Vowing to “meet fire with fire,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced that his state would hold a ballot initiative seeking to redraw its congressional districts as a countermeasure to the gerrymandering push by President Donald Trump and Republicans in Texas ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Newsom made the announcement in a speech laden with anti-Trump rhetoric as Border Patrol agents swarmed outside the Los Angeles auditorium.
The Democrat, who has made major steps toward running for president in 2028, said that he would request the state legislature take up the bill, which would require two-thirds of the vote to pass and reach a ballot.
“We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt, and we have got to meet fire with fire, and we’ve got to be held to a higher level accountability,” Newsom said.
Newsom’s announcement at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo comes after Trump pressed the Texas legislature to reconvene in a rare mid-Census redraw of its congressional districts to give Republicans five more seats. In response, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, convened a special session of the legislature, which usually only meets for half of the year.
In response, many Democrats in the Texas state House of Representatives decamped to blue states including Illinois, California and New York to prevent a quorum from being reached and a vote being held on the redraw.
Typically, states redo their maps every 10 years in response to the Census data. But Republicans want to shore up their slim House majority as they continue to lag in the generic ballot ahead of the 2026 midterm election.
California’s constitution requires that redistricting be done by a nonpartisan commission after a 2010 by ballot initiative. But Newsom said that Trump’s moves forced Democrats to change.
“We’re doing it mindful that we want to model better behavior, as we’ve been doing for 15 years in the State of California with our independent redistricting commission,” he said. “But we cannot unilaterally disarm.”
On Thursday, Texas Democrats said that they would return once the session ends and once California unveils its new map.
Newsom sought to draw a distinction between his efforts to redraw the map and those Texas Republicans.
“We didn’t receive a phone call from the president united states to then quietly go in the back room and start drawing maps and legislatively try to jam them through against the people,” Newsom said. “We’re doing precisely the opposite. We’re working through a very transparent, temporary and public process.”
The move would mean that if Texas moves forward with its map, California could redraw its congressional map to give House Democrats extra seats from the Golden State.
But a ballot measure would be a herculean effort, wherein not only two-thirds of the legislature approve of it, but also that voters turn out for the vote to allow that for the state to redraw the map.
“We will affirm our commitment to the State Independent Redistricting after the 2030 census,” Newsom said. “But we’re asking the voters for their consent to do midterm redistricting in 2026, 2028 and 2030 for the congressional maps to respond to what’s happening in Texas, to respond what Trump is trying to excite and we’ll do so in a way that also affirms our desire as a state to level the playing field all across the United States.”
Newsom’s fight represents just the latest sticking point he has had with Trump since the president returned to office in January. Trump said when he first visited California after the wildfires ravaged the Los Angeles area that he demanded the state adopt a voter ID law to receive federal dollars.
Then in June, Trump dispatched Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Los Angeles, specifically at places like Home Depot, as part of his plans for mass deportation. In response to protests that at times led to the destruction of property, Trump sent the National Guard to Los Angeles without Newsom’s consent.
“Wake up America,” he said. “This is serious moment. Wake up to what’s going on. Wake up to the fear, the anxiety. Wake up to what’s happening. Not just here in Los Angeles, where we saw our streets militarized.”
Newsom has also taken steps to show he is interested in running for president, including visiting South Carolina, which holds the one first presidential primaries for the Democratic Party. He also served as a major attack dog for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for most of the 2024 election.
The effort also reflects a larger change in attitude among Democratic voters, who want to see their leaders take a less conciliatory approach toward Republicans and focus more on attacking them.
“Here we are in plain sight before one vote is cast in the 2026 midterm election and here he is once again trying to rig the system,” Newsom said. “He does not play by a different set of rules, he does not believe in the rules. And as a consequence, we need to disabuse ourselves of the way that things have been done.”
But Texas is not the only Republican state to try and change their maps to squeeze out Republican seats. Vice President JD Vance visited Indiana to try and convince them to change their maps. Other potential states include Ohio, Missouri and Florida.
