Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) announced Thursday plans to order a special election in November for voters to decide whether to approve new congressional maps to redistrict California House seats in favor of Democrats.
The strategy comes as a retaliatory rebuke to Republican-led Texas’s recent proposal to redraw the political maps in an effort to flip five House seats held by Democrats. Amid the push in the Lone Star state to keep Republicans in control of the House after the 2026 midterms, California members of Congress met with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) earlier this month to discuss conducting similar efforts in a bid to boost Democrats’ presence in the lower chamber.
“I’m not going to sit back any longer in the fetal position, a position of weakness, when in fact California can demonstrably advance strength,” Newsom, who is widely viewed as a likely 2028 presidential contender, told reporters Thursday during a press conference with Cal Fire at McClellan Park.
He added a veiled jab at Texas lawmakers weighing ways to redraw political lines.
“This is not going to be done in a back room,” Newsom said. “It’s not going to be done by members of some private group or bodies, so it can be given to the voters for their consideration in a very transparent way.”
California map makers are looking at options that would target five seats belonging to Republican Reps. Ken Calvert (R-CA), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Kevin Kiley (R-CA), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), and David Valadao (R-CA), according to the Texas Tribune.
Before landing on the ballot in November, the measure would require a two-thirds vote in both houses of the legislature, where Democrats enjoy supermajorities, meaning it could likely pass. If the legislature and voters approve Newsom’s five-seat redistricting plan, it would give the Democrats a 48-4 advantage in their House delegation.
California has traditionally relied on an independent redistricting commission that voters enshrined into the state’s constitution in 2010, leading state Republicans to decry Newsom’s latest tactic as “undemocratic.”
However, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has expressed confidence that putting the measure on the ballot provides a “legal pathway” to enacting the governor’s redistricting plan. Advocates believe maps passed by way of a ballot measure or the legislature’s approval would withstand legal scrutiny because the independent commission is only tasked with drawing new lines once every decade, leaving the process for mid-decade redistricting open.
“We’re not here to eliminate the [independent redistricting] commission,” the governor said. “We’re here to provide a pathway in ’26, ’28, and in 2030 for congressional maps on the basis of a response to the rigging of the system of the president of the United States.”
The special election would be held on the first Tuesday of November, Newsom added, in order for voters to approve maps that would be in effect for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 election cycles, before reverting back to the control of the state Citizen Redistricting Commission as scheduled.
The Nov. 4 special election is feasible because other counties already have elections planned for Nov. 4, and therefore would be cheaper than the 2021 recall, which cost more than $200 million, argued the governor, who compared the cost of a special election to an old Mastercard commercial.
The California governor said his plan came as a response to President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) support for redistricting efforts favoring Republicans in Texas.
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“We’re reacting to the president of the United States and Greg Abbott trying to rig the election,” Newsom said Thursday. “They recognize they can’t win in the midterms. All the momentum has shifted away from them.”
“We can act holier than thou,” he added during a recent Pod Save America appearance: “We can sit in the sidelines, talk about the way the world should be. Or, we can recognize the existential nature that is this moment.”