California voters head to the polls to decide anti-Trump, pro-Democrat ballot measure

Californians are heading to the polls Tuesday to vote on a Democratic effort to block President Trump’s agenda by increasing their party’s numbers in Congress after the 2026 election.

Proposition 50, a ballot measure about redrawing the state’s congressional districts, was crafted by Democrats after Trump urged Texas and other GOP-led states to modify their congressional maps to favor their party members, a moved designed to keep the U.S. House of Representatives in Republican control during his final two years in office.

Proposition 50 is the sole item on the statewide, special-election ballot Tuesday. Supporters hope the ballot measure has become a referendum about Trump, who remains extremely unpopular in California, while opponents call Prop. 50 an underhanded power grab by Democrats.

So far, supporters of the proposal have the edge. They have vastly outraised their rivals, and Proposition 50 leads in the polls.

Elections are taking place across the nation Tuesday, with the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial contests, the New York City mayoral race and Proposition 50 the most prominent.

California voters have been inundated with television ads, mailers and social media posts for weeks about the high-stakes election, so much so that only 2% of the likely voters were undecided, according to a recent UC Berkeley poll cosponsored by The Times.

“Usually there was always a rule — look at undecideds in late-breaking polls and assume most would vote no,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the survey by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies. “But this poll shows there are very few of them out there.”

Polls open at 7 a.m. Tuesday and close at 8 p.m., although any voter in line at that time is allowed to cast a ballot. The state allows same-day voter registration on Election Day, permitting Californians to cast a conditional ballot that will be counted if their eligibility is verified.

Californians have been voting for weeks. Registered voters received mail ballots about a month ago, and early voting centers recently opened across the state.

Nearly 6.7 million Californians — 29% of the state’s 23 million registered voters — had cast ballots as of Monday, according to a voting tracker run by Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed districts on the ballot. Democrats are outpacing Republicans, though GOP voters are expected to be more likely to vote in person Tuesday.

The gap in early voting has alarmed GOP leaders and strategists.

“In California, we already know they surrendered,” Steve Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist for several months during his first term in office, said on his podcast over the weekend. “Huntington Beach, California … it is full MAGA, one of the most important parts of Southern California, yet we’re going to get blown out, I don’t know, by 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 points on the massive redistricting Prop. 50.”

Congressional districts traditionally are drawn every decade following the U.S. Census. In California, the boundaries are created by an independent commission created by voters in 2010.

But after Trump urged Texas Republicans to alter their House boundaries to boost the number of GOP members in Congress, Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats countered by proposing new districts that could add five Democrats to the state’s 52-member delegation.

The high-stakes elections attracted tens of millions of dollars and a carousel of prominent politicians, notably former President Obama in support and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in opposition, who were featured in ads about the ballot measure, including some that aired during the World Series won by the Dodgers.

Democrats who previously championed independent redistricting to remove partisan politics from the process argue that they needed to suspend that political ideal to stop the president from furthering his agenda during his last two years in the White House.

Citing public opposition to immigration raids that began in Los Angeles in June, the military being deployed in American cities, and cuts to nutrition assistance programs for low-income families and healthcare programs for seniors and the disabled, Democrats argue that winning control of Congress in next year’s election is critical to stopping the president’s agenda.

“Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years,” Obama says in an ad that includes footage of ICE raids. “With Prop. 50, you can stop Republicans in their tracks. Prop. 50 puts our elections back on a level playing field, preserves independent redistricting over the long term, and lets the people decide. Return your ballot today.”

Republicans who oppose the effort countered that Proposition 50 is an affront to the electorate that voted to create an independent redistricting commission.

They want to “take us backwards. This is why it is important for you to vote no on Proposition 50,” Schwarzenegger says in an ad that was filmed when he spoke to USC students. “The Constitution does not start with ‘We, the politicians.’ It starts with ‘We, the people.’ … Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”

More than $193 million has been contributed to committees supporting and opposing Proposition 50, making it one of the costliest ballot measures in state history.

Based on recent polling, the proposition appears likely to be approved by voters. But even if the ballot measure wins, it’s uncertain whether potential Democratic gains in California’s congressional delegation will be enough to offset the number of Republicans elected because of gerrymandering in GOP-led states.