Gov. Gavin Newsom’s much-teased campaign to redraw California’s congressional districts and offset an identical GOP-led effort in Texas ahead of the 2026 midterm elections launched Thursday with a slick ad and major show of support from organized labor, state legislators and Congressional Democrats.

Newsom, union leaders David Huerta and Lorena Gonzalez, Planned Parenthood chief executive Jodi Hicks, State Sen. Sabrina Cervantes and Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, Rep. Pete Aguilar, and Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla spoke from the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in Los Angeles.

The governor connected President Donald Trump’s request that Texas Republicans redraw districts to eke out another five House seats to the Jan. 6 insurrection, rollbacks on abortion rights, Trump’s dismantling of federal agencies and targeting of law firms, universities and museums, and federal deportation raids in California.

“Wake up America. Wake up to what Donald Trump is doing. Wake up to the assault on institutions and knowledge and history,” Newsom said. “He’s trying to rewrite history, Smithsonian censorship and historical facts... He’s trying to put America in reverse on voting rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, on women’s rights. He wants to bring us back to a pre-1960s world. That’s what this is all about. It’s about power.”

Rally attendees waved blue campaign signs that read “Defend Democracy” and “Election Rigging Response Act,” the name of the legislation that California lawmakers are expected to introduce next week. Immigration agents arrested people outside the center, the site where Japanese-Americans bound for internment during World War II were rounded up.

Newsom’s office called it an attempt at intimidation, and in his speech, he also referenced “the museum around the corner” known as Beit HaShoah, or the Museum of Tolerance, which spotlights the Holocaust.

The Legislature is expected to launch a similar campaign, and is poised to release proposed maps on Friday targeting five districts currently held by Republican Reps. Kevin Kiley, Darrell Issa, Ken Calvert, Doug LaMalfa and David Valadao. Newsom has asked lawmakers to pass a constitutional amendment via a two-thirds vote that would allow voters to vote on new maps in a special Nov. 4 election.

Newsom told reporters after the rally that the legislation, which lawmakers will pass by the end of next week, would contain a self-destructing provision if Texas or other red states don’t move forward with redistricting. The Senate elections committee set its first hearing for next Tuesday.

Redistricting fight started in Texas

In June, Trump began pressing Texas Republicans to shore up the GOP House majority by redrawing congressional districts so that Congress could keep enacting his policy agenda. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called lawmakers back to Austin to eke out five more Republican seats, prompting Texas Democrats to flee the state to deny Republicans enough votes to move forward.

For weeks, Newsom urged other Democrats to get on board with an aggressive counterstrategy, calling Trump’s request a corrupt bid to end democracy by dictating election outcomes. Similar efforts have now spread to blue states like Illinois, Maryland and New York, as well as red ones like Ohio, Indiana and Missouri.

“He (Trump) doesn’t play by a different set of rules. He doesn’t believe in the rules,” Newsom said Thursday. “It’s not good enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil and talk about the way the world should be. 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 high level of accountability.”

California Democrats, who were initially hesitant to redistrict outside of an independent commission-led process and a Census count, have overcome those doubts in recent days. State lawmakers were shown numbers last week that estimated 63% of likely voters rejected Texas’ redistricting efforts and wanted California to act. On Thursday, another poll by Politico and pollster Jack Citrin showed 64% of respondents wanted redistricting power to remain in the hands of the independent Citizen Redistricting Commission.

Political data scientist Paul Mitchell is believed to be drafting the maps. Mitchell, who is married to Hicks, has publicly declined to comment but has had a hand in prior redistricting efforts. The maps would be in effect for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections before reverting back to the independent Citizen Redistricting Commission. The election is expected to cost over $200 million; Newsom said there “is no price tag for democracy.”

Opposition to California redistricting

A handful of good governance groups — allied with former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican donor Charles Munger — are opposing letting lawmakers redistrict. They have not commanded the same amount of airtime as Newsom, who has emerged as the Democrats’ loudest champion for reciprocal redistricting. He and rally speakers said redistricting was necessary to end Trump’s presidency.

“This is about whether we will let the authoritarian in the White House break our democracy while we sit silent, while we take a high road that doesn’t exist anymore. Now isn’t that moment,” Bryan said. “Now is the time to square up and defend all that we deserve, all that we’ve built, all that makes this country truly great, and it’s really special to start this off here in Los Angeles.”

The president has avoided publicly addressing Newsom while threatening to send the National Guard to blue cities like Oakland and Los Angeles, falsely claiming they’re hotbeds of violent crime. Newsom told reporters he had spoken with Schwarzenegger, and reiterated his support for the redistricting commission, which passed during Schwarzenegger’s administration.

Munger, via spokesperson Amy Thoma Tan, doubled down on his previous threats to block redistricting.

“While what Texas is doing is wrong, it is fundamentally different from what is happening in California. It is highly likely, due to the fact that the Citizens Redistricting Commission is part of California’s Constitution, that what California is doing won’t hold up in court,” Thoma Tan said in an email.

“Charles Munger will vigorously defend the reforms he helped pass, including nonpartisan redistricting. His previous success in passing ballot measures in California means he knows exactly what is needed to be successful. We will have the resources necessary to make our coalition heard, and we have opened a campaign committee so we can do so.”

Common Cause changed its position

Earlier this week, Common Cause walked back some of its trepidation, saying the moment required an extraordinary response and called upon Newsom and other Democrats to endorse voting rights reforms.

“Common Cause hasn’t shifted. The landscape has,” President Virginia Kase Solomón told reporters during a Wednesday media briefing.

California Republicans, greatly outnumbered by the Democratic supermajority, said they would continue to focus on drawing attention to the map-drafting process, which they said is being done “in secret.”

“Their plan? Reveal the maps at the last minute, then ram them through with no real opportunity for public input. That’s not democracy,” the Assembly Republican caucus said in a statement. “It’s a power grab...If Sacramento politicians can toss out the maps your independent commission drew, they can toss out every voter-approved reform.”

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