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Democratic leaders in the Democrat-dominated California legislature are expected as early as Friday to unveil their new proposed congressional district maps that would create up to five more blue-leaning U.S. House seats in the nation’s most populous state.
The revealing of the maps is coming after two-term Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom teamed up in Los Angeles with congressional Democrats and legislative leaders in the heavily blue state to unveil their redistricting playbook.
Newsom and the Democrats are aiming to counter the ongoing effort by President Donald Trump and Republicans to create up to five GOP-friendly congressional districts in red state Texas at the expense of currently Democrat-controlled seats.
“Today is liberation day in the state of California,” Newsom said. “Donald Trump, you have poked the bear, and we will punch back.”
ABBOTT, TEXAS REPUBLICANS MAKE NEW PUSH FOR TRUMP-BACKED REDISTRICTING AS FLEEING DEMOCRATS TO END WALKOUT
Newsom vowed to “meet fire with fire” with his push for a rare—but not unheard of—mid-decade redistricting.
Newsom says Trump missed a deadline to stand down on his push to redistrict in Texas.
“DONALD ‘TACO’ TRUMP, AS MANY CALL HIM, ‘MISSED’ THE DEADLINE!!! CALIFORNIA WILL NOW DRAW NEW, MORE ‘BEAUTIFUL MAPS,’ THEY WILL BE HISTORIC AS THEY WILL END THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY (DEMS TAKE BACK THE HOUSE!),” Newsom wrote earlier this week in a social media post posted by his press office, which was meant to mock how Trump writes his own social media posts.
The Republican push in Texas, which comes at Trump’s urging, is part of a broader effort by the GOP across the country to pad their razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in the 2026 midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.
NEWSOM DEMANDS TRUMP GIVE UP TEXAS REDISTRICTING PUSH
Trump and his political team are aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House, when Democrats stormed back to grab the House majority in the 2018 midterms.
But while the Republican push in Texas to upend the current congressional maps doesn’t face constitutional constraints, Newsom’s path in California is much more complicated.
The governor is pushing to hold a special election this year, to obtain voter approval to undo the constitutional amendments that created the non-partisan redistricting commission.
A two-thirds majority vote in the Democrat-dominated California legislature as early as next week would be needed to hold the referendum. Democratic Party leaders are confident they’ll have the votes to push the constitutional amendment and the new proposed congressional maps through the legislature.
“Here we are in open and plain sight before one vote is cast in the 2026 midterm election, and here [Trump] is once again trying to rig the system,” Newsom charged.
Newsom said his plan is “not complicated. We’re doing this in reaction to a President of the United States that called a sitting governor in the state of Texas and said, ‘Find me five seats.’ We’re doing it in reaction to that act.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) charged that “Newsom’s made it clear: he’ll shred California’s Constitution and trample over democracy – running a cynical, self-serving playbook where Californians are an afterthought, and power is the only priority.”
But Newsom defended his actions, saying “we’re working through a very transparent, temporary and public process. We’re putting the maps on the ballot and putting the power to the people.”
Thursday’s appearance by Newsom, who is considered a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, also served as a fundraising kickoff to raise massive amounts of campaign cash needed to sell the redistricting push statewide in California.
SCHWARZENEGGER’S NEW STARING ROLE: PUSHING BACK AGAINST NEWSOM’S REDISTRICTING DRIVE
The non-partisan redistricting commission, created over 15 years ago, remains popular with most Californians, according to public opinion polling.
That’s why Newsom and California Democratic lawmakers are promising not to scrap the commission entirely, but rather replace it temporarily by the legislature for the next three election cycles.
“We will affirm our commitment to the state independent redistricting after the 2030 census, but we are asking the voters for their consent to do midterm redistricting,” Newsom said.
But their efforts are opposed by a number of coalition of figures supportive of the non-partisan commission.
Among the most visible members is likely to be former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the last Republican elected governor in Democrat-dominated California.
“I’m getting ready for the gerrymandering battle,” the former governor wrote in a social media post on Friday.
Schwarzenegger, during his tenure as governor, had a starring role in the passage of constitutional amendments in California in 2008 and 2010 that took the power to draw state legislative and congressional districts away from politicians and placed it in the hands of an independent commission.
“Most people don’t really think about an independent commission much, one way or another. And that’s both an opportunity and a challenge for Newsom,” Jack Pitney, an American politics professor at California’s Claremont McKenna College, told Fox News.
But he added that “it’s going to take a lot of effort and money to energize Democrats and motivate them to show up at the polls” and that Newsom’s effort “is all about motivating people who don’t like Trump.”
Fox News’ Lee Ross contributed to this report
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