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Tag: voter

  • News Analysis: Trump’s math problem: Rising prices, falling approval ratings

    WASHINGTON — President Trump made dozens of promises when he campaigned to retake the White House last year, from boosting economic growth to banning transgender athletes from girls’ sports.

    But one pledge stood out as the most important in many voters’ eyes: Trump said he would not only bring inflation under control, but push grocery and energy prices back down.

    “Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down, and we will make America affordable again,” he said in 2024. “Your prices are going to come tumbling down, your gasoline is going to come tumbling down, and your heating bills and cooling bills are going to be coming down.”

    He hasn’t delivered. Gasoline and eggs are cheaper than they were a year ago, but most other prices are still rising, including groceries and electricity. The Labor Department estimated Thursday that inflation is running at 2.7%, only a little better than the 3% Trump inherited from Joe Biden; electricity was up 6.9%.

    And that has given the president a major political problem: Many of the voters who backed him last year are losing faith.

    “I voted for Trump in 2024 because he was promising America first … and he was promising a better economy,” Ebyad, a nurse in Texas, said on a Focus Group podcast hosted by Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell. “It feels like all those promises have been broken.”

    Since Inauguration Day, the president’s job approval has declined from 52% to 43% in the polling average calculated by statistician Nate Silver. Approval for Trump’s performance on the economy, once one of his strongest points, has sunk even lower to 39%.

    That’s dangerous territory for a president who hopes to help his party keep its narrow majority in elections for the House of Representatives next year.

    To Republican pollsters and strategists, the reasons for Trump’s slump are clear: He overpromised last year and he’s under-performing now.

    “The most important reasons he won in 2024 were his promises to bring inflation down and juice the economy,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. “That’s the reason he won so many voters who traditionally had supported Democrats, including Hispanics. … But he hasn’t been able to deliver. Inflation has moderated, but it hasn’t gone backward.”

    Last week, after deriding complaints about affordability as “a Democrat hoax,” Trump belatedly launched a campaign to convince voters that he’s at work fixing the problem.

    But at his first stop, a rally in Pennsylvania, he continued arguing that the economy is already in great shape.

    “Our prices are coming down tremendously,” he insisted.

    “You’re doing better than you’ve ever done,” he said, implicitly dismissing voters’ concerns.

    He urged families to cope with high tariffs by cutting back: “You know, you can give up certain products,” he said. “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don’t need 37 dolls.”

    Earlier, in an interview with Politico, Trump was asked what grade he would give the economy. “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus,” he said.

    On Wednesday, the president took another swing at the issue in a nationally televised speech, but his message was basically the same.

    “One year ago, our country was dead. We were absolutely dead,” he said. “Now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. … Inflation is stopped, wages are up, prices are down.”

    Republican pollster David Winston, who has advised GOP members of Congress, said the president has more work to do to win back voters who supported him in 2024 but are now disenchanted.

    “When families are paying the price for hamburger that they used to pay for steak, there’s a problem, and there’s no sugarcoating it,” he said. “The president’s statements that ‘we have no inflation’ and ‘our groceries are down’ have flown in the face of voters’ reality.”

    Another problem for Trump, pollsters said, is that many voters believe his tariffs are pushing prices higher — making the president part of the problem, not part of the solution. A YouGov poll in November found that 77% of voters believe tariffs contribute to inflationary pressures.

    Trump’s popularity hasn’t dropped through the floor; he still has the allegiance of his fiercely loyal base. “He is at his lowest point of his second term so far, but he is well within the range of his job approval in the first term,” Ayres noted.

    Still, he has lost significant chunks of his support among independent voters, young people and Latinos, three of the “swing voter” groups who put him over the top in 2024.

    Inflation isn’t the only issue that has dented his standing.

    He promised to lead the economy into “a golden age,” but growth has been uneven. Unemployment rose in November to 4.6%, the highest level in more than four years.

    He promised massive tax cuts for the middle class, but most voters say they don’t believe his tax cut bill brought them any benefit. “It’s hard to convince people that they got a tax break when nobody’s tax rates were actually cut,” Ayres noted.

    He kept his promise to launch the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history — but many voters complain that he has broken his promise to focus on violent criminals. In Silver’s average, approval of his immigration policies dropped from 52% in January to 45% now.

    A Pew Research Center survey in October found that 53% of adults, including 71% of Latinos, think the administration has ordered too many deportations. However, most voters approve of Trump’s measures on border security.

    Republican pollsters and strategists say they believe Trump can reverse his downward momentum before November’s congressional election, but it may not be easy.

    “You look at what voters care about most, and you offer policies to address those issues,” GOP strategist Alex Conant suggested. “That starts with prices. So you talk about permitting reform, energy prices, AI [artificial intelligence] … and legislation to address healthcare, housing and tax cuts. You could call it the Affordability Act.”

    “A laser focus on the economy and the cost of living is job one,” GOP pollster Winston said. “His policies on regulation, energy and taxes should have a positive impact, but the White House needs to emphasize them on a more consistent basis.”

    “People voted for change in 2024,” he warned. “If they don’t get it — if inflation doesn’t begin to recede — they may vote for change again in 2026.”

    Doyle McManus

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  • California’s role in shaping the fate of the Democratic Party and combating Trump on full display

    California’s potential to lead a national Democratic comeback was on full display as party leaders from across the country recently gathered in downtown Los Angeles.

    But is the party ready to bet on the Golden State?

    Appearances at the Democratic National Committee meeting by the state’s most prominent Democrats, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom, crystallized the peril and promise of California’s appeal. Harris failed to beat a politically wounded Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race and Newsom, now among President Trump’s most celebrated critics, is considered a top Democratic contender to replace the Republican president in the White House in 2028.

    California policies on divisive issues such as providing expanded access to government-sponsored healthcare, aiding undocumented immigrants and supporting LGBTQ+ rights continually serve as a Rorschach test for the nation’s polarized electorate, providing comfort to progressives and ammunition for Republican attack ads.

    “California is like your cool cousin that comes for the holidays who is intriguing and glamorous, but who might not fit in with the family year-round,” said Elizabeth Ashford, a veteran Democratic strategist who worked for former Govs. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Harris when she was the state’s attorney general.

    Newsom, in particular, is quick to boast about California being home to the world’s fourth-largest economy, a billion-dollar agricultural industry and economic and cultural powerhouses in Hollywood and the Silicon Valley. Critics, Trump chief among them, paint the state as a dystopian hellhole — littered with homeless encampments and lawlessness, and plagued by high taxes and an even higher cost of living.

    Only two Californians have been elected president, Republicans Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. But that was generations ago, and Harris and Newsom are considering bids to end the decades-long drought in 2028. Both seized the moment by courting party leaders and activists during the three-day winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee that ended Saturday.

    Harris, speaking to committee members and guests Friday, said the party’s victories in state elections across the nation in November reflect voters’ agitation about the impacts of Trump’s policies, notably affordability and healthcare costs. But she argued that “both parties have failed to hold the public’s trust.”

    “So as we plan for what comes after this administration, we cannot afford to be nostalgic for what was, in fact, a flawed status quo, and a system that failed so many of you,” said Harris, who was criticized after her presidential campaign for not focusing enough on kitchen table issues, including the increasing financial strains faced by Americans.

    While Harris, who ruled out running for governor earlier this year, did not address whether she would make another bid for the White House in 2028, she argued that the party needed to be introspective about its future.

    “We need to answer the question, what comes next for our party and our democracy, and in so doing, we must be honest that for so many, the American dream has become more of a myth than a reality,” she said.

    Many of the party leaders who spoke at the gathering focused on California’s possible role in determining control of Congress after voters in November approved Proposition 50, a rare mid-decade redrawing of congressional districts in an effort to boost the number of Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation in the 2026 election.

    Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass rallied the crowd by reminding them that Democrats took back the U.S. House of Representatives during Trump’s first term and predicted the state would be critical in next year’s midterm elections.

    Mayor Karen Bass speaks at the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting at the InterContinental Hotel in downtown Los Angeles on Friday.

    (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

    Newsom, who championed Proposition 50, basked in that victory when he strode through the hotel’s corridors at the DNC meeting the day before, stopping every few feet to talk to committee members, shake their hands and take selfies.

    “There’s just a sense of optimism here,” Newsom said.

    Democratic candidates in New Jersey and Virginia also won races by a significant margin last month which, party leaders say, were all telltale signs of growing voter dissatisfaction with Trump and Washington’s Republican leadership.

    “The party, more broadly, got their sea legs back, and they’re winning,” Newsom said. “And winning solves a lot of problems.”

    Louisiana committee member Katie Darling teared up as she watched fellow Democrats flock to Newsom.

    “He really is trying to bring people together during a very difficult time,” said Darling, who grew up in Sacramento in a Republican household. “He gets a lot of pushback for talking to and working with Republicans, but when he does that, I see him talking to my mom and dad who I love, who I vehemently disagree with politically. … I do think that we need to talk to each other to move the country forward.”

    Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks as his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom looks on

    Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks as his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom looks on during an election night gathering at the California Democratic Party headquarters on November 04, 2025 in Sacramento.

    (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

    Darling said she listens to Newsom’s podcast, where his choice of guests, including the late Charlie Kirk, and his comments on the show that transgender athletes taking part in women’s sports is “deeply unfair” have drawn outrage from some on the left.

    Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, another potential 2028 presidential candidate whose family has historically supported Newsom, was also reportedly on site Thursday, holding closed-door meetings. And former Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, also a possible White House contender, was in Los Angeles on Thursday, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show and holding meetings.

    Corrin Rankin, chair of the California Republican Party, cast the DNC meetings in L.A. as “anti-Trump sessions” and pointed to the homeless encampments on Skid Row, just blocks from where committee members gathered.

    “We need accountability and solutions that actually get people off the streets, make communities safer and life more affordable,” Rankin said.

    Elected officials from across the nation are drawn to California because of its wellspring of wealthy political donors. The state was the largest source of contributions to the campaign committees of Trump and Harris during the 2024 presidential contest, contributing nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, according to the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization Open Secrets, which tracks electoral finances.

    While the DNC gathering focused mostly on mundane internal business, the gathering of party leaders attracted liberal groups seeking to raise money and draw attention to their causes.

    Actor Jane Fonda and comedian Nikki Glaser headlined an event aimed at increasing the minimum wage at the Three Clubs cocktail bar in Hollywood. California already has among the highest minimum wages in the nation; one of the organizers of the event is campaigning to increase the rate to $30 per hour in some California counties.

    “The affordability crisis is pushing millions of Americans to the edge, and no democracy can survive when people who work full time cannot afford basic necessities,” Fonda said prior to the event. “Raising wages is one of the most powerful ways to give families stability and hope.”

    But California’s liberal policies have been viewed as a liability for Democrats elsewhere, where issues such as transgender rights and providing healthcare for undocumented immigrants have not been warmly received by some blue-collar workers who once formed the party’s base.

    Trump capitalized on that disconnect in the closing months of the 2024 presidential contest, when his campaign aired ads that highlighted Harris’ support of transgender rights, including taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgery for inmates.

    “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” the commercial stated. The ad aired more than 30,000 times in swing states in the fall, notably during football games and NASCAR races.

    “Kamala had 99 problems. California wasn’t one of them,” said John Podesta, a veteran Democratic strategist who served a senior advisor to former President Biden, counselor to former President Obama and White House chief of staff for former President Clinton.

    He disputed the argument that California, whether through its policies or candidates, will impact Democrats’ chances, arguing there’s a broader disconnect between the party and its voters.

    “This sense that Democrats lost touch with the middle class and the poor in favor of the cultural elite is a real problem,” said Podesta. “My shorthand is, we used to be the party of the factory floor, and now we’re the party of the faculty lounge. That’s not a California problem. It’s an elitist problem.”

    While Podesta isn’t backing anyone yet in the 2028 presidential contest, he praised Newsom for his efforts to not only buck Trump but the “leftist extremists” in the Democratic party.

    The narrative of Californians being out of touch with many Americans has been exacerbated this year during the state’s battles with the Trump administration over immigration, climate change, water and artificial intelligence policy. But Newsom and committee members argued that the state has been at the vanguard of where the nation will eventually head.

