding that lawmakers had weakened and ignored an independent commission established by voters to prevent partisan gerrymandering. Republicans have won all four of Utah’s congressional seats under the map approved by lawmakers in 2021.

Lieb and DeMillo write for the Associated Press. DeMillo reported from Little Rock, Ark. AP journalist Jim Vertuno contributed from Austin, Texas.

Gov. Gavin Newsom spearheaded a bold overhaul of California’s congressional map, a move that could dramatically shift the state’s political landscape.

A Times analysis of recent election results found the redistricting effort, which will go to voters on Nov. 4 as Proposition 50, could turn 41 Democratic-leaning congressional districts into 47. Democrats currently hold 215 seats in the House, while Republicans control 220. If California voters approve the new map, the shift could be enough to threaten the GOP’s narrow majority.

Newsom’s plan was pushed by state and national Democratic leaders, following a move by Texas to approve its own maps that could give the GOP five more House seats. There’s also a push by the Republican-led states to redraw their lines before the 2026 midterm elections to help the Republicans remain in control. The governor’s plan was approved by the state Legislature last week and now goes to the voters in a November special election. This week California Republicans filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court to block the ballot measure.

To get a sense of how the proposed maps might alter the balance of power in Congress, The Times used results from the 2024 presidential election to calculate the margin of victory between Democrats and Republicans in the redrawn districts.

In some cases, districts were split apart and stitched together with more liberal areas. In one area, lines have been redrawn with no overlap at all with their current boundary. As a result, four formerly Republican-leaning swing districts would tilt slightly Democratic, while two others would shift more heavily toward the left. Four out of the five remaining Republican strongholds would become even darker red under the proposed map.

1st District: Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale)

In its current form, California’s 1st Congressional District sweeps south from the Oregon border almost to Sacramento. For the last 12 years, it has been represented by Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who won reelection last November with nearly two-thirds of the vote.

But under the proposed map, that district is split in two. The new 1st District would run inland from Santa Rosa through Chico to the Nevada border. The redrawn 2nd District would follow the north coast from Marin County and the border with Oregon. It would also include deep red Shasta County.

The Times analysis found the proposed 1st District experienced the largest Democratic shift, among all the districts that flipped from red to blue, moving from a 25-point advantage for Trump to a 12-point advantage for Harris. That gain was made possible in part by pulling in more Democratic-leaning areas from the 2nd District, making it slightly less blue.

3rd District: Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin)

Rep. Kevin Kiley has represented the 3rd District since 2022. But he would face an uphill battle to keep the seat on the redistricted map. The new lines lop off the conservative-leaning Eastern Sierra and instead pulls in Democratic voters from Sacramento.

In the 2024 presidential election, the current 3rd District backed Trump by 4 points. Under Newsom’s proposed map, that same area would have gone for Harris by 10 points, creating a 14-point swing that transforms the district from purple to solidly blue.

Kiley, whose district is targeted for elimination under Newsom’s plan, has called for a ban on all mid-decade congressional redistricting. The 3rd District’s boundaries are significantly reduced in the new map, and shifting demographics, including growth in the Asian American population, could further tilt the seat away from Republicans.

41st District: Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona)

Rep. Ken Calvert’s 41st District, long centered in the competitive western Inland Empire, would be eliminated and completely redrawn in Los Angeles County. The district would transform from a swinging GOP-leaning seat into one where Democrats would hold a 14-point advantage.

Parts of the new 41st would be carved out of the current 38th District, represented by Democrat Linda Sánchez. That change shifts some of Sánchez’s Democratic base into the new 41st district, making it more favorable to Democrats while leaving the 38th slightly less blue.

At the same time, the Hispanic share of the population would rise, further bolstering the Democrat‘s strength in the proposed district. The new 41st seat would become a majority-minority district. The redistricting proposal includes 16 majority-minority districts; the same number as the current map except for swapping the 41st District for the 42nd.

A section of the current 41st district would be added to Rep. Young Kim’s 40th District. The reshaped 40th District would move 9.7 points to the right — the biggest rightward shift among Republican-held districts.

48th District: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall)

The 48th District, a Republican stronghold represented by Darrell Issa, carried a 15-point GOP margin of victory under the current map. But the proposed lines would shift voters into San Diego County, giving Democrats a new edge. The district’s demographics would also change, with a larger share of Hispanic voters. As a result, what had been a safe Republican seat would become a swing district, where Democrats would hold a narrow 3-point advantage. The proposed 48th District includes Palm Springs, a liberal patch that was previously in the 41st District.

Deepening blue

Beyond flipping Republican-leaning swing districts, another aim of the redistricting plan is to shore up vulnerable Democratic seats. Democrats have long fought to hold onto these coastal Orange County seats, eking out narrow wins. Rep. Derek Tran of Cypress unseated a Republican incumbent by just about 650 votes, while Rep. Dave Min of Costa Mesa survived last November with a margin of less than 3 percentage points. Asians are the largest minority currently in Districts 45 and 47.

