Why Newsom's push for new House maps isn't a sure thing, even in heavily Democratic California

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal on the Nov. 4 ballot to reshape California’s U.S. House districts to add five Democratic seats in advance of the 2026 midterm elections is not a sure sale with voters, even in a state where Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by nearly 2-to-1.

Democrats accustomed to handily winning elections in California year after year are getting antsy.

“I wish I could tell you this election was going to be easy, but it won’t,” the Democratic governor warned in an email to supporters last month.

Campaigns are often quick to alarm supporters in hopes of shaking loose donations. But there are several factors that could lead to a surprisingly close or unexpected result on Newsom’s proposed constitutional amendment, from voter confusion to an aversion to change.

While it’s always difficult to mobilize voters in off-year elections or when there isn’t a presidential election on the ballot, this year may be especially tough. The nation is in a sour mood about the country’s future, polling shows, and distractions abound, from the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Here’s a look at why passage of the measure isn’t a sure bet.

The outcome in the election will have national implications. Newsom’s plan to temporarily rejigger districts — earlier endorsed by the state’s heavily Democratic legislature — is intended to offset President Donald Trump’s moves in Texas to gain five Republican districts in the 2026 elections, when the GOP will be defending its fragile House majority.

The faceoff between the nation’s two most populous states has spread nationally, with Missouri redrawing House maps that are crafted state by state. Other states could follow.

The party that holds the White House usually loses seats in Congress in midterm elections. A switch in just a few House districts could determine which party holds power in the second half of Trump’s term: Currently, Republicans hold 219 seats, Democrats 213, with three vacancies.

Mail-in ballots go out early next month.

The unusual timing of the election — Newsom's blueprint will be the only issue before voters on the statewide ballot in November — means it's difficult to tell who will be motivated to show up. Voters will be pondering a complicated question on House district maps — not a candidate — and confused voters tend to be skeptical. Some voters might recoil at the proposal, with some districts stretching across the state and uniting rural and farming areas that typically lean Republican with coastal areas where Democrats are concentrated.

Technically, Newsom is asking residents to temporarily set aside the authority of an independent commission that voters created more than a decade ago specifically for the job of drawing district boundaries — in other words, vote against what they earlier approved. Opponents note the new maps would, in some cases, splinter racial and ethnic communities into different districts. And the issue doesn't necessarily break neatly along partisan lines.

Newsom has a mixed record on ballot questions.

One recent example: Last year, voters endorsed stronger penalties for retail theft and drug crimes, a proposal Newsom sought to derail. In 2020, Newsom backed the campaign to reinstate affirmative action in California. It lost in a drubbing. In the same year, he backed a proposal that could have made commercial property owners subject to billions of dollars in additional taxes — voters defeated it soundly.

For opponents, their hopes likely rest with reassembling a diverse coalition that supported the creation of the independent commission, which included good-government groups and cut across party lines. Its most prominent backer was then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican who is opposing Newsom's proposal and calls it “insane.”

U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican whose Northern California district would be recast to boost the Democratic advantage, said opponents need to adhere to a simple message: “The people put the (independent) commission in place. The politicians are trying to abolish it.”

A GOP candidate hasn’t won a statewide election in California in nearly two decades, and no Republican has carried the state in a presidential election since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

But conservatives are encouraged by last year’s elections, in which the state displayed a slight rightward shift. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris — a former San Francisco prosecutor, state attorney general and U.S. senator — won the state over Trump in a landslide but fell well short of former President Joe Biden’s vote totals in 2020. Meanwhile, Trump picked off a string of counties that eluded him four years earlier.

Republican consultant Tim Rosales, who worked on the 2008 campaign that established the commission, said Republicans and other opponents would need to get a heroic GOP turnout, paired with 60% of independents and 25% of Democratic voters, to overcome the strong Democratic registration advantage in the state.

It could come down to which side connects with “that fairness and equity bone that California voters have that supersedes partisanship,” Rosales said. “When voters identify it as partisan, that really starts to line up the sides and it gets tribal.”

Distracted voters are being faced with two dueling messages.

Newsom has been framing the election as a referendum on all things Trump, who is unpopular in liberal-leaning California outside his conservative base.

“We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district-by-district all across the country,” Newsom said at a Los Angeles rally.

Despite the alarmist emails from his campaign, the numbers are on Newsom's side, so long as he can motivate Democrats. A lesson can be seen in the 2021 recall election that Newsom beat back, after appearing to be in danger of losing his job. His campaign succeeded in turning the election into a proxy vote on Trump, and he won in a rout.

Kiley said the pitch is straightforward.

“Voting ‘yes’ will return us to an era of political gerrymandering,” the congressman said, adding that he was confident he would retain his seat even in a reshaped district. “As long as the truth gets out, we are going to win this.”

With millions of dollars pouring into the race and TV ads running constantly, “I think it’s a real jump ball in this one as to who controls the messaging,” said Bill Whalen, a fellow at Stanford University’s right-leaning Hoover Institution.

Given Newsom's track record on initiatives, “Just because the governor supports an idea, that doesn’t mean it translates to a victory,” Whalen added.