    “I am very proud of California. It’s a state that’s not just about growth, it’s about inclusion,” the governor said, before ticking off a list of California initiatives, including low-priced insulin and higher minimum wages. “So much of the policy that’s coming out of the state of California promotes not just promise, but policy direction that I think is really important for the party.”

    Seema Mehta, Dakota Smith

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  • Commentary: Front-runner or flash in the pan? Sizing up Newsom, 2028

    The 2028 presidential election is more than 1,000 days away, but you’d hardly know it from all the speculation and anticipation that’s swirling from Sacramento to the Washington Beltway.

    Standing at the center of attention is California Gov. Gavin Newsom, fresh off his big victory on Proposition 50, the backatcha ballot measure that gerrymandered the state’s congressional map to boost Democrats and offset a power grab by Texas Republicans.

    Newsom is bidding for the White House, and has been doing so for the better part of a year, though he won’t say so out loud. Is Newsom the Democratic front-runner or a mere flash in the pan?

    Times columnists Anita Chabria and Mark Z. Barabak disagree on Newsom’s presidential prospects, and more. Here the two hash out some of their differences.

    Barabak: So is the presidential race over, Anita? Should I just spend the next few years backpacking and snowboarding in the Sierra and return in January 2029 to watch Newsom iterate, meet the moment and, with intentionality, be sworn in as our nation’s 48th president?

    Chabria: You should definitely spend as much time in the Sierra as possible, but I have no idea if Newsom will be elected president in 2028 or not. That’s about a million light-years away in political terms. But I think he has a shot, and is the front-runner for the nomination right now. He’s set himself up as the quick-to-punch foil to President Trump, and increasingly as the leader of the Democratic Party. Last week, he visited Brazil for a climate summit that Trump ghosted, making Newsom the American presence.

    And in a recent (albeit small) poll, in a hypothetical race against JD Vance, the current Republican favorite, Newsom lead by three points. Though, unexpectedly, respondents still picked Kamala Harris as their choice for the nomination.

    To me, that shows he’s popular across the country. But you’ve warned that Californians have a tough time pulling voters in other states. Do you think his Golden State roots will kill off his contender status?

    Barabak: I make no predictions. I’m smart enough to know that I’m not smart enough to know. And, after 2016 and the election of Trump, the words “can’t,” “not,” “won’t,” “never ever” are permanently stricken from my political vocabulary.

    That said, I wouldn’t stake more than a penny — which may eventually be worth something, as they’re phased out of our currency — on Newsom’s chances.

    Look, I yield to no one in my love of California. (And I’ve got the Golden State tats to prove it.) But I’m mindful of how the rest of the country views the state and those politicians who bear a California return address. You can be sure whoever runs against Newsom — and I’m talking about his fellow Democrats, not just Republicans — will have a great deal to say about the state’s much-higher-than-elsewhere housing, grocery and gas prices and our shameful rates of poverty and homelessness.

    Not a great look for Newsom, especially when affordability is all the political rage these days.

    And while I understand the governor’s appeal — Fight! Fight! Fight! — I liken it to the fleeting fancy that, for a time, made attorney, convicted swindler and rhetorical battering ram Michael Avenatti seriously discussed as a Democratic presidential contender. At a certain point — and we’re still years away — people will assess the candidates with their head, not viscera.

    As for the polling, ask Edmund Muskie, Gary Hart or Hillary Clinton how much those soundings matter at this exceedingly early stage of a presidential race. Well, you can’t ask Muskie, because the former Maine senator is dead. But all three were early front-runners who failed to win the Democratic nomination.

    Chabria: I don’t argue the historical case against the Golden State, but I will argue that these are different days. People don’t vote with their heads. Fight me on that.

    They vote on charisma, tribalism, and maybe some hope and fear. They vote on issues as social media explains them. They vote on memes.

    There no reality in which our next president is rationally evaluated on their record — our current president has a criminal one and that didn’t make a difference.

    But I do think, as we’ve talked about ad nauseam, that democracy is in peril. Trump has threatened to run for a third term and recently lamented that his Cabinet doesn’t show him the same kind of fear that Chinese President Xi Jinping gets from his top advisers. And Vance, should he get the chance to run, has made it clear he’s a Christian nationalist who would like to deport nearly every immigrant he can catch, legal or not.

    Being a Californian may not be the drawback it’s historically been, especially if Trump’s authoritarianism continues and this state remains the symbol of resistance.

    But our governor does have an immediate scandal to contend with. His former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, was just arrested on federal corruption charges. Do you think that hurts him?

    Barabak: It shouldn’t.

    There’s no evidence of wrongdoing on Newsom’s part. His opponents will try the guilt-by-association thing. Some already have. But unless something damning surfaces, there’s no reason the governor should be punished for the alleged wrongdoing of Williamson or others charged in the case.

    But let’s go back to 2028 and the presidential race. I think one of our fundamental disagreements is that I believe people do very much evaluate a candidate’s ideas and records. Not in granular fashion, or the way some chin-stroking political scientist might. But voters do want to know how and whether a candidate can materially improve their lives.

    There are, of course, a great many who’d reflexively support Donald Trump, or Donald Duck for that matter, if he’s the Republican nominee. Same goes for Democrats who’d vote for Gavin Newsom or Gavin Floyd, if either were the party’s nominee. (While Newsom played baseball in college, Floyd pitched 13 seasons in the major leagues, so he’s got that advantage over the governor.)

    But I’m talking about those voters who are up for grabs — the ones who decide competitive races — who make a very rational decision based on their lives and livelihoods and which candidate they believe will benefit them most.

    Granted, the dynamic is a bit different in a primary contest. But even then, we’ve seen time and again the whole dated/married phenomenon. As in 2004, when a lot of Democrats “dated” Howard Dean early in the primary season but “married” John Kerry. I see electability — as in the perception of which Democrat can win the general election — being right up there alongside affordability when it comes time for primary voters to make their 2028 pick.

    Chabria: No doubt affordability will be a huge issue, especially if consumer confidence continues to plummet. And we are sure to hear criticisms of California, many of which are fair, as you point out. Housing costs too much, homelessness remains intractable.

    But these are also problems across the United States, and require deeper fixes than even this economically powerful state can handle alone. More than past record, future vision is going to matter. What’s the plan?

    It can’t be vague tax credits or even student loan forgiveness. We need a concrete vision for an economy that brings not just more of the basics like homes, but the kind of long-term economic stability — higher wages, good schools, living-wage jobs — that makes the middle class stronger and attainable.

    The Democrat who can lay out that vision while simultaneously continuing to battle the authoritarian creep currently eating our democracy will, in my humble opinion, be the one voters choose, regardless of origin story. After all, it was that message of change with hope that gave us President Obama, another candidate many considered a long shot at first.

    Mark, are there any 2028 prospects you’re keeping a particularly close eye on?

    Barabak: I’m taking things one election at a time, starting with the 2026 midterms, which include an open-seat race for governor here in California. The results in November 2026 will go a long way toward shaping the dynamic in November 2028. That said, there’s no shortage of Democrats eyeing the race — too many to list here. Will the number surpass the 29 major Democrats who ran in 2020? We’ll see.

    I do agree with you that, to stand any chance of winning in 2028, whomever Democrats nominate will have to offer some serious and substantive ideas on how to make people’s lives materially better. Imperiled democracy and scary authoritarianism aside, it’s still the economy, stupid.

    Which brings us full circle, back to our gallivanting governor. He may be winning fans and building his national fundraising base with his snippy memes and zippy Trump put-downs. But even if he gets past the built-in anti-California bias among so many voters outside our blessed state, he’s not going to snark his way to the White House.

    I’d wager more than a penny on that.

    Anita Chabria, Mark Z. Barabak

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  • Republicans, including ‘cowardly’ Schwarzenegger, take heat for lopsided loss on Prop. 50

    Republican infighting crescendoed in the aftermath of California voters overwhelmingly approving a Democratic-friendly redistricting plan this week that may undercut the GOP’s control of Congress and derail President Trump’s polarizing agenda.

    The state GOP chairwoman was urged to resign and former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of the state’s independent redistricting commission, was called “cowardly” by one top GOP leader for not being more involved in the campaign.

    Leaders of the Republican-backed committees opposing the ballot measure, known as Proposition 50, were questioned about how they spent nearly $58 million in the special election after such a dismal outcome.

    Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, the once-prodigious Republican fundraiser, reportedly had vowed that he could raise $100 million for the opposition but ended up delivering a small fraction of that amount.

    Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), a conservative firebrand, called on state GOP Chair Corrin Rankin to step down and faulted other Republican leaders and longtime party operatives for their failure to defeat the measure, calling them “derelict of duty and untrustworthy and incompetent.”

    “Unless serious changes are made at the party, the midterms are going to be a complete disaster,” DeMaio said, also faulting the other groups opposing the effort. “We need accountability. There needs to be a reckoning because otherwise the lessons won’t be learned. The old guard needs to go. The old guard has failed us too many times. This is the latest failure.”

    Rankin pushed back against the criticism, saying the state party was the most active GOP force in the final stretch of the election. Raising $11 million during the final three weeks of the campaign, the party spent it on mailers, digital ads and text messages, as well as organizing phone banks and precinct walking, she said.

    Former Speaker of the House and California Republican Kevin McCarthy speaks to the press at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 19, 2023.

    (Samuel Corum / AFP via Getty Images)

    “We left it all on the field,” Rankin said Wednesday morning at a Sacramento news conference about a federal lawsuit California Republicans filed arguing that Proposition 50 is unconstitutional. “We were the last man standing … to reach out to Republicans and make sure they turned out.”

    Responding to criticism that their effort was disorganized, including opposition campaign mailers being sent to voters who had already cast ballots, Rankin said the party would conduct a review of its efforts. But she added that she was extremely proud of the work her team did in the “rushed special election.”

    Barring successful legal challenges, the new California congressional districts enacted under Proposition 50 will go into effect before the 2026 election. The new district maps favor Democratic candidates and were crafted to unseat five Republican incumbents, which could erase Republicans’ narrow edge in the the U.S. House of Representatives.

    If Democrats win control of the body, Trump’s policy agenda will probably be stymied and the president and members of his administration could face multiple congressional investigations.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats proposed Proposition 50 in response to Trump urging elected officials in Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts to increase the number of Republicans elected to the House next year.

    The new California congressional boundaries voters approved Tuesday could give Democrats the opportunity to pick up five seats in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation.

    Proposition 50 will change how California determines the boundaries of congressional districts. The measure asked voters to approve congressional district lines designed to favor Democrats for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, overriding the map drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission.

    Some Republicans lamented that Schwarzenegger was not more involved in the election. The movie star championed the creation of the independent commission in 2010, his final year in office. He campaigned for the creation of similar bodies to fight partisan drawing of district lines across the nation after leaving office.

    Shawn Steel, one of California’s three representatives on the Republican National Committee, called Schwarzenegger “a cowardly politician.”

    “Arnold decided to sit it out,” Steel said. “Arnold just kind of raised the flag and immediately went under the desk.”

    Steel said that the former governor failed to follow through on the messages he repeatedly delivered about the importance of independent redistricting.

    “He could have had his name on the ballot as a ballot opponent,” Steel said. “He turned it down. So I’d say, with Arnold, just disappointing but not surprised. That’s his political legacy.”

    Schwarzenegger’s team pushed back at this criticism as misinformed.

    “We were clear from the beginning that he was not going to be a part of the campaign and was going to speak his mind,” said Daniel Ketchell, a spokesman for the former governor. “His message was very clear and nonpartisan. When one campaign couldn’t even criticize gerrymandering in Texas, it was probably hard for voters to believe they actually cared about fairness.”

    Schwarzenegger spoke out against Proposition 50 a handful of times, including at an appearance at USC that was turned into a television ad by one of the anti-Proposition 50 committees that appeared to go dark before election day.

    On election day, he emailed followers about gut health, electrolytes, protein bars, fitness and conversations to increase happiness. There was no apparent mention of the Tuesday election.

    The Democratic-led California Legislature in August voted to place Proposition 50 on the November ballot, costing nearly $300 million, and setting off a sprint to Tuesday’s special election.