Under the current map, Harris carried the 45th District by only 1.5 points and the 47th by 4 points. But in Newsom’s proposed map, those advantages widen to 4 and 10 points, respectively, transforming fragile footholds into far safer Democratic turf.

The new changes dilute the number of GOP voters in both Rep. David Valadao’s District 22 and Rep. Adam Gray’s District 13.

— Additional development by data and graphics assistant editor Sean Greene.

Former President Obama endorsed California Democrats’ plans to redraw congressional districts if Texas or another Republican-led state does so to increase the GOP’s chances of maintaining control of Congress after next year’s midterm election.

Obama said that while he opposes partisan gerrymandering, Republicans in Texas acting at President Trump’s behest have forced Democrats’ hand.

If Democrats “don’t respond effectively, then this White House and Republican-controlled state governments all across the country, they will not stop, because they do not appear to believe in this idea of an inclusive, expansive democracy,” he said at a fundraiser Tuesday in Martha’s Vineyard that was first reported by the Associated Press on Wednesday.

“I wanted just a fair fight between Republicans and Democrats based on who’s got better ideas, and take it to the voters and see what happens,” Obama said, “… but we cannot unilaterally allow one of the two major parties to rig the game. And California is one of the states that has the capacity to offset a large state like Texas.”

Redistricting typically only occurs once a decade, after the census, to account for population shifts. In 2010, Californians voted to create an independent redistricting commission to end partisan gerrymandering. California’s 52 congressional districts were last redrawn in 2021.

Earlier this summer, Trump urged Texas leaders to redraw its congressional boundaries to increase the number of Republicans in Congress. Led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Democrats responded and proposed redrawing the state’s district lines and putting the matter before voters in a special election in November.

The issue came to a head this week, with Texas lawmakers expected to vote on their new districts on Wednesday, and California legislators expected to vote on Thursday to call the special election.

Obama called Newsom’s approach “responsible,” because the matter will ultimately be decided by voters, and if approved, would only go into effect if Texas or another state embarks on a mid-decade redistricting, and line-drawing would revert to the independent commission after the 2030 census.

“I think that approach is a smart, measured approach, designed to address a very particular problem in a very particular moment in time,” Obama said.

SACRAMENTO — California Democrats on Monday kicked off the process to redraw the state’s congressional districts, an extraordinary action they said was necessary to neutralize efforts by President Trump and Texas Republicans to increase the number of GOP lawmakers in Congress.

If approved by state lawmakers this week, Californians will vote on the ballot measure, labeled Proposition 50, in a special election in November.

At a news conference unveiling the legislation, Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) said they agreed with Gov. Gavin Newsom that California must respond to Trump’s efforts to “rig” the 2026 midterms by working to reduced by half the number of Republicans in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation.

They said doing so is essential to stymieing the president’s far-right agenda.

“I want to make one thing very clear, I’m not happy to be here. We didn’t choose this fight. We don’t want this fight,” said Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park). “But with our democracy on the line, we cannot run away from this fight, and when the dust settles on election day, we will win.”

Republicans accused Democrats of trying to subvert the will of the voters, who passed independent redistricting 15 years ago, for their own partisan goals.

“The citizens seized back control of the power from the politicians in 2010,” said Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), flanked by GOP legislators and signs in the Capitol rotunda that said, “Rigged map” and “Defend fair elections.”

“Let me be very clear,” DeMaio said. “Gavin Newsom and other politicians have been lying in wait, with emphasis on lying … to seize back control.”

After Trump urged Texas to redraw its congressional districts to add five new GOP members to Congress, Newsom and California Democrats began calling to temporarily reconfigure the current congressional district boundaries, which were drawn by the voter-approved independent redistricting commission in 2021.

Other states are also now considering redrawing their congressional districts, escalating the political battle over control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressional districts are typically reconfigured once every decade after the U.S. census.

Newsom, other Democratic lawmakers and labor leaders launched a campaign supporting the redrawing of California’s congressional districts on Thursday, and proposed maps were sent to state legislative leaders on Friday.

The measures that lawmakers will take up this week would:

• Give Californians the power to amend the state Constitution and approve new maps, drawn by Democrats, that would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 congressional elections, if any GOP-led states approve their own maps.
• Provide funding for the November special election.
• Return the state to a voter-approved independent redistricting commission to redraw congressional districts after the 2030 census.

Whereas Texas and several other GOP-led states are considering an unusual mid-decade redistricting to keep the Republican Party’s hold on Congress, Ohio is an anomaly. If its congressional districts are not approved on a bipartisan basis, they are valid for only two general elections and can then be redrawn.

McGuire said California would go forward if Ohio does.

“The state of Ohio has made it clear that they are wanting to be able to proceed. They’re one of the few states in the United States of America that actually allow for … mid-decade redistricting,” he said. “We firmly believe that they should cool it, pull back, because if they do, so will California.”

Republicans responded by calling for a federal investigation into the California Democratic redistricting plan, and vowed to file multiple lawsuits in state and federal court, including two this week.

