California’s Proposition 50 will help determine whether Democrats or Republicans win the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026 and who holds power after the last two years of the Trump presidency.
Will California support redistricting under Proposition 50?
Proposition 50 has sparked debate over California’s redistricting. It will play a key role in determining which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.
California voters on Nov. 4 will play a major role in determining which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives during the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term.
Residents of the nation’s most populous state are weighing in on Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed constitutional amendment, Proposition 50. Prop. 50 would give the state the opportunity to temporarily suspend the use of bipartisan commissions to draw congressional district lines. Instead, California could use the line drawn by Democratic state legislators in Sacramento to improve the party’s chances of winning more seats in Congress.
Both major political parties are rushing to redraw congressional boundaries in at least a dozen states in an unprecedented effort to determine which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 midterm elections. President Trump is asking state lawmakers from Texas to Indiana to Missouri to redraw maps that favor Republicans, anticipating a historic trend in midterm elections that favors the opposition party that doesn’t control the White House.
“What we’re doing here, redistricting to find additional seats for one party at the president’s behest, is really novel,” said Matthew Levendusky, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
So how did we get here?
Republicans hold a slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the party that controls the White House has historically performed poorly in midterm elections.
According to the American Presidency Project, the president’s party has won seats in only three of the 23 midterm elections since 1934.
If Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, as they did in 2018 during President Trump’s first term when they gained 40 new seats, it would likely mean a congressional investigation, legislative paralysis, and even a third impeachment of Trump.
If Republicans retain their House majority, the president will be able to continue one of the most aggressive and destructive policies in modern presidential history.
Over the summer, President Trump began pressuring the Republican-controlled Legislature in Texas, home to the nation’s largest delegation, to redraw district lines to exclude some of the 12 Democrats representing the state.
After some drama with Democratic lawmakers fleeing the state, the Texas Legislature approved new maps creating five new Republican-leaning congressional districts. The new line faces several federal lawsuits.
California, which has the nation’s largest Democratic delegation, moved to redraw its own districts in response, effectively canceling Texas’ efforts.
Under Texas law, the state legislature draws the lines for congressional districts. But under California’s current constitution, a bipartisan commission draws the line, so any changes lawmakers need to get approval from voters.
California’s Proposition 50 would allow Congress to redraw the state’s congressional districts by 2030 to create five more seats that favor Democrats. The map has already been completed and published.
Aren’t other states doing this?
States typically redraw district boundaries every 10 years after the U.S. Census. Changes typically only occur between each census if someone challenges the boundaries in court and wins.
Like Texas, Republicans in Missouri have enacted new maps, but voters may have the opportunity to reject the Show-Me state changes in a special election. Redistricting is also underway in Ohio, and Republicans in North Carolina, Kansas and Indiana are working to redraw their maps.
Democratic leaders are also joining the effort, pushing for new lines of support for the party in blue states. Democratic-controlled legislatures in Illinois, New York and Maryland are considering similar moves, but party leaders have varying degrees of interest.
It’s too early to know whether more states will follow suit, but federal-level officials from both parties continue to press their state-level counterparts to take action.
At least 11 states explicitly prohibit mid-decade redistricting, while others explicitly allow it, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Will the results be known on election night?
If the margin is wide, Americans will know whether Prop. 50 passes on election night.
But California has a history of long vote counting, and even special elections tend to turn out in large numbers (to be fair, California has 23 million registered voters).
Therefore, if the difference is close, it may take several weeks to see the final results.
Prop. 50 is on track to pass with 20 points of support in an Emerson College poll conducted Oct. 20-21.
Fifty-six percent of likely California voters said they would vote in favor of the proposal, according to a statewide survey released Oct. 28 by the Public Policy Institute of California. The survey also found that regardless of their position on the proposal, most voters said they believed the outcome was very important.
The survey also found that President Trump’s approval ratings in California remain low and that Californians identify political extremism and threats to democracy as the most important issues facing the country.
“About 9 in 10 voters say the outcome of their Prop. 50 vote is at least somewhat important, including 2 in 3 who say it is very important,” said PPIC researcher Dejah Thomas. “Notably, we have not seen this high level of importance placed on ballot proposals since this survey began measuring them more than 20 years ago.”
What does this mean politically?
Every seat matters in the 2026 midterm elections. Democrats currently need to win just three seats to gain a majority in the House.
California’s new boundaries could nullify new seats Republicans hope to gain under Texas’ new map. If Prop. 50 passes, it could put even more pressure on other states to redraw their districts.
Starting in 2026, Newsom will be a big political bet on President Trump, his effort to get the state’s voters to agree to redraw the state’s political maps as a way to push back against President Trump in the run-up to the 2028 presidential election.
He made his clearest comments yet about his future plans on “CBS News Sunday Morning” on Oct. 26 when asked if he would seriously consider running for president after the midterm elections.
“Yes,” he said, adding that if he didn’t, “you’d be lying, and you can’t do that.”
How will the Supreme Court consider this?
The Supreme Court is currently considering whether districts can be created to protect minority voting rights without discriminating against voters of other races.
Their decision could limit key provisions of the landmark 60-year-old Voting Rights Act. The provision is intended to prevent Congressional mapmakers from diluting the votes of racial minorities by stuffing them into one district or spreading them across too many districts to exert influence.
Republican lawmakers in Louisiana, the focus of the lawsuit, are considering a bill that would delay the state’s 2026 primary election by a month. This could give lawmakers extra time to redraw the state’s congressional district boundaries if the Supreme Court repeals the current boundaries.
Depending on the court’s decision, other states, particularly those with large black populations, could also join the redistricting battle.
Isn’t redistricting usually about changes in a state’s population?
Yes, redistricting is typically tied to a state’s population.
Every 10 years, a national census is taken and the number of representatives in each state is rebalanced. States then redraw their parliamentary and legislative boundaries to account for population changes. For example, the 2020 census showed California’s population decreased and Texas’ population increased. In other words, California’s number of representatives decreased, and Texas’ number of representatives increased.
But what is happening now has nothing to do with population changes. The number of House seats in each state remains the same.
Texas, California, and other states currently redrawing their borders are intentionally and vocally changing which residents belong to which districts, increasing the likelihood that the state’s majority party will win more seats in the U.S. Congress, thus determining whether Democrats or Republicans will be in power during the final two years of President Trump’s presidency.
What does that mean for the future?
Political experts like Levendusky worry that if redistricting standards are broken in mid-decade, it could become a routinely used political tool.
“There will be increasing pressure to continue this, especially in a closely divided House, as both parties seek to get the most out of each state,” he said. “The losers are the state’s political minority voters who are no longer able to have their voices heard by their elected representatives.”
What do Californians think?
USA TODAY Network reporters spoke to Californians about a month before Election Day and found that from rural Republican northern states to liberal enclaves along California’s coast, many are frustrated, angry and want to fight back against Trump and Newsom.
How much does this special election cost?
Proposition 50 is the only item on the ballot for this special election and is expected to cost $282.6 million in taxpayer funds, according to the California Department of Treasury.
Democrats have poured money into persuading voters to approve the initiative. This is already one of the costliest voting contests in the state’s history.