    The opponents were vastly outspent by the ballot measure’s supporters, who contributed nearly $136 million to various efforts. That financial advantage, combined with Democrats’ overwhelming edge in voter registration in California, were main contributors to the ballot measure’s success. When introduced in August, Proposition 50 had tepid support and its prospects appeared uncertain.

    Nearly 64% of the nearly 8.3 million voters who cast ballots supported Proposition 50, while 36% opposed it as of Wednesday night, according to the California secretary of state’s office.

    In addition to the state Republican Party, two main campaign committees opposed Proposition 50, including the one backed by McCarthy. A separate group was funded by more than $32 million from major GOP donor Charles Munger Jr., the son of a billionaire who was Warren Buffet’s right-hand man; he bankrolled the creation of the independent congressional redistricting commission in 2010.

    Representatives of the two committees — who defended their work Tuesday night after the election was called moments after the polls closed, saying that they could not overcome the vast financial disadvantage and that the proposition’s supporters must be held to their promises to voters such as pushing for national redistricting reform — did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Wednesday.

    Newsom’s committee supporting Proposition 50 had prominent Democrats stumping for the effort, including former President Obama starring in ads.

    That’s in stark contrast to the opposition efforts. Trump was largely absent, possibly because he is deeply unpopular among Californians and the president does not like to be associated with losing causes.

    Seema Mehta

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  • Commentary: Proposition 50 is a short-term victory against Trump. But at what cost?

    One of the great conceits of California is its place on the cutting edge — of fashion, culture, technology, politics and other facets of the ways we live and thrive.

    Not so with Proposition 50.

    The redistricting measure, which passed resoundingly Tuesday, doesn’t break any ground, chart a fresh course or shed any light on a better pathway forward.

    It is, to use a favorite word of California’s governor, merely the latest iteration of what has come to define today’s politics of fractiousness and division.

    In fact, the redistricting measure and the partisan passions it stirred offer a perfect reflection of where we stand as a splintered country: Democrats overwhelming supported it. Republicans were overwhelmingly opposed.

    Nothing new or novel about that.

    And if Proposition 50 plays out as intended, it could make things worse, heightening the country’s polarization and increasing the animosity in Washington that is rotting our government and politics from the inside out.

    You’re welcome.

    The argument in favor of Proposition 50 — and it’s a strong one — is that California was merely responding to the scheming and underhanded actions of a rogue chief executive who desperately needs to be checked and balanced.

    The only apparent restraint on President Trump’s authoritarian impulse is whether he thinks he can get away with something, as congressional Republicans and a supine Supreme Court look the other way.

    With GOP control of the House hanging by the merest of threads, Trump set out to boost his party’s prospects in the midterm election by browbeating Texas Republicans into redrawing the state’s congressional lines long before it was time. Trump’s hope next year is to gain as many as five of the state’s House seats.

    Gov. Gavin Newson responded with Proposition 50, which scraps the work of a voter-created, nonpartisan redistricting commission and changes the political map to help Democrats flip five of California’s seats.

    And with that the redistricting battle was joined, as states across the country looked to rejigger their congressional boundaries to benefit one party or the other.

    The upshot is that even more politicians now have the luxury of picking their voters, instead of the other way around, and if that doesn’t bother you maybe you’re not all that big a fan of representative democracy or the will of the people.

    Was it necessary for Newsom, eyes fixed on the White House, to escalate the red-versus-blue battle? Did California have to jump in and be a part of the political race to the bottom? We won’t know until November 2026.

    History and Trump’s sagging approval ratings — especially regarding the economy — suggest that Democrats are well positioned to gain at least the handful of seats needed to take control of the House, even without resorting to the machinations of Proposition 50.

    There is, of course, no guarantee.

    Gerrymandering aside, a pending Supreme Court decision that could gut the Voting Rights Act might deliver Republicans well over a dozen seats, greatly increasing the odds of the GOP maintaining power.

    What is certain is that Proposition 50 will in effect disenfranchise millions of California Republicans and Republican-leaning voters who already feel overlooked and irrelevant to the workings of their home state.

    Too bad for them, you might say. But that feeling of neglect frays faith in our political system and can breed a kind of to-hell-with-it cynicism that makes electing and cheering on a “disruptor” like Trump seem like a reasonable and appealing response.

    (And, yes, disenfranchisement is just as bad when it targets Democratic voters who’ve been nullified in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri and other GOP-run states.)

    Worse, slanting political lines so that one party or the other is guaranteed victory only widens the gulf that has helped turn Washington’s into its current slough of dysfunction.

    The lack of competition means the greatest fear many lawmakers have is not the prospect of losing to the other party in a general election but rather being snuffed out in a primary by a more ideological and extreme challenger.

    That makes cooperation and cross-party compromise, an essential lubricant to the way Washington is supposed to work, all the more difficult to achieve.

    Witness the government shutdown, now in its record 36th day. Then imagine a Congress seated in January 2027 with even more lawmakers guaranteed reelection and concerned mainly with appeasing their party’s activist base.

    The animating impulse behind Proposition 50 is understandable.

    Trump is running the most brazenly corrupt administration in modern history. He’s gone beyond transgressing political and presidential norms to openly trampling on the Constitution.

    He’s made it plain he cares only about those who support him, which excludes the majority of Americans who did not wish to see Trump’s return to the White House.

    As if anyone needed reminding, his (patently false) bleating about a “rigged” California election, issued just minutes after the polls opened Tuesday, showed how reckless, misguided and profoundly irresponsible the president is.

    With the midterm election still nearly a year off — and the 2028 presidential contest eons away — many of those angry or despondent over the benighted state of our union desperately wanted to do something to push back.

    Proposition 50, however, was a shortsighted solution.

    Newsom and other proponents said the retaliatory ballot measure was a way of fighting fire with fire. But that smell in the air today isn’t victory.

    It’s ashes.

    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • Trump pushes hard against Mamdani as New Yorkers select a mayor

    NEW YORK — Voters were casting ballots in high-stakes elections on both coasts Tuesday, including for mayor of New York, new congressional maps in California and governor in both New Jersey and Virginia, states whose shifting electorates could signal the direction of the nation’s political winds.

    For voters and political watchers alike, the races have taken on huge importance at a time of tense political division, when Democrats and Republicans are sharply divided over the direction of the nation. Despite President Trump not appearing on any ballots, some viewed Tuesday’s races as a referendum on him and his volatile second term in the White House.

    In New York, self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, 34, was favored to win the mayoral race after winning the Democratic ranked-choice mayoral primary in June. Such a result would shake up the Democratic establishment and rile Republicans in near equal measure, serving as a rejection of both former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a more establishment Democrat and Mamdani’s leading opponent, and Trump, who has warned that a Mamdani win would destroy the city.

    On election eve, Trump warned that a Mamdani win would disrupt the flow of federal dollars to the city and took the dramatic step of endorsing Cuomo over Curtis Sliwa, the Republican in the race.

    “If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home, because of the fact that, as a Communist, this once great City has ZERO chance of success, or even survival!” Trump wrote Monday on his social media platform.

    A vote for Sliwa “is a vote for Mamdani,” the president added. “Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”

    Mamdani, a Ugandan-born naturalized U.S. citizen and New York state assemblyman who defeated Cuomo in the primary, has promised a brighter day for New Yorkers with better public transportation, more affordable housing and high-quality child care if he wins. He has slammed billionaires and some of the city’s monied interests, which have lined up against him, and rejected the “grave political darkness” that he said is threatening the country under Trump.

    He also mocked Trump’s endorsement of Cuomo — calling the former governor Trump’s “puppet” and “parrot.”

    Samantha Marrero, a 35-year-old lifelong New Yorker, lined up with more than a dozen people Tuesday morning at her polling site in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood to cast her vote for Mamdani, whom she praised for embracing people of color, queer people and other communities marginalized by mainstream politicians.

    Marrero said that she cares deeply about housing insecurity and affordability in the city, but that it was also “really meaningful to have someone who is brown and who looks like us and who eats like us and who lives more like us than anyone we’ve ever seen before” on the ballot. “That representation is really important.”

    New York mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo speaks to reporters as he marks his ballot in New York on Nov. 4, 2025.

    (Richard Drew / Associated Press)

    And she said that’s a big part of why people across the country are watching the New York race.

    “We’re definitely a beacon in this kind of fascist takeover that is very clearly happening across the country,” she said. “People in other states and other cities and other countries have their eyes on what’s happening here. Obviously Mamdani is doing something right. And together we can do something right. But it has to be together.”

    Elsewhere on the East Coast, voters were electing governors in Virginia and New Jersey, races that have also drawn the president’s attention.

    In the New Jersey race, Trump has backed the Republican candidate, former state Rep. Jack Ciattarelli, over the Democratic candidate, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, whom former President Obama recently stumped for. Long a blue state, New Jersey has been shifting to the right, and polls have shown a tight race.

    In the Virginia race, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a 46-year-old former CIA officer, defeated Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, according to an Associated Press projection.

    Trump had not endorsed Earle-Sears by name, but called on Virginians to “vote Republican” and to reject Democratic candidate Spanberger, whom Obama has also supported.

    “Why would anyone vote for New Jersey and Virginia Gubernatorial Candidates, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, when they want transgender for everybody, men playing in women’s sports, High Crime, and the most expensive Energy prices almost anywhere in the World?” Trump recently wrote on his social media site, repeating some of his favorite partisan attacks on Democrats from the presidential campaign trail last year.

    At a rally for Spanberger in Norfolk, Va., over the weekend, Obama put the race in equally stark terms: as part of a battle for American democracy.

    “We don’t need to speculate about the dangers to our democracy. We don’t need to wonder about whether vulnerable people are going to be hurt, or ask ourselves how much more coarse and mean our culture can become. We’ve witnessed it. Elections do matter,” Obama said. “We all have more power than we think. We just have to use it.”

    Voting was underway in the states, but with some disruptions. Bomb threats disrupted voting in parts of New Jersey early Tuesday, temporarily shutting down a string of polling locations across the state before law enforcement determined they were hoaxes.

    In California, voters were being asked to change the state Constitution to allow Democrats to redraw congressional maps in their favor through 2030, in order to counter similar moves by Republicans in red states such as Texas.

    Leading Democrats, including Obama and Gov. Gavin Newsom, have described the measure as an effort to safeguard American democracy against a power grab by Trump, who had encouraged the red states to act, while opponents of the measure have derided it as an antidemocratic power grab by state Democrats.

    Trump has urged California voters against casting ballots by mail or voting early, arguing such practices are somehow “dishonest,” and on Tuesday morning suggested on his social media site that Proposition 50 was unconstitutional.

    “The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump wrote, without providing evidence of problems. “All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review. STAY TUNED!”

    Both individually and collectively, the races are being closely watched as potential indicators of political sentiment and enthusiasm going into next year’s midterm elections, and of Democrats’ ability to get voters back to the polls after Trump’s decisive win over former Vice President Kamala Harris last year.

    Voters too saw the races as having particularly large stakes at a pivotal moment for the country.

    Michelle Kim, 32, who has lived in the Greenpoint neighborhood for three years, stood in line at a polling site early Tuesday morning, waiting to cast her vote for Mamdani.

    Kim said she cares about transportation, land use and the rising cost of living in New York and appreciated Mamdani’s broader message that solutions are possible, even if not guaranteed.

    “My hope is not, like, ‘Oh, he’s gonna solve, like, all of our issues,’” she said. “But I think for him to be able to represent people and give hope, that’s also part of it.”

    Lin reported from New York and Rector from San Francisco. Times staff writer Jenny Jarvie in Atlanta contributed to this report.