“We’re going to litigate this every step of the way, but we believe that this will also be rejected at the ballot box, in the court of public opinion,” DeMaio said.

He also called for a 10-year ban on holding elected office for state legislators who vote in support of calling the special election, although he did not say how he would try to do that.

McGuire dismissed the criticism and threats of legal action, saying the Republicans were more concerned about political self-preservation than the will of California voters or the rule of law.

“California Republicans are now clutching their pearls because of self-interest. Not one California Republican spoke up in the Legislature, in the House, when Texas made the decision to be able to eliminate five historically Black and brown congressional districts. Not one,” he said. “What I would say: Spend more time on the problem. The problem is Donald Trump.”

The redistricting plan taking shape in Sacramento and likely headed toward voters in November could shift the Golden State’s political landscape for at least six years and determine which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 midterm elections.

Maps made public Friday afternoon show how California Democrats hope to reconfigure the state’s 52 congressional districts. The plan targets five of California’s nine Republican members of Congress, and is designed to counteract the redistricting efforts in Texas that would favor Republicans.

The state Legislature is expected to place the new map and a constitutional amendment to override the state’s independent redistricting process on a Nov. 4 special election ballot.

Enter your address below or select somewhere on the current map to see how the districts could change.

Sean Greene and Hailey Wang contributed to this report.

Aug. 12 (UPI) — Gov. Greg Abbott has threatened to remove 10 Democratic districts from Texas if California makes good on its threat to remove five Republican districts from its maps, the latest salvo in the deepening fight between the two states over the Lone Star State’s redistricting efforts.

“If California tries to gerrymander five more districts; listen, Texas has the ability to eliminate 10 Democrats in our state,” the Republican governor told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview Monday.

“We can play that game more than they can, because they have fewer Republican districts in their state.”

The threat comes as Texas state Democrats have fled their home state to Democratic strongholds such as Illinois and other states to prevent Republicans from passing controversial redistricting maps that give the GOP five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Critics have accused Abbott and Texas Republicans of conducting a power grab, seeking to redraw districts now as opposed to at the end of the decade, when it is traditionally done, in order to try to give President Donald Trump and the Republican Party an additional five seats in the House ahead of next year’s midterms.

Texas Democrats fled the state earlier this month in opposition, denying their Republican colleagues a quorum, meaning the minimum number of lawmakers necessary to pass legislation.

The GOP’s redistricting efforts in Texas have angered Democrats throughout the country, with Gov. Gavin Newsom responding that he will redraw California’s maps to produce five more Democratic seats in the House to neutralize Abbott’s move.

Texas has 25 Republicans and 12 Democrats in the House of Representatives. California has nine GOP legislators and 43 Democrats.

California Democrats and Texas Republicans are in an old-fashioned standoff, threatening to redraw their congressional maps in an attempt to sway the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections.

Caught in the middle are a handful of California Republicans, from relative newcomers to seasoned veterans, who represent pockets of the state from the U.S.-Mexico border to the remote forests in the northeast corner.

The Texas GOP is pushing, at the behest of President Trump, to net five additional seats for congressional Republicans, who hold the U.S. House of Representatives by a razor-thin margin. In response, Gov. Gavin Newsom has said California will push back with a map that would increase the number of Democrats the state sends to Washington.

“The idea that the president of the United States says he’s entitled to five seats should sicken everybody,” Newsom said at a news conference Thursday. “There’s nothing normal about that and anyone who says it’s not surprising is normalizing it. That’s shocking.”

The California gerrymandering plan taking shape behind closed doors would increase the Democratic Party’s dominance in the Golden State, adding as many as five congressional districts favorable to Democrats, according to a draft map reviewed by The Times. If the Democrats succeed, those changes could leave Republicans with four of the state’s 52 House seats — down from the current roster of nine.

California’s districts are typically drawn once per decade by an independent commission. Newsom is pushing to put a new map tailored to favor Democrats in front of voters Nov. 4, which would require the Legislature to approve the plan shortly after members return to Sacramento from their summer recess.

Newsom has said California’s redistricting plan will have a “trigger,” meaning a redrawn map would not take effect unless Texas moved forward with its own.

“We want to do it in the most transparent way,” Newsom said. “That’s a process that will unfold over the course of the next few weeks. But we want to see the maps on the ballot. I want folks to know what they’re voting on. That’s what separates what we’re doing from what others are doing.”

The proposed boundaries of the new congressional districts continue to shift, but the goal for California Democrats remains the same: Funnel the state’s Republican voters into fewer seats, boost vulnerable Democrats and turn some GOP-dominant districts into narrowly divided toss-ups.

Here are the Republicans who could face major changes.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin)

Kiley represents a sprawling district that runs along the Nevada border from Northern California to Death Valley, cutting through Mammoth and Lake Tahoe and the cities of Roseville, Rocklin and Folsom.

Republicans have a 6-percentage-point voter registration advantage in Kiley’s district. The district’s footprint could shrink and shift closer to Sacramento, adding more registered Democrats and trimming off some conservative and rural areas.

