California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday said he’s “deeply confident” that California voters this week will approve the state’s Prop 50 ballot measure, which would allow the state to redraw congressional maps on a partisan basis ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
In a wide-ranging interview, the California governor slammed the president’s push for mid-decade redistricting efforts in Republican states across the country, accusing the president of “rigging” next year’s congressional election and warning that Trump “is not screwing around.”
“He’s changing the rules. He’s rigging the game because he knows he’ll lose if all things are equal,” Newsom told Welker. “He did not expect California to fight fire with fire.”
The California governor also spoke about his tactics in pushing back against Trump on social media, telling Welker that he believes he is holding “a mirror up to that madness.”
Asked if there was still room for Democrats to consider former first lady Michelle Obama’s “When they go low, we go high” philosophy, Newsom said, “I would love to go back to that, but politics has changed. The world has changed. The rules of the game have changed.”
“We want to go back to some semblance of normalcy, but you have to deal with the crisis at hand,” the governor said. “It has been just 10 to 11 months of this presidency. We have three more years’ time to batten down the hatches, and it’s time for us to change if we want things to change. And that’s why our communication strategy has shifted. That’s why Prop 50 has shifted the conversation here in California. And I think we’ll shift the debate going into 2026 as a consequence of our success, and I think we, as a party, have become more unified and I think more aligned on what’s at stake.”
Prop 50 push
Newsom has championed the ballot measure, known as Prop 50, in response to a mid-decade redistricting in Texas, where the GOP-controlled Legislature redrew congressional districts to favor Republicans.
That move in Texas could lead to a net gain of five seats for House Republicans in 2026 and has kicked off a wave of redistricting efforts in states including California, Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Louisiana, where state lawmakers have either floated the idea or taken concrete steps to draw new congressional maps ahead of next year’s elections.
On Thursday, former Vice President Kamala Harris, who was the Democratic nominee for president last year, voiced her support for California’s redistricting effort, saying in a post on X that she voted yes on the ballot measure, “because we cannot let anyone silence the will of the people.”
Trump has urged Republican-led states to follow Texas’ lead since he first encouraged the move there in July. He spoke over the phone with Indiana Republicans in October, and Vice President JD Vance has visited Indiana twice this year to bolster the effort.
Newsom slammed Trump for his efforts to promote mid-decade redistricting in Republican-led states, accusing the president of “rigging” next year’s congressional elections.
Trump “is not screwing around. He’s changing the rules. He’s rigging the game because he knows he’ll lose if all things are equal,” Newsom told Welker. “He did not expect California to fight fire with fire.”
The California governor has repeatedly emphasized that he wants Democrats to take back the House next year to ensure Trump’s administration grinds to a halt.
If Democrats win, he said, “there’ll be fire and fury [from the White House], but it will signify substantially less because we’ll finally have a coequal branch of government. So the Trump presidency, as we know it, from my perspective, will be over, if we’re successful in 2026.”
He noted that a Democratic majority will “have subpoena power. They’ll hold hearings. They can actually do something about congressionally approved appropriations.”
Democrats’ brand
Newsom also argued that Democrats’ national brand is growing stronger, even after a bruising year in which the party suffered losses in the presidential and congressional elections and has had some of its lowest approval ratings in decades.
Asked whether the party brand is damaged, Newsom told Welker, “Not right now.”
“Four months ago, if you asked me that question, I would have been struggling to find positive signs of the party. I feel it’s a completely different moment,” he said, citing Tuesday’s elections, which include the vote on California’s ballot measure, New York City’s mayoral election and gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
“I feel like we’re on the precipice of a remarkable moment on Nov. 4,” the governor said. “And we’ve got leaders now that have a united front and a message that’s breaking through on health care, with [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer and [House Minority Leader Hakeem] Jeffries, that give me real confidence that the Democratic Party is on its ascendancy.”
To continue to rebuild the Democratic brand in voters’ eyes, he added, “we’ve got to win.”
“People want to see winners, what matters, momentum, strength, not weakness. I think the one thing that’s marked the Democratic Party in the last number of months, you know, when you get shellacked in an election, when you lose the electoral vote, the popular vote, we lost both houses of Congress … there was concern about our ability to lead at this remarkable moment, the shock and awe coming from Donald Trump,” the governor said. “We were on our heels. We weren’t on our toes. And so I think people want strength. They want clarity and they want conviction.”
Newsom spoke about one of the drivers of distrust in Democrats — Joe Biden’s initial decision to seek re-election and his later decision to drop out of the race in July of last year, with just over 100 days to go before Election Day.
Newsom maintained that he never doubted Biden had the mental acuity and fortitude to serve another term.
Newsom was a staunch supporter of Biden’s re-election bid, from the moment Biden announced his campaign to the moment he dropped out of the race.