    Kevin Rector, Summer Lin

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  • Election Day in Northern California: The latest on voting for Prop 50 redistricting measure

    California voters have one big ballot measure to consider this year. Here’s what you need to know about Proposition 50 and how it would impact the state. What is Proposition 50? If passed, it would change California’s congressional district map. Normally the map is drawn by an independent commission, but state Democrats drew *** new map to try and get more members of their party elected to Congress. It’s *** direct response to Texas changing their congressional maps in favor of electing more Republicans. *** yes vote would support changing the maps. The congressional districts will get redrawn in *** way that spreads out likely Democratic voters into areas that are normally solved Republican spots. *** no vote would keep the current maps in place. What are people saying about Prop 50? Well, supporters say it is *** crucial step in keeping President Trump’s power in check and counter his push to get other states to redraw their maps. Governor Gavin Newsom is behind this move. Because Republicans hold the majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives, supporters of this measure say it would limit President Trump and his ability to pass items on his agenda. Opponents who are mostly members of the Republican Party say this is just *** power grab by the Democratic Party that would undermine *** fair election. 5 districts are likely to change from red to blue if Proposition 50 passes. District 1, currently represented by Doug LaMalfa. District 3 is represented by Kevin Kiley. District 22 is represented by David Valadaa. District 41 is currently held by Ken Calver. Lastly, District 48, which is held by Darrell Issa. Election day is November 4th, and ballots have already been mailed out. They must be returned or mailed in by that date for your vote to count.

    Special Election Day in Northern California: The latest on voting for Prop 50 redistricting measure

    See updates on Election Day.

    Updated: 12:01 AM PST Nov 4, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Election Day has arrived for the special election. On Tuesday, Californians will decide whether to temporarily adopt new congressional district maps statewide, as Democratic leaders push to send more Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives.Proposition 50, or Prop 50 for short, is part of a larger national fight in which Republicans and Democrats are trying to gerrymander their congressional districts to determine which party controls Congress halfway through President Trump’s term. The proposed maps target five California Republicans in an attempt to offset the five Republicans Texas is aiming to add.(Video Above: What to know about California’s Prop 50)Some communities in Northern California also have other measures or local races to weigh in on, including some measures in El Dorado County and the town of Truckee and races in Plumas County.All polling locations will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. If you’re still in line when polls close, you should be able to cast your ballot. We’ll continue to update this page with updates from Election Day. Make sure to download our app for the latest breaking news updates with election results. What to know before polls open at 7 a.m.While voters can cast their ballot in person on Election Day, millions of California voters have already mailed in or dropped off their ballot. Here’s how to track your ballot. Here’s a look at early voter turnout across the state.Before heading out the door to vote, check if you are heading to the correct or closest voting location.Find out how to check here.Still need to learn more about Prop 50? Here’s everything to know.For those eager to head to the polls, make sure you know what you can and can’t do when it comes to voting in California. For example, you cannot wear pins, hats, shirts or other visible items that display a candidate’s name, image, logo or information about supporting or opposing a ballot measure. Here are more Election Day dos and don’ts.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    Election Day has arrived for the special election.

    On Tuesday, Californians will decide whether to temporarily adopt new congressional district maps statewide, as Democratic leaders push to send more Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives.

    Proposition 50, or Prop 50 for short, is part of a larger national fight in which Republicans and Democrats are trying to gerrymander their congressional districts to determine which party controls Congress halfway through President Trump’s term. The proposed maps target five California Republicans in an attempt to offset the five Republicans Texas is aiming to add.

    (Video Above: What to know about California’s Prop 50)

    Some communities in Northern California also have other measures or local races to weigh in on, including some measures in El Dorado County and the town of Truckee and races in Plumas County.

    All polling locations will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. If you’re still in line when polls close, you should be able to cast your ballot.

    We’ll continue to update this page with updates from Election Day. Make sure to download our app for the latest breaking news updates with election results.

    What to know before polls open at 7 a.m.

    While voters can cast their ballot in person on Election Day, millions of California voters have already mailed in or dropped off their ballot.

    Before heading out the door to vote, check if you are heading to the correct or closest voting location.

    Still need to learn more about Prop 50?

    For those eager to head to the polls, make sure you know what you can and can’t do when it comes to voting in California.

    For example, you cannot wear pins, hats, shirts or other visible items that display a candidate’s name, image, logo or information about supporting or opposing a ballot measure. Here are more Election Day dos and don’ts.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • Both sides say democracy is at stake with Prop. 50 — but for very different reasons

    If the ads are any indication, Proposition 50 offers Californians a stark choice: “Stick it to Trump” or “throw away the constitution” in a Democratic power grab.

    And like so many things in 2025, Trump appears to be the galvanizing issue.

    Even by the incendiary campaigns California is used to, Proposition 50 has been notable for its sharp attacks to cut through the dense, esoteric issue of congressional redistricting. It comes down to a basic fact: this is a Democratic-led measure to reconfigure California’s congressional districts to help their party win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026 and stifle President Trump’s attempts to keep Republicans in power through similar means in other states.

    Thus far, the anti-Trump message preached by Proposition 50 advocates, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other top Democrats, appears to be the most effective.

    Supporters of the proposal have vastly outraised their rivals and Proposition 50, one of the most expensive ballot measure campaigns in state history, leads in the polls.

    “Whenever you can take an issue and personalize it, you have the advantage. In this case, proponents of 50 can make it all about stopping Donald Trump,” said former legislative leader and state GOP Chair Jim Brulte.

    Adding to the drama is the role of two political and cultural icons who have emerged as leaders of each side: former President Obama in favor and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger against, both arguing the very essence of democracy is at stake.

    Schwarzenegger and the two main committees opposing Proposition 50 have focused on the ethical and moral imperative of preserving the independent redistricting commission. Californians in 2010 voted to create the panel to draw the state’s congressional district boundaries after every census in an effort to provide fair representation to all state residents.

    That’s not a political ideal easily explained in a 30-section television ad, or an Instagram post.

    Redistricting is a “complex issue,” Brulte said, but he noted that “the no side has the burden of trying to explain what the initiative really does and the yes side gets to use the crib notes [that] this is about stopping Trump — a much easier path.”

    Partisans on both sides of the aisle agree.

    “The yes side quickly leveraged anti-Trump messaging and has been closing with direct base appeals to lock in the lead,” said Jamie Fisfis, a political strategist who has worked on many GOP congressional campaigns in California. “The partisanship and high awareness behind the measure meant it was unlikely to sag under the weight of negative advertising like other initiatives often do. It’s been a turnout game.”

    Obama, in ads that aired during the World Series and NFL games, warned that “Democracy is on the ballot Nov. 4” as he urged voters to support Proposition 50. Ads for the most well-funded committee opposing the proposition featured Schwarzenegger saying that opposing the ballot measure was critical to ensuring that citizens are not overrun by elected officials.

    “The Constitution does not start with ‘We, the politicians.’ It starts with ‘We, the people,’” Schwarzenegger told USC students in mid-September — a speech excerpted in an anti-Proposition 50 ad. “Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”

    California’s Democratic-led Legislature voted in August to put the redistricting proposal that would likely boost their ranks in Congress on the November ballot. The measure, pushed by Newsom, was an effort to counter Trump’s efforts to increase the number of GOP members in the House from Texas and other GOP-led states.

    The GOP holds a narrow edge in the House, and next year’s election will determine which party controls the body during Trump’s final two years in office — and whether he can further his agenda or is the focus of investigations and possible impeachment.

    Noticeably absent for California’s Proposition 50 fight is the person who triggered it — Trump.

    The proposition’s opponents’ decision not to highlight Trump is unsurprising given the president’s deep unpopularity among Californians. More than two-thirds of the state’s likely voters did not approve of his handling of the presidency in late October, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll.

    Trump did, however, urge California voter not to cast mail-in ballots or vote early, falsely arguing in a social media post that both voting methods were “dishonest.”

    Some California GOP leaders feared that Trump’s pronouncement would suppress the Republican vote.

    In recent days, the California Republican Party sent mailers to registered Republicans shaming them for not voting. “Your neighbors are watching,” the mailer says, featuring a picture of a woman peering through binoculars. “Don’t let your neighbors down. They’ll find out!”

    Tuesday’s election will cost state taxpayers nearly $300 million. And it’s unclear if the result will make a difference in control of the House because of multiple redistricting efforts in other states.

    But some Democrats are torn about the amount of money being spent on an effort that may not alter the partisan makeup of Congress.

    Johanna Moska, who worked in the Obama administration, described Proposition 50 as “frustrating.”

    “I just wish we were spending money to rectify the state’s problems, if we figured out a way the state could be affordable for people,” she said. “Gavin’s found what’s working for Gavin. And that’s resistance to Trump.”

    Newsom’s efforts opposing Trump are viewed as a foundational argument if he runs for president in 2028, which he has acknowledged pondering.

    Proposition 50 also became a platform for other politicians potentially eyeing a 2026 run for California governor, Sen. Alex Padilla and billionaires Rick Caruso and Tom Steyer.

    The field is in flux, with no clear front-runner.

    Padilla being thrown to the ground in Los Angeles as he tried to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the Trump administration’s immigration policies is prominently featured in television ads promoting Proposition 50. Steyer, a longtime Democratic donor who briefly ran for president in 2020, raised eyebrows by being the only speaker in his second television ad. Caruso, who unsuccessfully ran against Karen Bass in the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral race and is reportedly considering another political campaign, recently sent voters glossy mailers supporting Proposition 50.

    Steyer committed $12 million to support Proposition 50. His initial ad, which shows a Trump impersonator growing increasingly irate as news reports showing the ballot measure passing, first aired during “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Steyer’s second ad fully focused on him, raising speculation about a potential gubernatorial run next year.

    Ads opposing the proposition aired less frequently before disappearing from television altogether in recent days.

    “The yes side had the advantage of casting the question for voters as a referendum on Trump,” said Rob Stutzman, a GOP strategist who worked for Schwarzenegger but is not involved with any of the Proposition 50 campaigns. “Asking people to rally to the polls to save a government commission — it’s not a rallying call.”

    Seema Mehta

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  • Commentary: Payback? Power grab? Proposition 50 is California’s political ink-blot test

    When it comes to Proposition 50, Marcia Owens is a bit fuzzy on the details.

    She knows, vaguely, it has something to do with how California draws the boundaries for its 52 congressional districts, a convoluted and arcane process that’s not exactly top of the mind for your average person. But Owens is abundantly clear when it comes to her intent in Tuesday’s special election.

    “I’m voting to take power out of Trump’s hands and put it back in the hands of the people,” said Owens, 48, a vocational nurse in Riverside. “He’s making a lot of illogical decisions that are really wreaking havoc on our country. He’s not putting our interests first, making sure that an individual has food on the table, they can pay their rent, pay electric bills, pay for healthcare.”

    Peter Arensburger, a fellow Democrat who also lives in Riverside, was blunter still.

    President Trump, said the 55-year-old college professor, “is trying to rule as a dictator” and Republicans are doing absolutely nothing to stop him.

    So, Arensburger said, California voters will do it for them.

    Or at least try.

    “It’s a false equivalency,” he said, “to say that we need to do everything on an even keel in California, but Texas” — which redrew its political map to boost Republicans — “can do whatever they want.”

    Proposition 50, which aims to deliver Democrats at least five more House seats in the 2026 midterm election, is either righteous payback or a grubby power grab.

    A reasoned attempt to even things out in response to Texas’ attempt to nab five more congressional seats. Or a ruthless gambit to drive the California GOP to near-extinction.

    It all depends on your perspective.

    Above all, Proposition 50 has become a political ink-blot test; what many California voters see depends on, politically, where they stand.

    Mary Ann Rounsavall thinks the measure is “horrible,” because that’s how the Fontana retiree feels about its chief proponent, Gavin Newsom.

    “He’s a jerk,” the 75-year-old Republican fairly spat, as if the act of forming the governor’s name left a bad taste in her mouth. “No one believes anything he says.”

    Timothy, a fellow Republican who withheld his last name to avoid online trolls, echoed the sentiment.

    “It’s just Gavin Newsom playing political games,” said the 39-year-old warehouse manager, who commutes from West Covina to his job at a plumbing supplier in Ontario. “They always talk about Trump. ‘Trump, Trump, Trump.’ Get off of Trump. I’ve been hearing this crap ever since he started running.”

    Riverside and San Bernardino counties form the heart of the Inland Empire. The next-door neighbors are politically purple: more Republican than the state as a whole, but not as conservative as California’s more rural reaches. That means neither party has an upper hand, a parity reflected in dozens of interviews with voters across the sprawling region.