Kiley introduced a bill this week to nullify any newly drawn congressional boundaries adopted by states before the next U.S. census, in 2030, which would apply to both Texas and California. He said the bill would “stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.”

Newsom, Kiley said, is “trying to subvert the will of voters and do lasting damage to democracy in California.”

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale)

LaMalfa represents a safe Republican district that stretches through a vast territory of Northern California that borders Oregon and Nevada. The district includes Chico, Redding and Yuba City.

LaMalfa said in an interview that he had seen one map that shifted his district south to include parts of Sonoma County wine country and shifted some conservative rural areas in the north in another lawmaker’s district. Those changes, he said, would put towns near the Oregon border and Marin County, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, in the same district.

“The Democrats are really way over the line on this,” LaMalfa said. “I hope the weight of how bad this looks collapses on them before we even have to go through these gyrations, and millions and millions of dollars.”

He said he was certain that Republicans would litigate the new map if Democrats push ahead. He said other groups, including Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, have also voiced concerns.

“I’m not even stressed,” said La Malfa, a fourth-generation rice farmer. “If they throw me in some wine country district or some coastal district, and that throws me out, then I can go over here and finish cutting apart this tree that fell on my fence last night.”

Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford)

The proposed plans could add more registered Democrats to Valadao’s predominately Latino district in the Central Valley.

Democrats have tried for years to unseat Valadao, who represents a district that has a strong Democratic voter registration advantage on paper, but where turnout among blue voters is lackluster.

Even before the redistrict dustup, Valadao was once again a top target for Democrats. Valadao represents the California district with the highest percentage of Medicaid recipients, many of whom may lose coverage because of legislation approved by the Republican-led Congress and signed by Trump. Valadao previously lost his congressional seat in 2018 after voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017.

A representative for Valadao didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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

The plan being considered could force two Republican members of the House into the same district: Kim and Calvert.

Calvert was first elected to Congress in 1992 and is the longest-serving member of California’s Republican delegation. He represents a Riverside County district that includes Lake Elsinore, Menifee, Palm Springs and his home base of Corona. The district, which leans Republican, has been a prime, but unsuccessful, target for Democrats in the last two elections.

Kim, who was first elected to Congress in 2020, represents a Republican district, mostly in Orange County, that includes Mission Viejo, Orange, Lake Forest, Anaheim and Tustin.

Calvert said he strongly opposes “the scheme being orchestrated behind closed doors by Sacramento politicians” to replace maps drawn by the redistricting commission “with a process that would allow legislators to draw district maps that are gerrymandered to benefit themselves and their political allies.”

Deviating from the independent redistricting process “disenfranchises voters and degrades trust in our political system,” Kim said in a statement. She said Newsom should, “for once, focus on addressing the pressing issues making life harder for Californians under his watch instead of trying to position himself for a presidential run.”

Newsom this week said he was pleased to see Republican members coming out in support of independent redistricting.

“That’s an encouraging sign,” Newsom said. “So already, perhaps, people are waking up to the reality of California entering into this conversation. We’re not a small state. Again, we punch above our weight. It will have profound national implications if we move forward.”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall)

Under the tentative plans, Issa, who has served in Congress for more than two decades, would see his safely Republican district become purple. That could include absorbing Palm Springs, a liberal area that is currently in Calvert’s district and has become a hub of fundraising and political activity for Democrats.

A spokesman for Issa declined to comment but referred to a statement from the state’s nine-member Republican delegation, which said that Trump won 38% of the presidential vote in California last year, but Republicans hold fewer than 1 in 5 of the state’s 52 House seats.

Newsom, the delegation said, is trying to wrest power from the independent redistricting commission and “place it back into the hands of Sacramento politicians to further his left-wing political agenda.”

“A partisan political gerrymander is not what the voters of California want,” the statement said.

Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.

The potential redrawing of California’s congressional district lines could upend the balance of power in Washington, D.C., in next year’s midterm congressional election. The unusual and unexpected redistricting may take place in coming months because of sparring among President Trump, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Redrawing these maps — known as redistricting — is an esoteric practice that many voters tune out, but one that has an outsized impact on political power and policy in the United States.

Here is a breakdown about why a process that typically occurs once every decade is currently receiving so much attention — and the potential ramifications.

What is redistricting?

There are 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, each of whom is supposed to represent roughly the same number of constituents. Every decade, after the U.S. Census counts the population across the nation, the allocation of congressional representatives for each state can change. For example, after the 2020 census, California’s share of congressional districts was reduced by one for the first time in state history.

After the decennial census, states redraw district lines for congressional and legislative districts based on population shifts, protections for minority voters required by the federal Voting Rights Act and other factors. For much of the nation’s history, such maps were created by state legislators and moneyed interests in smoke-filled backrooms.

Many districts were grossly gerrymandered — contorted — to benefit political parties and incumbents, such as California’s infamous “Ribbon of Shame,” a congressional district that stretched in a reed-thin line 200 miles along the California coast from Oxnard to the Monterey County line.

