SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – On a warm Saturday afternoon in the town of Goleta, local volunteer Aubrey Lugo was walking down a suburban sidewalk with a stack of flyers in her arms.
Although it was his first time knocking on the door of a political campaign, he said he felt compelled to join the fight to pass the statewide bill known as Proposition 50.
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“It feels like a dire situation,” Lugo said, looking at houses decked out in Halloween decorations. “We are trying to fight the rigging of our democracy.”
Proposition 50 is a measure on California’s November 4th ballot, but its success or failure will affect elections in 2025 and beyond.
The bill would give California voters the choice of whether to adopt a congressional map designed to give Democrats five more seats in the House.
Supporters say the measure is needed to counter similar Republican efforts in other parts of the country. Opponents say Prop. 50 would deprive California Republicans of their voice in Congress.
Both sides are running their campaigns as a fight to defend democracy and ensure fair representation.
The results of Tuesday’s vote are likely to have a major impact on the 2026 midterm elections, which will see majorities in the House of Representatives contested.
President Trump’s Republican Party currently holds a slim majority in the House of Representatives, and next year’s midterm elections are likely to be a referendum on the president’s second term in office.
To maintain control of the House majority, Mr. Trump himself successfully pushed for partisan maps to be drawn in Republican strongholds such as Texas.
California’s ballot initiative designed in response has already garnered widespread attention and drawn influential figures from around the country into the state’s fight. President Trump denounced the vote as “dishonest,” while his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, praised its importance.
President Obama endorsed the bill in a social media post, saying, “This vote will have a significant impact.” “Not just for California, but for our entire country.”
Reply to Texas
California Governor Gavin Newsom first announced that Prop. 50 would go to voters in mid-August, arguing that Democrats could not afford a “unilateral disarmament” while the Republican state pursued partisan congressional districts.
“We’re asking voters to agree to midterm redistricting on our congressional maps in 2026, 2028 and 2030 to address what’s happening in Texas,” Newsom said.
Texas was the inspiration for Proposition 50. In June, reports emerged that the Trump administration was secretly pressuring politicians in southern states to redistrict their congressional districts ahead of the crucial 2026 midterm elections.
Each district elects its own members of Congress. And with the margins so close in the House, just a handful of votes could make or break the bill.
Republicans currently hold a slim majority of 219 seats, just six more than Democrats.
Fearing Democratic gains in the midterm elections, the Republican-led Texas Legislature ultimately passed new congressional maps drawn to disadvantage Democratic voters and win seats for Republicans.
Red-leaning states such as North Carolina and Missouri are also pursuing their own initiatives.
Many see California’s voting measure as a test of whether Democrats are willing to counter President Trump’s efforts to reshape the election landscape, even if it means adopting methods they may oppose.
“If the Democratic states don’t do what Texas did, all the other Republican states will do the same,” said Doug Allard, a 77-year-old Goleta resident who voted yes.
Suspend a bipartisan commission?
But in California, the state legislature cannot simply vote on a new congressional map.
That’s because in the 2010 election, California voters assigned that task to a nonpartisan group called the Citizens Redistricting Commission, which draws maps with proportional representation in mind.
The November ballot measure would not eliminate the commission. However, it will remain inactive until 2030, and the existing maps will be replaced with new maps created by Congress.
As a result, far fewer California Republicans will be elected to Congress.
“In the last election, nine districts in California were decided by less than seven percentage points,” Samuel Wang, director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, told Al Jazeera. “Our estimate is that if Prop. 50 passes, only one district will be close to that.”
The campaign supporting Prop. 50 has emphasized the temporary nature of the change, with a bipartisan commission expected to resume work within five years.
Newsom also said California would abandon the measure if Texas did the same with partisan maps.
Supporters also point out that California voters will have a chance to decide whether to adopt the new congressional map, while Texas voters did not.
Those warnings are seen as important in appealing to California voters, who typically view gerrymandering as anti-democratic. California has previously touted its bipartisan commission as an example of fair districting.
national battle
An ad campaign featuring national figures such as President Obama and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also sought to allay fears, casting Prop. 50 as a necessary bulwark against a Republican power grab.
“Proposition 50 levels the playing field and gives power back to the people,” Ocasio-Cortez said, calling the vote part of “the fight for democracy in all 50 states.”
But opponents worry the ballot measure would give state and national politicians the power to manipulate voting districts to secure majorities at the expense of individual voters.
Experts like Wang also believe California voters face a tradeoff. This measure embodies the tension between protecting fair representation at the local and federal levels.
“The argument is that there is no point in having fairly elected representatives in your district if there are many opinions that oppose the policies you support at the national level,” Wang said.
He noted that much of the debate surrounding Prop. 50 revolves around national politics, with most supporters united in opposition to President Trump’s policies.
“It seems to me that voters are looking at this issue through a national lens,” Wang said.
escalation of retaliation
Some critics have also expressed concern about the risk of continued escalating tit-for-tat tactics between Democrats and Republicans.
Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who has long been involved in anti-gerrymandering efforts, is one of the most prominent voices urging voters to reject Proposition 50.
“There’s this war going on across America. Who can outsmart the others?” Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a recent television interview.
“Texas started it. They did something terribly wrong, and then suddenly California said, ‘Well, we have to do something terribly wrong.'” And now other states are getting in on the act. ”
One way to defuse redistricting disputes could be to pass bipartisan reforms at the national level, Wang said. Such reforms would prevent states from drawing maps that favor one party or the other.
“There is abundant evidence that independent commissions produce fairer maps than the legislature,” Wang said.
Democratic lawmakers have previously proposed legislation that would make nonpartisan redistricting a national practice, but it has failed to garner support from Republicans. Rising tensions may make such an effort even less likely in the current political environment.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced it would send federal agents to California to “monitor” the Nov. 4 election for fraud. Newsom criticized the announcement as an act of voter intimidation aimed at reducing turnout and casting doubt on the results.
Trump has a long history of aggressively promoting conspiracy theories about a “rigged” election, particularly regarding his loss in the 2020 presidential election. This rhetoric was used to justify a series of aggressive efforts to deny the election results.
Voters like Hank, 77, of California, who asked that his last name not be used, cited the Trump administration’s actions as a reason for voting “yes” on Proposition 50.
“We cannot allow current trends to prevail. Other states are gerrymandering and our country is too endangered,” Hank said. “My concerns are at the national level.”