    On a recent smoggy morning, the hulking San Bernardino Mountains veiled by a gray-brown haze, Eric Lawson paused to offer his thoughts.

    The 66-year-old independent has no use for politicians of any stripe. “They’re all crooks,” he said. “All of them.”

    Lawson called Proposition 50 a waste of time and money.

    Gerrymandering — the dark art of drawing political lines to benefit one party over another — is, as he pointed out, hardly new. (In fact, the term is rooted in the name of Elbridge Gerry, one of the nation’s founders.)

    What has Lawson particularly steamed is the cost of “this stupid election,” which is pushing $300 million.

    “We talk and talk and talk and we print money for all this talk,” said Lawson, who lives in Ontario and consults in the auto industry. “But that money doesn’t go where it’s supposed to go.”

    Although sentiments were evenly split in those several dozen conversations, all indications suggest that Proposition 50 is headed toward passage Tuesday, possibly by a wide margin. After raising a tidal wave of cash, Newsom last week told small donors that’s enough, thanks. The opposition has all but given up and resigned itself to defeat.

    It comes down to math. Proposition 50 has become a test of party muscle and a talisman of partisan faith and California has a lot more Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents than Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.

    Andrea Fisher, who opposes the initiative, is well aware of that fact. “I’m a conservative,” she said, “in a state that’s not very conservative.”

    She has come to accept that reality, but fears things will get worse if Democrats have their way and slash California’s already-scanty Republican ranks on Capitol Hill. Among those targeted for ouster is Ken Calvert, a 16-term GOP incumbent who represents a good slice of Riverside County.

    “I feel like it’s going to eliminate my voice,” said Fisher, 48, a food server at her daughter’s school in Riverside. “If I’m 40% of the vote” — roughly the percentage Trump received statewide in 2024 — “then we in that population should have fair representation. We’re still their constituents.” (In Riverside County, Trump edged Kamala Harris 49% to 48%.)

    Amber Pelland says Proposition 50 will hurt voters by putting redistricting back into the hands of politicians.

    (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

    Amber Pelland, 46, who works in the nonprofit field in Corona, feels by “sticking it to Trump” — a tagline in one of the TV ads supporting Proposition 50 — voters will be sticking it to themselves. Passage would erase the political map drawn by an independent commission, which voters empowered in 2010 for the express purpose of wrestling redistricting away from self-dealing lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento.

    “I don’t care if you hate the person or don’t hate the person,” said Pelland, a Republican who backs the president. “It’s just going to hurt voters by taking the power away from the people.”

    Even some backers of Proposition 50 flinched at the notion of sidelining the redistricting commission and undoing its painstaking, nonpartisan work. What helps make it palatable, they said, is the requirement — written into the ballot measure — that congressional redistricting will revert to the commission after the 2030 census, when California’s next set of congressional maps is due to be drafted.

    “I’m glad that it’s temporary because I don’t think redistricting should be done in order to give one political party greater power over another,” said Carole, a Riverside Democrat. “I think it’s something that should be decided over a long period and not in a rush.” (She also withheld her last name so her husband, who serves in the community, wouldn’t be hassled for her opinion.)

    Texas, Carole suggested, has forced California to act because of its extreme action, redistricting at mid-decade at Trump’s command. “It’s important to think about the country as a whole,” said the 51-year-old academic researcher, “and to respond to what’s being done, especially with the pressure coming from the White House.”

    Felise Self-Visnic, a 71-year-old retired schoolteacher, agreed.

    She was shopping at a Trader Joe’s in Riverside in an orange ball cap that read “Human-Kind (Be Both).” Back home, in her garage-door window, is a poster that reads “No Kings.”

    She described Proposition 50 as a stopgap measure that will return power to the commission once the urgency of today’s political upheaval has passed. But even if that wasn’t the case, the Democrat said, she would still vote in favor.

    “Anything,” Self-Visnic said, “to fight fascism, which is where we’re heading.”

    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • As Californians decide fate of Prop. 50, GOP states push their own redistricting plans

    WASHINGTON — The hurried push to revise California’s congressional districts has drawn national attention, large sums of money, and renewed hope among Democrats that the effort may help counter a wave of Republican redistricting initiatives instigated by President Trump.

    But if Democrats succeed in California, the question remains: Will it be enough to shift the balance of power in Congress?

    To regain control of the House, Democrats need to flip three Republican seats in the midterm elections next year. That slim margin prompted the White House to push Republicans this summer to redraw maps in GOP states in an effort to keep Democrats in the minority.

    Texas was the first to signal it would follow Trump’s edict and set off a rare mid-decade redistricting arms race that quickly roped in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom devised Proposition 50 to tap into his state’s massive inventory of congressional seats.

    Californians appear poised to approve the measure Tuesday. If they do, Democrats potentially could gain five seats in the House — an outcome that mainly would offset the Republican effort in Texas that already passed.

    While Democrats and Republicans in other states also have moved to redraw their maps, it is too soon to say which party will see a net gain, or predict voter sentiment a year from now, when a lopsided election in either direction could render the remapping irrelevant.

    GOP leaders in North Carolina and Missouri approved new maps that likely will yield one new GOP seat in each, Ohio Republicans could pick up two more seats in a newly redrawn map approved Friday, and GOP leaders in Indiana, Louisiana, Kansas and Florida are considering or taking steps to redraw their maps. In all, those moves could lead to at least 10 new Republican seats, according to experts tracking the redistricting efforts.

    To counter that, Democrats in Virginia passed a constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would give lawmakers the power and option to redraw a new map ahead of next year’s election. Illinois leaders are weighing their redistricting options and New York has filed a lawsuit that seeks to redraw a GOP-held district. But concerns over legal challenges already tanked the party’s efforts in Maryland and the potential dilution of the Black vote has slowed moves in Illinois.

    So far, the partisan maneuvers appear to favor Republicans.

    “Democrats cannot gerrymander their way out of their gerrymandering problem. The math simply doesn’t add up,” said David Daly, a senior fellow at the nonprofit FairVote. “They don’t have enough opportunities or enough targets.”

    Complex factors for Democrats

    Democrats have more than just political calculus to weigh. In many states they are hampered by a mix of constitutional restrictions, legal deadlines and the reality that many of their state maps no longer can be easily redrawn for partisan gain. In California, Prop. 50 marks a departure from the state’s commitment to independent redistricting.

    The hesitancy from Democrats in states such as Maryland and Illinois also underscores the tensions brewing within the party as it tries to maximize its partisan advantage and establish a House majority that could thwart Trump in his last two years in office.

    “Despite deeply shared frustrations about the state of our country, mid-cycle redistricting for Maryland presents a reality where the legal risks are too high, the timeline for action is dangerous, the downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic, and the certainty of our existing map would be undermined,” Bill Ferguson, the Maryland Senate president, wrote in a letter to state lawmakers last week.

    In Illinois, Black Democrats are raising concerns over the plans and pledging to oppose maps that would reduce the share of Black voters in congressional districts where they have historically prevailed.

    “I can’t just think about this as a short-term fight. I have to think about the long-term consequences of doing such a thing,” said state Sen. Willie Preston, chair of the Illinois Senate Black Caucus.

    Adding to those concerns is the possibility that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority could weaken a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act and limit lawmakers’ ability to consider race when redrawing maps. The outcome — and its effect on the 2026 midterms — will depend heavily on the timing and scope of the court’s decision.

    The court has been asked to rule on the case by January, but a decision may come later. Timing is key as many states have filing deadlines for 2026 congressional races or hold their primary election during the spring and summer.

    If the court strikes down the provision, known as Section 2, advocacy groups estimate Republicans could pick up at least a dozen House seats across southern states.

    “I think all of these things are going to contribute to what legislatures decide to do,” said Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice. The looming court ruling, he added, is “an extra layer of uncertainty in an already uncertain moment.”

    Republican-led states press ahead

    Support for Prop. 50 has brought in more than $114 million, the backing of some of the party’s biggest luminaries, including former President Obama, and momentum for national Democrats who want to regain control of Congress after the midterms.

    In an email to supporters Monday, Newsom said fundraising goals had been met and asked proponents of the effort to get involved in other states.

    “I will be asking for you to help others — states like Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and more are all trying to stop Republican mid-decade redistricting efforts. More on that soon,” Newsom wrote.

    Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun called a special session set to begin Monday, to “protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair.”

    In Kansas, the GOP president of the state Senate said last week that there were enough signatures from Republicans in the chamber to call a special session to redraw the state’s maps. Republicans in the state House would need to match the effort to move forward.

    In Louisiana, Republicans in control of the Legislature voted last week to delay the state’s 2026 primary elections. The move is meant to give lawmakers more time to redraw maps in the case that the Supreme Court rules in the federal voting case.

    If the justices strike down the practice of drawing districts based on race, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has indicated the state likely would jump into the mid-decade redistricting race.

    Shaniqua McClendon, head of Vote Save America, said the GOP’s broad redistricting push underscores why Democrats should follow California’s lead — even if they dislike the tactic.

    “Democrats have to be serious about what’s at stake. I know they don’t like the means, but we have to think about the end,” McClendon said. “We have to be able to take back the House — it’s the only way we’ll be able to hold Trump accountable.”

    In New York, a lawsuit filed last week charging that a congressional district disenfranchises Black and Latino voters would be a “Hail Mary” for Democrats hoping to improve their chances in the 2026 midterms there, said Daly, of FairVote.

    Utah also could give Democrats an outside opportunity to pick up a seat, said Dave Wasserman, a congressional forecaster for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. A court ruling this summer required Utah Republican leaders to redraw the state’s congressional map, resulting in two districts that Democrats potentially could flip.

    Wasserman described the various redistricting efforts as an “arms race … Democrats are using what Republicans have done in Texas as a justification for California, and Republicans are using California as justification for their actions in other states.”

    ‘Political tribalism’

    Some political observers said the outcome of California’s election could inspire still more political maneuvering in other states.

    “I think passage of Proposition 50 in California could show other states that voters might support mid-decade redistricting when necessary, when they are under attack,” said Jeffrey Wice, a professor at New York Law School where he directs the New York Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute. “I think it would certainly provide impetus in places like New York to move forward.”

    Similar to California, New York would need to ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment, but that could not take place in time for the midterms.

    “It might also embolden Republican states that have been hesitant to redistrict to say, ‘Well if the voters in California support mid-decade redistricting, maybe they’ll support it here too,’” Wice said.

    To Erik Nisbet, the director of the Center for Communications & Public Policy at Northwestern University, the idea that the mid-decade redistricting trend is gaining traction is part of a broader problem.

    “It is a symptom of this 20-year trend in increasing polarization and political tribalism,” he said. “And, unfortunately, our tribalism is now breaking out, not only between each other, but it’s breaking out between states.”

    He argued that both parties are sacrificing democratic norms and the ideas of procedural fairness as well as a representative democracy for political gain.

    “I am worried about what the end result of this will be,” he said.

    Ceballos reported from Washington, Mehta from Los Angeles.

    Ana Ceballos, Seema Mehta

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  • Gov. Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris rally Californians to vote on Prop. 50

    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, Republicans 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,” state Assembly member Diane Dixon (R-Newport Beach) said. “Ninety percent of 6 million [Californian Republicans] will be disenfranchised.”

    Prop. 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 elections. 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 elections.

    The party that wins control of the House will shape Trump’s final two years in the White House and determine whether he is able to continue enacting his agenda or whether he 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 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 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 healthcare 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 doughnuts, 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 Prop. 50 as the California GOP’s Game 7 — a nod to Friday night’s World Series battle between the Dodgers and 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,” O’Neill said. “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 Prop. 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,” Avila said. “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 Prop. 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.”

    Seema Mehta, Andrea Flores

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  • Voters in poll side with Newsom, Democrats on Prop. 50 — a potential blow to Trump and GOP

    A Nov. 4 statewide ballot measure pushed by California Democrats to help the party’s efforts to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives and stifle President Trump’s agenda has a substantial lead in a new poll released on Thursday.

    Six out of 10 likely voters support Proposition 50, the proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies to redraw the state’s congressional districts to try to increase the number of Democrats in Congress, according to a survey by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that was co-sponsored by The Times. About 38% of likely voters oppose the ballot measure.