But in recent decades, political-reform organizations and some elected officials, notably former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, called for independent drawing of district lines. In 2010, the state’s voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure requiring California congressional maps to be drawn by a bipartisan commission, which it did in 2011 and 2021.

Why are we talking about this?

President Trump recently urged Texas lawmakers to redraw its congressional districts to increase the number of GOP members of the House in next year’s midterm election. Congress is closely divided, and the party that does not control the White House traditionally loses seats in the body two years after the presidential election.

Trump has been able to enact his agenda — from deporting undocumented immigrants to extending tax breaks that largely benefit the wealthy to closing some Planned Parenthood clinics — because the GOP controls the White House, the Senate and the House. But if Democrats flip Congress, Trump’s agenda will likely be stymied and he faces the prospect of being a lame duck during his last two years in office.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, shown with Democratic lawmakers from Texas, speaks during a news conference in Sacramento on Friday.

(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

What is Texas doing?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called his state’s Legislature into special session last week to discuss the disastrous floods that killed more than 130 people as well as redistricting before the 2026 election.

Trump and his administration urged Abbott to redraw his state’s congressional lines with the hope of picking up five seats.

Abbott has said that his decision to include redistricting in the special session was prompted by a court decision last year that said the state no longer has to draw “coalition districts” that are made up of multiple minority communities. New district lines would give Texans greater opportunity to vote for politicians who best represent them, the governor said in interviews.

Democrats in the Lone Star state’s Legislature met with Newsom in Sacramento on Friday to discuss the ramifications of mid-decade redistricting and accused Trump of trying to rig next year’s midterm election to hold onto power.

Republicans “play by a different set of rules and we could sit back and act as if we have some moral authority and watch this 249-, 250-year-old experiment be washed away,” Newsom said of the nation’s history. “We are not going to allow that to happen.”

Democratic lawmakers in Texas have previously fled the state to not allow the Legislature to have a quorum, such as in 2021 during a battle over voting rights. But with the deadly flooding, this is an unlikely prospect this year.

Why is California in the mix?

The Golden State’s congressional districts are drawn by an independent commission focused on logical geography, shared interests, representation for minority communities and other facets.

If the state reverts to partisan map drawing, redistricting experts on both sides of the aisle agree that several GOP incumbents in the 52-member delegation would be vulnerable, either because of more Democratic voters being placed in their districts, or being forced into face-offs with fellow Republican members of Congress. There are currently nine Republican members of the delegation, a number that could shrink to three or four, according to political statisticians.

Strange bedfellows

These dizzying developments have created agreement among rivals while dividing former allies.

Sara Sadhwani, a member of the 2021 redistricting commission and longtime supporter of independent map drawing, said she supports Democratic efforts to change California’s congressional districts before the midterm election.

“I stand by the work of the commission of course. We drew fair and competitive maps that fully abided by federal laws around the Voting Rights Act to ensure communities of color have an equal opportunity at the ballot box,” said Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College. “That being said, especially when it comes to Congress, most certainly California playing fair puts Democrats at a disadvantage nationally.”

She said the best policy would be for all 50 states to embrace independent redistricting. But in the meantime, she supports Democratic efforts in California to temporarily redraw the districts given the stakes.

“I think it’s patriotic to fight against what appears to be our democracy falling into what appears to be authoritarian rule,” Sadhwani said.

Charles Munger Jr., the son of a late billionaire who was Warren Buffet’s right-hand man, spent more than $12 million to support the ballot measure that created the independent redistricting commission and is invested in making sure that it is not weakened.

“He’s very much committed to making sure the commission is preserved,” said someone close to Munger who requested anonymity to speak candidly. Munger believes “this is ultimately political quicksand and a redistricting war at the end of day is a loss to American voters.”

Munger, who was the state GOP’s biggest donor at one point, is actively involved in the California fight and is researching other efforts to fight gerrymandering nationwide, this person said.

The state Democratic and Republican parties, which rarely agree on anything, agreed in 2010 when they opposed the ballot measure. Now, Democrats, who would likely gain seats if the districts are redrawn by state lawmakers, support a mid-decade redistricting, while the state GOP, which would likely lose seats, says the state should continue having lines drawn by the independent commission once every decade.

“It’s a shame that Governor Newsom and the radical Left in Sacramento are willing to spend $200 million on a statewide special election, while running a deficit of $20 billion, in order to silence the opposition in our state,” the GOP congressional delegation said in a statement on Friday. “As a Delegation we will fight any attempt to disenfranchise California voters by whatever means necessary to ensure the will of the people continues to be reflected in redistricting and in our elections.”

What happens next?

If Democrats in California move forward with their proposal, which is dependent on what Texas lawmakers do during their special legislative session that began last week, they have two options:

• State lawmakers could vote to put the measure before voters in a special election that would likely be held in November — a costly prospect. The last statewide special election — the unsuccessful effort to recall Newsom in 2021 — cost more than $200 million, according to the secretary of state’s office.
• The Legislature could also vote to redraw the maps, but this option would likely be more vulnerable to legal challenge.

