LOS ANGELES — Proposition 50 is part of a spiraling national fight over redistricting, instigated by President Donald Trump, that could determine the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 election.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats in the state Legislature put Proposition 50 on California's Nov. 4 ballot after the Texas GOP began discussing a new map that would help elect five more Republicans to Congress.

The Republican Party holds the House by such a slim margin that any changes to state maps could have an effect on the balance of power in Washington.

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

If voters approve Proposition 50, Golden State Democrats would see the odds tilted further in their favor, while the number of Republicans representing California in Washington, D.C., could be reduced by half.

What will the measure do?

Proposition 50 would mark a sudden departure from California's 15-year commitment to independent redistricting, often held up as the country's gold standard.

During the Great Recession, California voters stripped state lawmakers of the power to draw the lines, and handed that power to a panel of 14 citizens.

The panel works to create districts for state lawmakers and for members of Congress that are contiguous and roughly equal in population. The districts must also follow the federal Voting Rights Act and group together "communities of interest," a wide-reaching term of art for people who share languages, cultures, backgrounds, interests, ways of life or other traits.

California has 43 Democrats and nine Republicans in the House. Proposition 50 would shift five more House districts into competitive or easily winnable territory for Democrats.

The new map would eliminate the Inland Empire district of Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, the longest-serving member of California's Republican delegation, and create a new seat in Los Angeles County that would skew heavily toward Democrats.

The map would also dilute the number of GOP voters in the districts represented by Reps. Doug LaMalfa in Northern California, Kevin Kiley in Greater Sacramento, David Valadao in the San Joaquin Valley and Darrell Issa near San Diego.

The maps would apply to the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. After the 2030 U.S. Census, California would return to having its lines drawn by the independent redistricting panel.

How did California get here?

In June, Trump's political team began pushing Republicans in Texas to redraw the state's 38 congressional districts. Doing so in the middle of the decade is very uncommon and would give Republicans a better shot at keeping power in the House after the 2026 election.

Within a month of the White House floating the idea, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott agreed to attempt to unseat as many as five Texas Democrats, and added the gerrymandered map to the Legislature's special session in July.

By mid-July, Newsom began talking about California punching back. Consultants for the campaign arm of House Democrats quietly drew up maps that would further reduce the number of California Republicans in Congress.

The Democratic-controlled state Legislature acted swiftly in mid-August and put the maps on the ballot.

Under pressure from Trump, other Republican-led states — including Indiana, Florida and Missouri — are now contemplating their own redistricting plans to increase the number of Republicans in the House.

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, spelled out the stakes in an interview with a local radio station, saying that if a state is not "getting involved as well as you can on the political side, you probably are not going to be the first call when it comes to the benefits" being offered by the Trump administration.

Who supports Proposition 50 and why?

The main backers of Proposition 50 are Democrats and their allies, including high-profile politicians from across the country and some of California's most powerful labor unions.

Newsom has argued that California has no choice but to "fight fire with fire" against what he has characterized as Trump's attempts to steal the 2026 midterm elections by redrawing state lines to favor his own party. Without California's redrawn maps, it's more likely that Republicans would retain control of the House.

"We wouldn't be here if Texas had not done what they just did, if Donald Trump didn't do what he just did," Newsom said in August.

Winning control of the House is the most immediate way for the Democratic Party to act as a check on the Trump administration and on actions that are harming California, including separating families through immigration raids, the clawing back of billions of dollars of federal research grants, and slashing funding for Medicaid.

In contrast to the independent redistricting commission, which does its work in public, the maps were drawn behind closed doors in Sacramento, leading to criticisms that the process was undemocratic. The Yes on 50 campaign said the decision is still ultimately up to voters, who created the independent redistricting commission and have the right to unwind it.

The Proposition 50 campaign has raised more than $61 million from Democratic organizations and many of California's most prominent and powerful labor unions.

The cause has drawn some big-name individual donors as well, campaign filings show: Democratic megadonor George Soros contributed $10 million; San Francisco venture capitalist Michael Moritz, $2.5 million; Netflix chairman Reed Hastings, $2 million; and former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham, $500,000 each.

Who opposes Proposition 50 and why?

The opposition to Proposition 50 includes some of California's best-known Republicans, including former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The groups opposing Proposition 50 have raised more than $35 million, with the vast majority coming from Republican donor Charles Munger Jr., the son of the former Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman. Munger has bankrolled several political reform efforts in California, including ballot measures in 2008 and 2010 that established independent redistricting and shifted the state's primary system to a top-two, nonpartisan system.

Munger's group, Protect Voters First, is targeting voters without a stated party preference. The group says that politicians drawing the lines of their districts is wrong no matter what party is doing it, and that reverting to partisan maps would be a step backward for California, which has been a leader in good governance reform, regardless of what Texas or other Republican states do.

Schwarzenegger, who backed Munger's earlier good governance efforts, is appearing in an ad for the group, in which he says that politicians want to "take us backwards."

The group has also said that the measure would dilute political power for rural voters and for some communities of color. The campaign argues that cities that are split apart into different congressional districts are more badly fractured than they would be under the current maps.

McCarthy is helping to raise money for Stop Sacramento's Power Grab, which is run by former California GOP chair Jessica Millan Patterson. That group has received $5 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund, the political and campaign arm of House Republicans. The group is leaning more heavily into partisan messaging, calling the measure "Newsom's power grab" and describing it as an insider effort by Democrats to ensure Democrats are reelected, "even when they fail to do their jobs."

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