    Notable in an off-year special election about the arcane and complicated process of redistricting, 71% of likely voters said they had heard a significant amount of information about the ballot measure, according to the poll.

    “That’s extraordinary,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll. “Even though it’s kind of an esoteric topic that doesn’t affect their daily lives, it’s something voters are paying attention to.”

    That may be because roughly $158 million has been donated in less than three months to the main campaign committees supporting and opposing the measure, according to campaign fundraising reports filed with the state last week. Voters in the state have been flooded with political ads.

    Californians watching Tuesday night’s World Series game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays saw that firsthand.

    In the first minutes of the game, former President Obama, Newsom, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other prominent Democrats spoke in favor of Proposition 50 in an ad that probably cost at least $250,000 to air, according to a Democratic media buyer who is not associated with the campaign.

    According to the survey, the breakdown among voters was highly partisan, with more than 9 out of 10 Democrats supporting Proposition 50 and a similar proportion of Republicans opposing it. Among voters who belong to other parties, or identify as “no party preference,” 57% favored the ballot measure, while 39% opposed it.

    Only 2% of the likely voters surveyed said they were undecided, which DiCamillo said was highly unusual.

    Historically, undecided voters, particularly independents, often end up opposing ballot measures they are uncertain about, preferring to stick with the status quo, he said.

    “Usually there was always a rule — look at the undecideds in late-breaking polls, and assume most would vote no,” he said. “But this poll shows there are very few of them out there. Voters have a bead on this one.”

    In the voter-rich urban areas of Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay area, Proposition 50 led by wide margins, the poll found. Voters in Orange County, the Inland Empire and the Central Valley were pretty evenly divided.

    Redistricting battles are underway in states across the nation, but California’s Proposition 50 has received a major share of national attention and donations. The Newsom committee supporting Proposition 50 has raised far more money than the two main committees opposing it, so much so that the governor this week told supporters to stop sending checks.

    The U.S. House of Representatives is controlled by the GOP but is narrowly divided. The party that wins control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections will determine whether Trump can continue enacting his agenda or whether he is the subject of investigations and possibly another impeachment effort.

    California’s 52 congressional districts — the most of any state — currently are drawn by a voter-approved independent commission once every decade following the U.S. census.

    But after Trump urged GOP leaders in Texas this summer to redraw their districts to bolster the number of Republicans in Congress, Newsom and other California Democrats decided in August to ask voters to allow a rare mid-decade partisan redrawing of the state’s district boundaries. If passed, Proposition 50 could potentially add five more Democrats to the state’s congressional delegation.

    Supporters of Proposition 50 have painted their effort as a proxy fight against Trump and his policies that have overwhelmingly affected Californians, such as immigration raids and the deployment of the National Guard on the streets of Los Angeles.

    Opponents of the proposition have focused on the mechanics of redistricting, arguing the ballot measure subverts the will of California voters who enacted the independent redistricting commission more than a decade ago.

    “The results suggest that Democrats have succeeded in framing the debate surrounding the proposition around support or opposition to President Trump and national Republicans, rather than about voters’ more general preference for nonpartisan redistricting,” Eric Schickler, co-director of IGS, said in a statement.

    Early voting data suggest the pro-Proposition 50 message has been successful.

    As of Tuesday, nearly 5 million Californians — about 21% of the state’s 23 million registered voters — had cast ballots, according to trackers run by Democratic and Republican strategists.

    Democrats greatly outnumber Republicans among the state’s registered voters, and they have outpaced them in returning ballots, 52% to 27%. Voters who do not have a party preference or who support other political parties have returned 21% of the ballots.

    The Berkeley/L.A. Times poll findings mirrored recent surveys by the Public Policy Institute of California, CBS News/YouGov and Emerson College.

    Among voters surveyed by the Berkeley/L.A. Times poll, 67% of Californians who had already voted supported Proposition 50, while 33% said they had weighed in against the ballot measure.

    The proposition also had an edge among those who planned to vote but had not yet cast their ballots, with 57% saying they planned to support the effort and 40% saying they planned to oppose it.

    However, 70% of voters who plan to cast ballots in person on Nov. 4, election day, said they would vote against Proposition 50, according to the poll. Less than 3 in 10 who said they would vote at their local polling place said they would support the rare mid-decade redistricting.

    These numbers highlight a recent shift in how Americans vote. Historically, Republicans voted by mail early, while Democrats cast ballots on election day. But this dynamic was upended in recent years after Trump questioned the security of early voting and mail voting, including just recently when he criticized Proposition 50.

    “No mail-in or ‘Early’ Voting, Yes to Voter ID! Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being ‘shipped,’” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. “GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”

    GOP leaders across the state have pushed back at such messaging without calling out the president. Urging Republicans to vote early, they argue that waiting to cast ballots only gives Democrats a greater advantage in California elections.

    Among the arguments promoted by the campaigns, likely voters agreed with every one posited by the supporters of Proposition 50, notably that the ballot measure would help Democrats win control of the House, while standing up to Trump and his attempts to rig the 2026 election, according to the poll. But they also agreed that the ballot measure would further diminish the power of the GOP in California, and that they didn’t trust partisan state lawmakers to draw congressional districts.

    The Berkeley IGS/Times poll surveyed 8,141 California registered voters online in English and Spanish from Oct. 20 to 27. The results are estimated to have a margin of error of 2 percentage points in either direction in the overall sample, and larger numbers for subgroups.

    Seema Mehta

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  • Proponents of Nov. 4 redistricting ballot measure vastly outraise opponents

    Supporters of Proposition 50, California Democrats’ ballot measure to redraw the state’s congressional districts to help the party’s effort to take power in the U.S. House of Representatives, raised more than four times the amount that rivals raised in recent weeks, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state by the three main committees campaigning about the measure.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s committee supporting the redistricting measure raised $36.8 million between Sept. 21 and Oct. 18, bringing its total to $114.3 million, according to the report filed with the secretary of state’s office on Thursday, which was not available until Monday. It had $37.1 million in the bank and available to spend before the Nov. 4 special election.

    “We have hit our budget goals and raised what we need in order to pass Proposition 50,” Newsom emailed supporters on Monday. “You can stop donating.”

    The two main opposition groups raised a total of $8.4 million during the 28 days covered by the fundraising period, bringing their total haul to $43.7 million. They had $2.3 million in cash on hand going into the final stretch of the campaign.

    “As Gavin Newsom likes to say, we are not running the 90-yard dash here. We’ve seen a groundswell of support from Californians who understand what’s at stake if we let [President] Trump steal two more years of unchecked power,” said Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for the main pro-Proposition 50 campaign. “But we are not taking anything for granted nor taking our foot off the gas. If we want to hold this dangerous and reckless president accountable, we must pass Prop. 50.”

    Newsom and other California Democrats decided to ask voters to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries, which are currently drawn by a voter-approved independent commission, in a mid-decade redistricting after Trump urged GOP-led states to redraw their districts in an effort for Republicans to retain control of Congress in next year’s midterm election.

    The balance of power in the narrowly divided House will determine whether Trump is able to continue enacting his agenda during his final two years of office, or is the focus of investigations and possibly an impeachment effort.

    Major donors supporting Proposition 50 include billionaire financier George Soros; the House Majority PAC, the campaign arm of congressional Democrats; and labor unions.

    Among the opponents of Proposition 50, top contributors include longtime GOP donor Charles Munger Jr., the son of the investment partner of billionaire Warren Buffett; and the Congressional Leadership Fund, Republicans’ political arm in the House.

    “While we are being outspent, we’re continuing to communicate with Californians the dangers of suspending California’s gold-standard redistricting process,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for the committee funded by Munger. “With just ten days to go, we are encouraging all voters to make their voice heard and to vote.”

    Ellie Hockenbury, an advisor to the committee that received $5 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund, said the organization was committed to continuing to raise money to block Newsom’s redistricting effort in the days leading up to the election.

    “His costly power grab would silence millions of Californians and deny them fair representation in Congress, which is why grassroots opposition is gaining momentum,” Hockenbury said. “In the final push, our data-driven campaign is strategically targeting key voters with our message to ensure every resource helps us defeat Prop. 50.”

    There are several other committees not affiliated with these main campaign groups that are receiving funding. Those include one created by billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer, who donated $12 million, and the California Republican Party, which received $8 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund.

    These reports come a little more than a week before the Nov. 4 special election. More than 4 million mail ballots — 18% of the ballots sent to California’s 23 million voters — had been returned as of Friday, according to a vote tracker run by Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed maps on the ballot. Democrats continue to outpace Republicans in returning ballots, 51% to 28%. Voters registered without a party preference or with other political parties returned 21% of the ballots that have been received.

    The turnout figures are alarming Republican leaders.

    “If Republicans do not get out and vote now, we will lose Prop 50 and Gavin Newsom will control our district lines until 2032,” Orange County GOP Chair Will O’Neill wrote to party members on Friday, urging them to cast ballots this past weekend and sharing the locations of early voting centers in the county.

    Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) was more blunt on social media.

    “Right now we’re losing the fight against Prop 50 in CA, but turnout is LOW,” he posted on the social media platform X on Friday. “If every Republican voter gets off their ass, returns their ballot and votes NO, we WIN. IT. IS. THAT. SIMPLE.”

    More than 18.9 million ballots are outstanding, though not all will be completed. Early voting centers opened on Saturday in 29 California counties.

    “Think of Election Day as the last day to vote — not the only day. Like we always do, California gives voters more days and more ways to participate,” Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a statement. “Don’t Delay! Vote today!”

    The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that it plans on monitoring polling sites in Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties at the request of the state GOP.

    “Transparency at the polls translates into faith in the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of election integrity,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said. “We will commit the resources necessary to ensure the American people get the fair, free, and transparent elections they deserve.”

    Newsom, in a post on X on Friday, said the Trump administration is sending election monitors to polling places in California as part of a broader effort to stifle the vote, particularly among Californians of color, in advance of next year’s midterm election.

    “This is about voter intimidation. This is about voter suppression,” Newsom said, predicting that masked border agents would probably be present at California polling places through the Nov. 4 election. “I hope people understand it’s a bridge that they’re trying to build the scaffolding for all across this country in next November’s election. They do not believe in fair and free elections. Our republic, our democracy, is on the line.”

    Seema Mehta

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  • Voter turnout exceeds expectations in California’s Prop. 50 special election

    Early voter turnout is exceeding expectations in California’s Nov. 4 special election over redrawing the state’s congressional districts, a Democratic-led effort to counter Republican attempts to keep Congress under GOP control.

    “We’re seeing some pretty extraordinary numbers of early votes that have already been cast, people sending back in their ballots,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a livestream with former President Obama on Wednesday.

    More than 3.4 million mail ballots have been returned as of Wednesday, with votes from Democrats outpacing ballots from Republicans and Californians registered as not having a party preference, according to a ballot tracker run by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell. Mitchell is deeply involved in the Democratic effort, and drafted the proposed congressional districts on the Nov. 4 special election ballot.

    That’s roughly the same number of ballots returned by this time in the White House contest between then-Vice President Kamala Harris and then-former President Trump in 2024, notable because turnout during presidential elections is higher than in other years.

    About a million more ballots had been turned in by this point in the unsuccessful 2021 attempt to recall Newsom, but that was during the COVID pandemic.

    This year’s turnout is also especially significant because Proposition 50 is about the esoteric topic of redistricting. Redrawing congressional districts is usually a once-a-decade process that takes place after the U.S. census to account for population shifts.

    California’s 52 congressional districts currently are crafted by a voter-approved independent commission, but Newsom and other California Democrats decided to ask voters to allow a rare mid-decade partisan gerrymandering to blunt Trump’s efforts in GOP-led states to boost his party’s numbers in the House.

    Obama, who has endorsed Proposition 50 and stars in a television ad supporting the effort, on Wednesday said the ballot measure will affect the entire country.

    “There’s a broader principle at stake that has to do with whether or not our democracy can be manipulated by those who are already in power to entrench themselves further,” Obama said. “Or, whether we’re going to have a system that allows the people to decide who’s going to represent them.”