Either scenario is expected to be voted on as an urgency item, which requires a 2/3 vote but would insulate the action from being the subject of a referendum later put in front of voters that would delay enactment.

The Legislature is out of session until mid-August.

Times staff writer Taryn Luna in Sacramento contributed to this report.

California Democrats led by Gov. Gavin Newsom may upend the state’s mandate for independently drawn political districts as part of a brewing, national political brawl over the balance of power in Congress and the fate of the aggressive, right-wing agenda of President Trump and the GOP.

The effort being considered by state Democratic leaders is specifically intended to reduce the number of Republicans in California’s congressional delegation, retaliation for the ongoing actions by GOP leaders in Texas to unseat Democratic representatives in its state, reportedly at Trump’s behest.

“I think this whole thing is a horrible idea all the way around … and I don’t think people fully understand the ramifications of what they’re talking about,” said Republican redistricting expert Matt Rexroad. “Once we get to the point where we’re just doing random redistricting after every election … redistricting won’t be used as a tool to reflect voter interests. It will be used to just bludgeon minority political interests, whether it be Republican or Democrat, after every election.”

Newsom already has been in talks with Democratic legislative leaders and others about reconfiguring California’s congressional district boundaries before the 2026 election.

Doing so probably would require a statewide ballot measure to scrap or temporarily pause the voter-approved, independent California Citizens Redistricting Commission charged with drawing the boundaries of congressional districts based on logical geography, shared interests, representation for minority communities and other facets. In 2010, Californians voted to create the commission to take partisan politics out of the redistricting process for Congress, two years after they did so for the state Legislature.

Newsom said California may have to take the emergency action if Texas and other GOP-controlled states this year decide to redraw their congressional districts to ensure that Republicans keep control of Congress in the upcoming election. Redrawing of congressional districts typically occurs after the decennial census to reflect population shifts across the nation.

“So they want to change the game,” he said last week. “We can act holier-than-thou. We can sit on the sidelines, talk about the way the world should be, or we can recognize the existential nature that is this moment.”

Newsom on Friday plans to meet with six Democratic Texas state lawmakers visiting the state and members of California’s congressional delegation “to push back on Trump and Texas Republicans’ redistricting power grab,” according to the governor’s office.

Redistricting experts in both parties agree that reverting to partisan redrawing of congressional lines in California would make several GOP incumbents vulnerable. The state’s congressional districts could be reconfigured to increase the share of Democratic voters in districts currently represented by Republicans, or in a way that forces Republican officeholders to face off against one another.

Rexroad sees a scenario in which Republicans are so packed into districts that the party would have only three safe seats. Only nine of the state’s 52 congressional districts are currently represented by the GOP.

Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell said five of nine GOP-held districts could be flipped. He said Democrats are in a good position to gain seats because of California’s history of nonpartisan redistricting. In Texas, by comparison, districts already are gerrymandered to favor Republicans.

In California, “Democrats haven’t had partisan line-drawing since the ‘90s,” he said. “So there’s all this partisan gain left on the table for decades. If you ever do crack open the map, there’s just many available to bolster” the party’s existing grip on the delegation.

Rexroad warns that there would be unintended consequences, including weakening safe Republican districts in Texas and leading to a broken system in which lines are redrawn after every election to benefit whichever party controls the White House or various legislative bodies.

Before the creation of the independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, California was similar to most other states. Political districts were created by state lawmakers of both parties who often prioritized incumbent protection and gerrymandered oddly shaped districts, such as the infamous “ribbon of shame,” where a 200-mile coastal sliver of a congressional district between Oxnard and the Monterey County line disappeared during high tide.

Former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder said such districts are why he started the National Democratic Redistricting Committee with former President Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) in 2017.

“Because of our work, we now have the fairest national congressional map the country has seen in a generation, one that allows both parties to compete for the majority in the House,” Holder said Wednesday at a “Stop the Texas Takeover” virtual event hosted by the redistricting committee.

That could fall by the wayside, however, if some states crack open their redistricting process for partisan gain and states controlled by the opposing party retaliate by doing to the same.

California Democrats are considering trying to revisit the independent line-drawing after President Trump and his administration urged Texans to redraw their districts in a way that probably would improve the GOP’s ability to hold control of Congress in next year’s midterm election.

The House is narrowly divided, and the party that wins the White House often loses seats in the body two years later. The loss of a handful of GOP seats would stymie Trump’s plans, potentially making him a lame duck for two years.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called for a special session of the state Legislature that includes redistricting and began Monday.

On Tuesday, Abbott said the decision was prompted by a court decision last year that said the state no longer has to draw “coalition districts,” which are made up of multiple minority communities.

“New maps will work toward insuring that we will maximize the ability of Texas to be able to vote for the candidate of their choice,” he said in an interview with Fox 4 Dallas-Fort Worth.

“This is shameless, shameless, the mid-decade redistricting that they’re doing at the orders of Donald Trump,” Pelosi said Wednesday at the “Stop the Texas Takeover” event. “And this is what we’re doing in California. We’re saying to the Texans, ‘You shouldn’t be going down this path. We go down this path, we’ll go down together.’”

