Could a win on California’s Prop 50 aid Gavin Newsom’s presidential hopes?

Gavin Newsom, the California governor, is on the verge of a political victory that, just a few months ago, didn’t exist. In August, a group of Texas Democrats fled their state to block Republicans from approving a rare mid-decade gerrymander to redraw congressional districts at Donald Trump’s urging. Altering the maps in the GOP’s favor would make it even harder for Democrats to take back control of Congress in the midterm elections next year. The Texas Democrats hoped their standoff would be a national call to action. Newsom answered that call. He and his allies raced to introduce a retaliatory gerrymander, pushing the new congressional maps through the state legislature before sending them to the ballot for a high-stakes special election on Tuesday. “It took a lot of courage for Governor Newsom to actually push for this,” said Texas state representative Nicole Collier, a leader of the Democrats’ summer’s walkout. “He worked with his delegation and now they’re taking it to the people and that’s what it looks like to be your brother’s keeper.” Related: California set to approve Prop 50 as voters signal displeasure with Trump Newsom has cast the ballot measure, known as Proposition 50, as a way to safeguard US democracy and end one-party rule in Trump’s Washington next year. If approved, it would suspend the work of California’s independent redistricting commission and allow the legislature to redraw congressional districts to carve out five additional Democratic seats in the US House of Representatives. Proposition 50 wasn’t a fait accompli. Unlike in Texas, where Republicans could muscle through new maps, California’s leaders need voter approval, and early polls revealed a hesitancy for tossing out the state’s mapmaking panel. But Newsom and Democrats bet that rising anger at Trump would energize voters in deep-blue California – a state the White House has taken pleasure in tormenting. “They poked the bear and the bear is poking back,” Newsom said at an event with prominent Democrats in Sacramento on Monday, hours before election day. For a party still struggling to define itself after a second loss to Trump, Newsom’s “fight fire with fire” gambit has given Democrats a glimmer of hope – and the term-limited governor with presidential ambitions a national platform. “He gambled on Prop 50, and it appears almost certain that he will win that gamble,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic consultant who leads the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California. “But more than that is the fact that he fought back – that he dared to do this, that people said it was dangerous for him, and he forged ahead with it anyway.” The fight quickly spilled beyond the Golden state. The “Yes” campaign lined up a string of high-profile endorsements from national Democrats like Barack Obama and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and generated millions in small-dollar donations from supporters outside California – a donor network that could give Newsom an early edge in a crowded 2028 primary field. As the leader of the nation’s largest blue state, Newsom can confront Trump in ways that out-of-power Democrats in Washington – and governors in red or purple states – cannot. If the ballot initiative passes on Tuesday, as expected, it would be a defining national achievement for Newsom. Dave Wasserman, senior elections analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, estimated that the new lines could improve Democrats’ odds of retaking the House by as much as 10% to 15% – a meaningful boost in a chamber likely to be decided by razor-thin margins. But two years from now, when Democrats begin to weigh their nominee, “we’re going to be talking about issues other than redistricting on the primary stage,” he said. The jostling to be on that stage has already begun. Dozens of Democrats may ultimately seek the nomination in 2028. Among them is Kamala Harris, the former vice-president and 2024 Democratic nominee, who has joined Newsom in rallying support for Proposition 50. Other potential contenders include JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor, and Pete Buttigieg, the former transportation secretary. For his part, Newsom has not been coy about his political aspirations. Asked in a CBS News interview whether he was considering a White House run, the governor replied that he was: “I’d be lying otherwise.” Supporters have found his candor refreshing. Last week, Newsom even took the unorthodox step of telling donors that the “Yes” campaign had raised enough money: “You can stop donating now.” Earlier this summer, Newsom traveled to South Carolina, holding campaign-style events in the early-voting state that has played an outsized role in selecting recent Democratic nominees. He’s also made the rounds in the digital arena, slipping in an appeal for his redistricting measure while bantering with former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson on their podcast, All the Smoke, and playing Fortnite with a Twitch streamer known as ConnorEatsPants. But it’s his role as a leading voice in the anti-Trump resistance that has raised his stature among Democrats. Months ago, Newsom abandoned his short-lived experiement in White House diplomacy, choosing instead to go toe-to-toe with a president he accused of behaving like a “dictator” and who, in turn, endorsed the idea of arresting him. Tensions boiled over this summer when Trump sent national guard troops to Los Angeles during immigration raids and protests over Newsom’s objections. Since then, Newsom’s rhetoric has sharpened. He has called on Americans to “wake up” to the threat of Trump’s “wrecking ball” presidency. With help from his social-media savvy staff, Newsom has taken to trolling Trump online, using satire and AI-generated imagery to, in his words, “put a mirror up to that madness”. Still, stepping into the redistricting wars was an escalation, even for a seasoned political brawler. “It further cements Newsom at the tip of the spear of Democrats engaging in a fight against the Trump administration,” said Mike Madrid, an anti-Trump Republican consultant based in Sacramento. Addressing a crowd of volunteers at the Los Angeles convention center on Saturday, Newsom argued that Trump had changed the rules of the game – but miscalculated the Democratic response. “He didn’t expect you to show up. He didn’t expect any of this to happen,” Newsom said. Winning, he added, would take more than “a candle-lit vigil” or a sternly written op-ed in the LA Times. Newsom has been vocal in the debate over where Democrats went astray. Republicans point to the very policies Democrats have championed in states like California – on immigration and public safety – as evidence of progressive overreach. They are already working to cast Newsom, a former mayor of San Francisco, as a coastal elite whose progressive governing record left the nation’s most populous state in disarray. As his profile grows, the governor has tried to shed his image as a California liberal. He has questioned the fairness of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, signed a budget that scaled back healthcare for undocumented immigrants and intensified a crackdown on homeless encampments in the state – issues that could be vulnerabilities in a national campaign. He’s also launched a statewide initiative aimed at helping improve outcomes for disillusioned young men, a voting demographic that Democrats have struggled to reach. Some of the moves have drawn fire from progressives, who have long argued that his liberal crusader reputation belies a far more moderate governing record, and from Republicans, who have decried the shift as political opportunism. Yet Newsom’s redistricting push has united his fractious party and – and nudged him to the top of most early surveys of the Democratic presidential primary field. “This is basically a lame-duck governor with a decidedly mixed record, rebranding himself,” Madrid said. “Is that going to be what determines the winner of the next presidential election? No. Does it put him at the lead of the Democratic pack three years before the election? Yes.” For now, Newsom insists his focus is on Tuesday’s vote and then on winning the House in 2026. If Prop 50 passes, it would hand Democrats a tactical win. But it would give Trump’s antagonist-in-chief something rarer: a national victory that also feels personal. In Los Angeles on Saturday, Newsom called on his state to send Trump a blunt message: “Hell no”. “We are done,” he roared. “We are done with being treated like this.” Above the applause, someone shouted: “Newsom for president!”