    About 51% of the ballots that have been returned to date are from registered Democrats, while 28% are from registered Republicans and 21% are from voters who do not express a party preference.

    It’s unknown how these voters cast their ballots, but the Democratic advantage appears to give an edge to supporters of Proposition 50, which needs to be passed by a simple majority to be enacted. About 19.6 million ballots — roughly 85% of those mailed to California voters — are outstanding, though not all are expected to be returned.

    The current trend of returned ballots at this point shows Democrats having a small edge over Republicans compared with their share of the California electorate. According to the latest state voter registration report, Democrats account for 45% of California’s registered voters, while Republicans total 25% and “no party preference” voters make up 23%. Californians belonging to other parties make up the remainder.

    Mitchell added that another interesting data point is that the mail ballots continue to flow in.

    “Usually you see a lull after the first wave — if you don’t mail in your ballot in the first week, it’s going to be sitting on the counter for a while,” Mitchell said. But ballots continue to arrive, possibly encouraged by the “No Kings” protests on Saturday, he said.

    A spokesperson for the pro-Proposition 50 campaign said they are taking nothing for granted.

    “With millions of ballots still to be cast, we will keep pushing to make sure every Californian understands what’s at stake and turns out to vote yes on Nov. 4th to stop Trump’s power grab,” said spokesperson Hannah Milgrom.

    Some Republican leaders have expressed concerns that the GOP early vote may be suppressed by Trump’s past criticism about mail balloting, inaccuracies in the voter guide sent to the state’s 23 million voters and conspiracy theories about the ballot envelope design.

    “While ballot initiatives are nonpartisan, many Republicans tend to hold on to their ballots until in-person voting begins,” said Ellie Hockenbury, an advisor to the “No on Prop 50 — Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab” campaign committee. “As this next phase starts — and with nearly two weeks until Election Day — we expect already high turnout to continue rising to defeat Proposition 50 and stop Gavin Newsom’s partisan power grab.”

    Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for the other major group opposing the proposition, said the data show that the voters who have returned ballots so far are not representative of the California electorate.

    “Special elections tend to be more partisan, older and whiter than general elections, which is one of the reasons we’ve been concerned about the speed with which the politicians pushed this through,” she said.

    Seema Mehta, Dakota Smith

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  • Commentary: She was highly qualified to be California governor. Why did her campaign fizzle?

    Among the small army of prospects who’ve eyed the California governorship, none seemed more qualified than Toni Atkins.

    After serving on the San Diego City Council, she moved on to Sacramento, where Atkins led both the Assembly and state Senate, one of just three people in history — and the first in 147 years — to head both houses of California’s Legislature.

    She negotiated eight state budgets with two governors and, among other achievements, passed major legislation on abortion rights, help for low-income families and a $7.5-billion water bond.

    You can disagree with her politics but, clearly, Atkins is someone who knows her way around the Capitol.

    She married that expertise with the kind of hardscrabble, up-by-her-bootstraps backstory that a calculating political consultant might have spun from whole cloth, had it not been so.

    Atkins grew up in rural Appalachia in a rented home with an outdoor privy. Her first pair of glasses was a gift from the local Lions Club. She didn’t visit a dentist until she was 24. Her family was too poor.

    Yet for all of that, Atkins’ gubernatorial campaign didn’t last even to 2026, when voters will elect a successor to the termed-out Gavin Newsom. She quit the race in September, more than eight months before the primary.

    She has no regrets.

    “It was a hard decision,” the Democrat said. “But I’m a pragmatic person.”

    She couldn’t and wouldn’t keep asking “supporters and people to contribute more and more if the outcome was not going to be what we hoped,” Atkins said. “I needed sort of a moonshot to do it, and I didn’t see that.”

    She spoke recently via Zoom from the den of her home in San Diego, where Atkins had just returned after spending several weeks back in Virginia, tending to a dying friend and mentor, one of her former college professors.

    “I was a first-generation college kid … a hillbilly,” Atkins said. She felt as though she had no place in the world “and this professor, Steve Fisher, basically helped turn me around and not be a victim. Learn to organize. Learn to work with people on common goals. … He was one of the first people that really helped me to understand how to be part of something bigger than myself.”

    Over the 22 months of her campaign — between the launch in January 2024 and its abandonment on Sept. 29 — Atkins traveled California from tip to toe, holding countless meetings and talking to innumerable voters. “It’s one thing to be the speaker or the [Senate leader],” she said. “People treat you differently when you’re a candidate. You’re appealing to them to support you, and it’s a different conversation.”

    What she heard was a lot of practicality.

    People lamenting the exorbitant cost of housing, energy and child care. Rural Californians worried about their dwindling access to healthcare. Parents and teachers concerned about wanton immigration raids and their effect on kids. “It wasn’t presented as a political thing,” Atkins said. “It was just fear for [their] neighbors.”

    She heard plenty from business owners and, especially, put-upon residents of red California, who griped about Sacramento and its seeming disconnection from their lives and livelihoods. “I heard in Tehama County … folks saying, ‘Look, we care about the environment, but we can’t have electric school buses here. We don’t have any infrastructure.’ ”

    Voters seemed to be of two — somewhat contradictory — minds about what they want in their next governor.

    First off, “Someone that’s going to be focused on California, California problems and California issues,” Atkins said. “They want a governor that’s not going to be performative, but really focused on the issues that California needs help on.”

    At the same, they see the damage that President Trump and his punitive policies have done to the state in a very short time, so “they also want to see a fighter.”

    The challenge, Atkins suggested, is “convincing people … you’re absolutely going to fight for California values and, at the same, that you’re going to be focused on fixing the roads.”

    Maybe California needs to elect a contortionist.

    Given her considerable know-how and compelling background, why did Atkins’ campaign fizzle?

    Here’s a clue: The word starts with “m” and ends with “y” and speaks to something pernicious about our political system.

    “I hoped my experience and my collaborative nature and my ability to work across party lines when I needed to … would gain traction,” Atkins said. “But I just didn’t have the name recognition.”

    Or, more pertinently, the huge pile of cash needed to build that name recognition and get elected to statewide office in California.

    While Atkins wasn’t a bad fundraiser, she simply couldn’t raise the many tens of millions of dollars needed to run a viable gubernatorial race.

    That could be seen as a referendum of sorts. If enough people wanted Atkins to be governor, she theoretically would have collected more cash. But who doubts that money has an unholy influence on our elections?

    (Other than Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who spent much of his career fighting campaign finance reform, and members of the Supreme Court who green-lit today’s unlimited geyser of campaign spending.)

    At age 63, Atkins is not certain what comes next.

    “I’ve lost parents, but it’s been decades,” she said. “And to lose Steve” — her beloved ex-college professor — “I think I’m going to take the rest of the year to reflect. I’m definitely going to stay engaged … but I’m going to focus on family” at least until January.

    Atkins remains optimistic about her adopted home state, notwithstanding her unsuccessful run for governor and the earful of criticisms she heard along the way,

    “California is the place where people dream,” she said. “We still have the ability to do big things … We’re the fourth-largest economy. We’re a nation-state. We need to remember that.”

    Without losing sight of the basics.

    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • Commentary: Is Pelosi getting ‘Bidened’? High drama in the scramble for her congressional seat

    State Sen. Scott Wiener is a strategic and effective legislator who rarely lets emotion make his decisions — much like Nancy Pelosi, whose congressional seat he would like to take.

    It has been a wide-open secret for years that Wiener wanted to make a run for federal office when or if Pelosi retired, but he’s also been deferential to the elder stateswoman of California politics and has made it equally clear that he would wait his turn in the brutal and parochial machine of San Francisco politics.

    Until now.

    The San Francisco Standard broke the news Thursday that Wiener is running on the 2026 ballot, though he has yet to formally announce.

    It is news that shocked even those deep in the dog-eat-dog world of S.F. politics and ignited the inevitable news cycle about whether Pelosi (who was instrumental in removing President Biden from the 2024 race for age-related issues) is being Bidened herself. It also ensures a contentious race that will be nationally watched by both MAGA and the progressive left, both of which take issue with Wiener.

    Oh, the drama.

    Take it for what you will, but a few months after having hip replacement surgery, Pelosi is (literally) back in her stiletto heels and raising beaucoup dollars for Proposition 50, the ballot initiative meant to gerrymander California voting maps to counteract a GOP cheat-fest in Texas.

    Yes, she’s 85, but she’s no Joe. She is also, however, no spring chicken. So the national debate on whether Democrats need not just fresh but younger candidates has officially landed in the City by the Bay, though Wiener remains both practical and polite enough to not frame it that way.

    He’ll leave that to the journalists, who have hounded Pelosi for months to announce whether she will seek another term, a question she has declined to directly answer. Instead, her team has focused on the looming election for Proposition 50 and said any announcement on her future has to wait after the ballots are counted.

    To be fair to Pelosi, she’s gone all-in to both fundraise and campaign for the redistricting effort, and its passage is essential to Democrats having even a shot at winning back any power in the midterms.

    If Prop. 50 fails, there is no non-miracle path, except perhaps an unexpected blue wave, through which Democrats can retake a chamber. So Nov. 4 isn’t an arbitrary date. It will determine if there is any possibility of checking Trump’s power grab, and preserving democracy. Personally, I don’t fault Pelosi for being engaged in that fight.

    To also be fair to Wiener, his decision to announce now was probably driven more by money and political momentum than by Pelosi’s age.

    That’s because Pelosi already has a challenger — the ultra-wealthy progressive Saikat Chakrabarti, a startup millionaire who served as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign manager during her first upset win for Congress in 2018. Chakrabarti has long been an antagonist to Pelosi, and recently announced his candidacy, positioning himself as a disrupter.

    In 2019, before the House impeached Trump over his questionable actions involving Ukraine, Chakrabarti tweeted, “Pelosi claims we can’t focus on impeachment because it’s a distraction from kitchen table issues. But I’d challenge you to find voters that can name a single thing House Democrats have done for their kitchen table this year. What is this legislative mastermind doing?”

    Chakrabarti, who was born the year before Pelosi was first elected to Congress in 1987, has self-funded his campaign with $700,000 and has the financial ability to spend much more. Wiener, in his on-the-down-low shadow campaign, has raised a bit over $1 million, not nearly enough. The primary will be in June and it will be expensive.

    Though we have yet to reach Halloween, a stroll down the aisles of any big box store can tell you that Christmas is neigh, a season when fundraising becomes harder — putting pressure on Wiener to raise money as quickly as possible before the winter freeze.

    Add to that pressure the fact that Chakrabarti has political skills and growing popularity. He was the tech architect behind a successful push to activate volunteers for both AOC and Bernie Sanders.

    An internal poll released a few months ago (and any internal poll must be viewed skeptically) showed Chakrabarti drawing 34% of voters to Pelosi’s 47%. His numbers increased as voters learned more about him — a few have even compared him to New York’s socialist wonder-kid Zohran Mamdani, currently running for mayor against Andrew Cuomo.

    The problem with that is that Wiener is not Cuomo. He’s a progressive himself, and one with an established track record of getting stuff done, often progressive stuff.

    I’ve watched him for years push ambitious agendas through the statehouse, including bills where I would have bet against him.

    Most recently, he wrote the state’s ban on cops, including ICE, wearing masks. Although the feds have said they will ignore the new law, recently signed by Newsom, and it will almost certainly end up in court, it is a worthy message to send about secret police in America.

    Wiener also this term passed a controversial housing bill that will increase density around transit hubs, and spearheaded a bill to regulate artificial intelligence.

    In past terms, he has successfully forced insurance companies to cover mental health the same way they cover physical health; pushed large companies to disclose their climate impact; and been one of the major proponents of “YIMBY” policies that make it easier to build housing.

    He has also passed numerous laws protecting immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights, which has made him a favorite target of the far right. He has received death threats on a regular basis for years, including one from an anti-vaxxer who was convicted on seven counts in 2022 after threatening Wiener and being found in possession of weapons. Wiener doesn’t have Pelosi’s charisma, but he has receipts for getting the job done and handling the vicious vitriol of modern politics.