If California Democrats pursue partisan redistricting in time for next year’s midterm election, the Legislature, in which Democrats hold a supermajority, could place the matter on the ballot during a special election that probably would take place in November. State lawmakers also could opt to make the change through legislation, though that probably would be vulnerable to a legal challenge.

Nonpartisan congressional redistricting was one of then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s priorities when it was approved by voters in 2010. Schwarzenegger hasn’t weighed in on the state potentially rescinding the reform. But the director of the USC Schwarzenegger Institute, which includes such political reforms among its top priorities, warned that weakening California’s system would be out of sync with the state’s values.

“We’re in a scary position with all this talk of this gerrymandering arms race between Texas and California,” said Conyers Davis, global director of the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy. “It’s really a race to the bottom for voters in both states and the entire country as a whole. We should be celebrating California’s citizen redistricting commission and looking to expand that model into other states, not looking for political ways to dismember it and erode its powers.”

The state Republican Party, which opposed the creation of the redistricting commission, now supports the body in the face of a proposal that would cost it seats.

“To sort of start to mess with it right at this point in time, it just kind of undermines the whole independent redistricting commission that everybody has come to rely on,” said Corrin Rankin, chairwoman of the California Republican Party. “And I don’t know what it will look like constitutionally.”

Asked about Texas, she demurred, saying she was focused on California.

State Democrats, who also opposed the creation of the commission, cheered the potential response to Texas.

“Trump and Republicans — from D.C. to Texas — are attempting to rewrite the rules of our democracy,” said Rusty Hicks, chairman of the California Democratic Party. “With so much at stake, California may be left with little choice but to fight fire with fire to protect and preserve our democracy.”

Times staff writer Taryn Luna in Sacramento contributed to this report.

AUSTIN, Texas — U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat who represents a slice of the Rio Grande Valley along the border with Mexico, won his last congressional election by just over 5,000 votes.

That makes him a tempting target for Republicans, who are poised to redraw the state’s congressional maps this week and devise five new winnable seats for the GOP that would help the party avoid losing House control in next year’s midterm elections. Adjusting the lines of Gonzalez’s district to bring in a few thousand more Republican voters, while shifting some Democratic ones out, could flip his seat.

Gonzalez said he is not worried. Those Democratic voters will have to end up in one of the Republican districts that flank Gonzalez’s current one, making those districts more competitive — possibly enough so it could flip the seats to Democrats.

“Get ready for some pickup opportunities,” Gonzalez said, adding that his party is already recruiting challengers to Republicans whose districts they expect to be destabilized by the process. “We’re talking to some veterans, we’re talking to some former law enforcement.”

Texas has 38 seats in the House. Republicans now hold 25 and Democrats 12, with one seat vacant after Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor, died in March.

Gonzalez’s district — and what happens to the neighboring GOP-held ones — is at the crux of President Trump’s high-risk, high-reward push to get Texas Republicans to redraw their political map. Trump is seeking to avoid the traditional midterm letdown that most incumbent presidents endure and hold onto the House, which the GOP narrowly controls.

Trump’s push comes as there are numerous political danger signs for his presidency, both in the recent turmoil over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and in new polling. Surveys from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research show most U.S. adults think that his policies have not helped them and that his tax cut and spending bill will only help the wealthy.

‘Dummymander’

The fear of accidentally creating unsafe seats is one reason Texas Republicans drew their lines cautiously in 2021, when the constitutionally mandated redistricting process kicked off in all 50 states. Mapmakers — in most states, it’s the party that controls the Legislature — must adjust congressional and state legislative lines after every 10-year census to ensure that districts have about the same number of residents.

That is a golden opportunity for one party to rig the map against the other, a tactic known as gerrymandering. But there is a term, too, for so aggressively redrawing a map that it puts that party’s own seats at risk: a “dummymander.”

The Texas GOP knows the risk. In the 2010s, the Republican-controlled Legislature drew political lines that helped pad the GOP’s House majority. That lasted until 2018, when a backlash against Trump in his first term led Democrats to flip two seats in Texas that Republicans had thought safe.

In 2021, with Republicans still comfortably in charge of the Texas Legislature, the party was cautious, opting for a map that mainly shored up their incumbents rather than targeted Democrats.

Still, plenty of Republicans believe their Texas counterparts can safely go on offense.

“Smart map-drawing can yield pickup opportunities while not putting our incumbents in jeopardy,” said Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which helps coordinate mapmaking for the party nationally.

Democrats threaten walkout

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the Legislature, which starts Monday, to comply with Trump’s request to redraw the congressional maps and to address the flooding in Texas Hill Country that killed at least 135 people this month.

Democratic state lawmakers are talking about staying away from the Capitol to deny the Legislature the minimum number needed to convene. Republican Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton posted that any Democrats who did that should be arrested.

Lawmakers can be fined up to $500 a day for breaking a quorum after the House changed its rules when Democrats initiated a walkout in 2021. Despite the new penalties, Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who led the walkout in 2021, left open the possibility of another.

