Two of California’s most prominent Republicans have returned to the political stage to oppose Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) statewide campaign to get voters to approve new congressional districts.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are using their considerable clout to raise money and speak out against Proposition 50, a November ballot measure that would approve a new congressional map passed by the state legislature last week and possibly give Democrats five additional House seats. The push for new maps is a direct response to Texas redrawing its map in favor of Republicans at the request of President Donald Trump, who is seeking to hold on to power during next year’s midterm elections.
At stake is control of the House of Representatives. Republicans have a 219-212 edge in the House, with four vacancies. Trump has been able to enact his agenda on everything from taxes to immigration because the GOP controls the White House and both chambers of Congress. If Democrats flip the House, they could render Trump a lame duck during his last two years in office by blocking his legislation and launching congressional investigations.
The very partisan redistricting fight has energized Republicans across California.
McCarthy is raising money for Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab and has said he wants to bring in more than $100 million to defeat Proposition 50, also known as the Election Rigging Response Act.
Schwarzenegger is backing Charles Munger Jr.’s Protect Voters First. Munger is a GOP megadonor and the son of a billionaire who was Warren Buffett’s right-hand man. Munger bankrolled the 2010 ballot measure that created independent congressional redistricting in California. So far, Munger has donated $10 million to the “No on Prop. 50 – Protect Voters First” campaign and may spend even more.
“You’re going to see different messengers, but it’s all going to be the same message,” Jessica Millan Patterson, the former California Republican Party chairwoman now running Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab, told Politico. “That message is: California voters decided in 2010 that they didn’t want Sacramento politicians choosing who were their constituents. They wanted the people to have the power to decide who the representatives are, and that’s why we have the Citizens Redistricting Commission.”
Right Path California, which is affiliated with Patterson, name-checked Newsom twice for “scheming” and ignoring cost-of-living issues, while Munger’s group sent out mailers that included testimonials from a Sacramento Bee columnist and Common Cause that argued against gerrymandering.
While enthusiasm is building to defeat Proposition 50, political analyst Ryan Waite cautioned that Republicans risk diluting their message. Multiple campaigns, he said, are often less effective than a unified front.
“A single, consistent message helps maximize resources and voter clarity,” Waite, the vice president at Think Big, told the Washington Examiner. “Right now, the bifurcated approach reflects real divisions in the GOP, but it also risks diluting impact if the campaigns start talking past each other. In a fight like this, unity of message is almost always the stronger play.”
Jamie Krenn, an adjunct professor of media, technology, and psychology at Columbia University, also believes having dueling messages could backfire.
“When one campaign calls Newsom ‘scheming,’ that’s an emotionally charged label — and social cognitive theory shows us that repeated cues like this model how audiences should think and react,” Krenn, who also teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, told the Washington Examiner. “On social media, those kinds of words are especially sticky; they lend themselves to memes and rapid sharing. The other campaign leans on validators, which is less about outrage and more about signaling trust. The real question is whether having both framings side by side widens the reach or just muddies the overall message.”
THE 2028 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL TICKET IS ALREADY A FORGONE CONCLUSION. PROBABLY
Adin Lenchner of Carroll Street Campaigns was more blunt in his assessment.
“Republicans aren’t split because of strategy — they’re split because they don’t have a credible answer,” he told the Washington Examiner. “They’re caught between defending the kind of autocracy we’ve seen nationally — sending the National Guard into Democratic cities, stripping Medicaid from folks who need it most, while taking foreign bribes in the form of airplanes and real estate investments — and admitting that Newsom’s approach is actually popular. That’s why their message is all over the place. It’s not strategy. It’s paralysis.”