    Unlike Chakrabarti, Wiener has also been a part of San Francisco’s insular community for decades, and has his own base of support — though he is considered a moderate to Chakrabarti’s progressiveness. This is where San Francisco gets wonderfully weird. In nearly any other place, Wiener would be solidly left. But some of his constituents view him as too developer-friendly for his housing policies and have criticized his past policies around expanding conservatorships for mentally ill people.

    But still, a recent poll done by EMC research but not released publicly found that 61% of likely primary voters have a favorable opinion of Wiener. That vastly outpaces the 21% that said the same about Chakrabarti or even the 21% who liked Pelosi’s daughter, Christine Pelosi, who has also been mentioned as a possible successor.

    Which is all to say that Wiener is in a now-or-never moment. He has popularity but needs momentum and cash. The Democratic Party is in a mess, and the old rules are out the window, even in San Francisco.

    So waiting for Pelosi had become a little bit like waiting for Godot, a self-imposed limbo that was more likely to lead to frustration than victory.

    Anita Chabria

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  • L.A. County chief executive got $2-million settlement after Measure G fallout, records say

    Fesia Davenport, Los Angeles County’s chief executive officer, received a $2-million settlement this summer due to professional fallout from Measure G, a voter-approved ballot measure that will soon make her job obsolete, according to a letter she wrote to the county’s top lawyer.

    Davenport wrote in the July 8 letter, which was released by the county counsel through a public record request Tuesday, that she had been seeking $2 million in damages for “reputational harm, embarrassment, and physical, emotional and mental distress caused by the Measure G.”

    Under Measure G, which voters approved last November, the county chief executive, who manages the county government and oversees its budget, will be elected by voters instead of appointed by the board. The elected county executive will be in place by 2028.

    “Measure G is an unprecedented event, and has had, and will continue to have, an unprecedented impact on my professional reputation, health, career, income, and retirement,” Davenport wrote to county counsel Dawyn Harrison. “My hope is that after setting aside the amount of my ask, that there can be a true focus on what the real issues are here – measure G has irrevocably changed my life, my professional career, economic outlook, and plans for the future.”

    The existence of the $2-million settlement, finalized in mid-August, was first reported Tuesday by LAist. It was unclear then what the settlement was for.

    Davenport, a longtime county employee, was appointed chief executive in 2021.

    Under the terms of the settlement, Davenport cannot sue the county, including for “any claims arising out of the facts and circumstances surrounding the enactment of the ballot proposition known as ‘Measure G.’ ”

    Davenport began a medical leave last week and told staff she expects to be back early next year. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the settlement.

    Davenport’s Aug. 12 letter stated that other department heads had received significant payments upon departure. She noted the prior chief executive officer, Sachi Hamai, had received $1.5 million. The letter also makes an apparent reference to Mary Wickham and Rodrigo Castro-Silva, mentioning the former county attorneys by their last names.

    Wickham received about $449,000 in severance pay and Castro-Silva received $213,000, according to records obtained by The Times.

    “My circumstance is different in that I am not seeking to leave, and I have suffered damages, through no fault of my own,” she wrote.

    Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn first announced Measure G in July 2024, branding it as a long-overdue overhaul to the county’s sluggish bureaucracy. Under the charter amendment, the number of supervisors increased to nine and the county chief executive will now be elected.

    On Aug. 12, 2024, a few weeks after the announcement, Davenport wrote a letter to Horvath saying the measure had impugned her “professional reputation” and would end her career at least two years earlier than she expected, according to another letter released Tuesday through a public records request.

    “This has been a tough six weeks for me,” Davenport wrote in her letter. “It has created uncomfortable, awkward interactions between me and my CEO team (they are concerned), me and other departments heads (they are apologetic), and even County outsiders (they think I am being fired).”

    Horvath’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The position of elected CEO was by far the most controversial part of Measure G. Supporters said that making the chief executive elected rather than appointed would bring more accountability to one of the county’s most powerful posts. Opponents warned it would consolidate too much power with one person and bring politics into a fundamentally bureaucratic position.

    Rebecca Ellis

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  • ‘Democracy is on the ballot,’ Obama says, urging Californians to pass Prop. 50 in new ad

    As Californians start voting on Democrats’ effort to boost their ranks in Congress, former President Barack Obama warned that democracy is in peril as he urged voters to support Proposition 50 in a television ad that started airing Tuesday.

    “California, the whole nation is counting on you,” Obama says in the 30-second ad, which the main pro-Proposition 50 campaign began broadcasting Tuesday across the state. The spot is part of a multimillion-dollar ad buy promoting the congressional redistricting ballot measure through the Nov. 4 election.

    Proposition 50 was spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democratic leaders this summer after President Trump urged GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts to boost the number of Republicans elected to the House in next year’s midterm election, in an effort to continue enacting his agenda during his final years in office.

    “Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years,” Obama says in the ad, which includes footage of ICE raids. “With Prop. 50, you can stop Republicans in their tracks. Prop. 50 puts our elections back on a level playing field, preserves independent redistricting over the long term, and lets the people decide. Return your ballot today.”

    Congressional districts were long drawn in smoke-filled chambers by partisans focused on protecting their parties’ power and incumbents. But good-government groups and elected officials, notably former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have fought to take the drawing of congressional boundaries out of the hands of politicians to end gerrymandering and create more competitive districts.

    Obama, long a supporter of ending gerrymandering, had already endorsed the ballot measure.

    In California, these districts have been drawn by an independent commission created by voters in 2010, which is why state Democrats have to go to the ballot box to seek a mid-decade partisan redistricting that could improve their party’s chances in five of the state’s 52 congressional districts.

    The ad featuring Obama, who spoke Monday on comedian Marc Maron’s final podcast about Trump’s policies testing the nation’s values, appears on Californians’ televisions after mail ballots were sent to the state’s 23 million registered voters last week.

    The proposition’s prospects are uncertain — it’s about an obscure topic that few Californians know about, and off-year elections traditionally have low voter turnout. Still, more than $150 million has been contributed to the three main committees supporting and opposing the proposition, in addition to millions more funding other efforts.

    Obama is not the only famous person to appear in ads about Proposition 50.

    In September, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of the independent redistricting commission while in office and has campaigned for similar reforms across the nation since then, was featured in ads opposing the November ballot measure.

    He described Proposition 50 as favoring entrenched politicians instead of voters.

    “That’s what they want to do, is take us backwards. This is why it is important for you to vote no on Proposition 50,” the Hollywood celebrity and former governor says in the ad, which was filmed last month when he spoke to USC students. “The Constitution does not start with ‘We, the politicians.’ It starts with ‘We, the people.’ … Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”

    Seema Mehta

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  • California ballot design prompts false conspiracy theories that the November election is rigged

    California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Monday pushed back against a torrent of misinformation on social media sites claiming that mail-in ballots for the state’s Nov. 4 special election are purposefully designed to disclose how people voted.

    Weber, the state’s top elections official, refuted claims by some Republicans and far-right partisans that holes on ballot envelopes allow election officials to see how Californians voted on Proposition 50, the ballot measure about redistricting that will be decided in a special election in a little over three weeks.

    “The small holes on ballot envelopes are an accessibility feature to allow sight-impaired voters to orient themselves to where they are required to sign the envelope,” Weber said in a statement released Monday.

    Weber said voters can insert ballots in return envelopes in a manner that doesn’t reveal how they voted, or could cast ballots at early voting stations that will open soon or in person on Nov. 4.

    Weber’s decision to “set the record straight” was prompted by conspiracy theories exploding online alleging that mail ballots received by 23 million Californians in recent days are purposefully designed to reveal the votes of people who opposed the measure.

    “If California voters vote ‘NO’ on Gavin Newscum’s redistricting plan, it will show their answer through a hole in the envelope,” Libs of TikTok posted on the social media platform X on Sunday, in a post that has 4.8 million views. “All Democrats do is cheat.”

    GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz earlier retweeted a similar post that has been viewed more than 840,000 times, and Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a conservative commentator, called for the November special election to be suspended because of the alleged ballot irregularities.

    The allegation about the ballots, which has been raised by Republicans during prior California elections, stems from the holes in mail ballot envelopes that were created to help visually impaired voters and allow election workers to make sure ballots have been removed from envelopes.

    The special election was called for by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats in an effort to counter President Trump urging GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts before next year’s midterm election to boost GOP ranks in the House and buttress his ability to enact his agenda during his final two years in office.

    California Democrats responded by proposing a rare mid-decade redrawing of California’s 52 congressional boundaries to increase Democratic representation in Congress. Congressional districts are typically drawn once a decade by an independent state commission created by voters in 2010.

    Nearly 600,000 Californians have already returned mail ballots as of Monday evening, according to a ballot tracker created by Political Data, a voter data firm that is led by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed congressional boundaries on the November ballot.

    Republican leaders in California who oppose the ballot measure have expressed concern about the ballot conspiracy theories, fearing the claims may suppress Republicans and others from voting against Proposition 50.

    “Please don’t panic people about something that is easily addressed by turning their ballot around,” Roxanne Hoge, the chair of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, posted on X. “We need every no vote and we need them now.”

    Jessica Millan Patterson, the former chair of the state GOP who is leading one of the two main committees opposing Proposition 50, compared not voting early to sitting on the sidelines of a football game until the third quarter.

    “I understand why voters would be concerned when they see holes in their envelopes … because your vote is your business. It’s the bedrock of our system, being able to [vote by] secret ballot,” she said in an interview. “That being said, the worst thing that you could do if you are unhappy with the way things are here in California is not vote, and so I will continue to promote early voting and voting by mail. It’s always been a core principle for me.”

    Seema Mehta

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  • This is ‘a test,’ Obama says of the U.S. under Trump. He gets candid with podcaster Marc Maron

    Former President Obama, speaking on stand-up comedian Marc Maron’s final podcast on Monday, said the Trump administration’s policies are a “test” of whether universities, businesses, law firms and voters — including Republicans — will take a stand for the nation’s founding principles and values.

    “If you decide not to vote, that’s a consequence. If you are a Hispanic man and you’re frustrated about inflation, and so you decided, ah, you know what, all that rhetoric about Trump doesn’t matter. ‘I’m just mad about inflation,’” Obama said. “And now your sons are being stopped in L.A. because they look Latino and maybe without the ability to call anybody, might just be locked up, well, that’s a test.”

    In a more than hourlong discussion with Maron on the wildly popular “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast, the former Democratic president said current events could jolt Americans.

    “It’d be great if we weren’t tested this way, but you know what? We probably need to be shaken out of our complacency,” he said.

    Obama also criticized some Democrats’ messaging as he touched on significant issues facing Californians and discussed the state of the nation’s democracy, core convictions and the weakening of institutional norms.

    After Los Angeles-based Maron joked, “We’ve annoyed the average American into fascism,” Obama responded, “You can’t just be a scold all the time.

    “You can’t constantly lecture people without acknowledging that you’ve got some blind spots too, and that life’s messy,” Obama said in the interview, which recently took place in the former president’s Washington, D.C., office.

    Faulting language used by some liberals as “holier than thou,” Obama argued that Democrats could remain true to their principles while respecting those with whom they disagreed.

    “Saying, ‘Right, I’ve got some core convictions [and] beliefs that I’m not going to compromise. But I’m also not going to assert that I am so righteous and so pure and so insightful that there’s not the possibility that maybe I’m wrong on this, or that other people, if they don’t say things exactly the way I say them or see things exactly the way I do, that somehow they’re bad people,’” he said.

    Obama’s remarks come as the Democratic Party faces a reckoning after losing the presidential election in 2024, in part because of declining support from the party’s base, notably minority voters.

    Maron, a comedian and actor, launched his “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast and radio show in 2009. Interviews with guests such as actor Robin Williams, comedian Louis C.K., filmmaker Kevin Smith and “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels often took place at his Highland Park home.

    Obama’s 2015 interview in Maron’s garage became the podcast’s most popular episode at the time — downloaded nearly 740,000 times in the first 24 hours after it was posted.

    On Monday, the former president criticized institutions for capitulating to President Trump’s demands. His words come as USC leaders are debating whether to agree to a White House proposal to receive favorable access to federal funding if they align with Trump’s agenda.

    “If you’re a university president, say, well, you know what? This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for,” Obama said. “Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”

    Seema Mehta

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