“I don’t think anybody should underestimate the will of Texas Democrats,” he said.

Texas is not the only Republican state engaged in mid-decade redistricting. After staving off a ballot measure to expand the power of a mapmaking commission last election, Ohio Republicans hope to redraw their congressional map from a 10-5 one favoring the GOP to one as lopsided as 13 to 2, in a state Trump won last year with 55% of the vote.

GOP sees momentum

Some Democratic leaders have suggested that states where their party is in control should counter the expected redraw in Texas. “We have to be absolutely ruthless about getting back in power,” former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke said Sunday on CNN.

But Democrats have fewer options. More of the states their party controls do not allow elected partisans to draw maps and entrust independent commissions to draw fair lines.

Among them is California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has floated the long-shot idea of working around the state’s commission.

The few Democratic-controlled states that do allow elected officials to draw the lines, such as Illinois, have already seen Democrats max out their advantages.

Trump and his allies have been rallying Texas Republicans to ignore whatever fears they may have and to go big.

On Tuesday, the president posted on his social media site a reminder of his record in the state in the November election: “Won by one and a half million Votes, and almost 14%. Also, won all of the Border Counties along Mexico, something which has never happened before. I keep hearing about Texas ‘going Blue,’ but it is just another Democrat LIE.”

Texas has long been eyed as a state trending Democratic because of its growing nonwhite population. But those communities swung right last year and helped Trump expand his margin to nearly 14 percentage points, a significant improvement on his 5½-point win in 2020.

Michael Li, a Texas native and longtime watcher of the state at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, said there’s no way to know whether that trend will continue in next year’s elections or whether the state will shift back toward Democrats.

“Anyone who can tell you what the politics of Texas looks like for the balance of the decade has a better crystal ball than I do,” Li said.

Legal risks

One region of the state where Republican gains have been steady is the Rio Grande Valley, which runs from the Gulf of Mexico along much of the state’s southern border. The heavily Latino region, where many Border Patrol officers live, has rallied around Trump’s anti-immigration message and policies.

As a result, Gonzalez and the area’s other Democratic congressman, Henry Cuellar, have seen their reelection campaigns get steadily tighter. They are widely speculated to be the two top targets of the new map.

The GOP is expected to look to the state’s three biggest cities to find its other Democratic targets. If mapmakers scatter Democratic voters from districts in the Houston, Dallas and Austin areas, they could get to five additional seats.

But in doing so, Republicans face a legal risk on top of their electoral one: that they break up districts required by the Voting Rights Act to have a critical amount of certain minority groups. The goal of the federal law is to enable those communities to elect representatives of their choosing.

The Texas GOP already is facing a lawsuit from civil rights groups alleging its initial 2021 map did this. If this year’s redistricting is too aggressive, it could trigger a second complaint.

“It’s politically and legally risky,” Li said of the redistricting strategy. “It’s throwing caution to the winds.”

Riccardi and Lathan write for the Associated Press and reported from Denver and Austin, respectively.

Florida’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the state’s congressional redistricting map, rejecting a challenge over the elimination of a majority-Black district in north Florida that was pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The court, dominated by DeSantis appointees, ruled that restoration of the district that previously united Black communities from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee, or across 200 miles, would amount to impermissible racial gerrymandering. That, the majority ruled, violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.

“The record leaves no doubt that such a district would be race-predominant. The record also gives us no reasonable basis to think that further litigation would uncover a potentially viable remedy,” said Chief Justice Carlos Muniz in the court’s majority opinion.

The decision means Florida’s current congressional districts that give Republicans a 20-8 advantage over Democrats will remain in place for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond. The former north Florida district was most recently represented by a Black Democrat, former Rep. Al Lawson. The new districts divide that area among three Republicans.

A panel of three federal judges previously upheld the current congressional districts.

“This was always the constitutionally correct map — and now both the federal courts and the FL Supreme Court have upheld it,” DeSantis said on X.

One of the plaintiffs, the National Redistricting Foundation, called the new ruling “alarming” because it “diminishes the voting power of Black Floridians” by upholding the GOP-drawn map.

“The court is abandoning the most basic role of the judiciary: to provide justice for the people,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the foundation.

Earlier redistricting efforts by the state Legislature included versions of the north Florida district that preserved Black voting power. But after a veto by DeSantis, the governor pushed through the current map that eliminated it.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said one problem for the plaintiffs was they did not propose a viable alternative map but only pointed out potential problems with the current one.

“It is not enough in the redistricting context for challengers to identify a flaw in an enacted districting plan and demand that the court send the Legislature back to the drawing board,” the decision said.

Justice Jorge Labarga was the lone dissenter, contending the lawsuit should be sent back to a lower court for further proceedings to allow the challengers a chance to produce different districts.

“By foreclosing further litigation, the majority’s decision now allows to remain in place a congressional redistricting plan that is unconstitutional under the Florida Constitution,” Labarga wrote.

Anderson writes for the Associated Press.