Deep within the badlands of defeat, Democrats have soul-searched about what went unsuitable final November, tinkered with a thousand-plus thinkpieces and desperately solid for a technique to reboot their stalled-out celebration.
Amid the noise, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has just lately championed an unlikely recreation plan: Neglect the excessive street, struggle hearth with hearth and embrace the very techniques that virtue-minded Democrats have lengthy decried.
Might the darkish artwork of political gerrymandering be the factor that saves democracy from Trump’s more and more authoritarian impulses? That’s basically the pitch Newsom is making to California voters together with his audacious new particular election marketing campaign.
As Texas Democrats dig in to dam a Republican-led redistricting push and Trump muscle tissue to consolidate energy wherever he can, Newsom needs to redraw California’s personal congressional districts to favor Democrats.
His objective: counter Trump’s drive for extra GOP Home seats with an influence play of his personal.
It’s a boundary-pushing gamble that can undoubtedly supercharge Newsom’s political star within the short-term. The long-game glory may very well be even grander, however provided that he pulls it off. A ballot-box flop can be brutal for each Newsom and his celebration.
The charismatic California governor is termed out of workplace in 2026 and has made no secret of his 2028 presidential ambitions.
However the distinct scent of his house state shall be arduous to utterly slough off in elements of the nation the place California is synonymous with loony lefties, business-killing regulation and an out-of-control homelessness disaster. To say nothing of Newsom’s ill-fated dinner at an elite Napa restaurant in violation of COVID-19 protocols — a misstep that energized a failed recall try and nonetheless haunts the governor’s nationwide repute.
The redistricting gambit is the type of massive play that would redefine how voters throughout the nation see Newsom.
The technique may very well be a boon for Newsom’s 2028 ambitions throughout a second when Democrats are hungry for leaders, mentioned Democratic strategist Steven Maviglio. Nevertheless it’s additionally a large roll of the cube for each Newsom and the state he leads.
“It’s nice politics for him if this passes,” Maviglio mentioned. “If it fails, he’s useless within the water.”
The trail ahead — which may decide management of Congress in 2026 — is hardly a straight shot.
The “Election Rigging Response Act,” as Newsom has named his poll measure, would quickly scrap the congressional districts enacted by the state’s voter-approved impartial redistricting fee.
Below the proposal, Democrats may decide up 5 seats presently held by Republicans whereas bolstering susceptible Democratic incumbent Reps. Adam Grey, Josh More durable, George Whitesides, Derek Tran and Dave Min, which might save the celebration thousands and thousands of {dollars} in expensive reelection fights.
However first the Democratic-led state Legislature should vote to position the measure on the Nov. 4 poll after which it have to be authorised by voters.
If handed, the initiative would have a “set off,” which means the redrawn map wouldn’t take impact except Texas or one other GOP-led state moved ahead with its personal gerrymandering effort.
“I feel what Governor Newsom and different Democrats are doing right here is precisely the best factor we have to do,” Democratic Nationwide Committee Chairman Ken Martin mentioned Thursday.
“We’re not bringing a pencil to a knife struggle. We’re going to convey a bazooka to a knife struggle, proper? This isn’t your grandfather’s Democratic Celebration,” Martin mentioned, including that they shouldn’t be the one ones enjoying by a algorithm that now not exist.
For Democrats like Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), who appeared alongside Newsom to kick off the hassle, there’s “some heartbreak” to quickly shelving their dedication to impartial redistricting. However she and others had been clear-eyed about the necessity to cease a president “keen to rig the election midstream,” she mentioned.
Friedman mentioned she was listening to overwhelmingly constructive reactions to the proposal from all types of Democratic teams on the bottom.
“The response that I get is, ‘Lastly, we’re combating. We have now a option to struggle again that’s tangible,’” Friedman recounted.
Nonetheless, regardless of the state’s Democratic voter registration benefit, victory for the poll measure will hardly be assured. California voters have twice rallied for impartial redistricting on the poll field within the final 20 years and lots of could wrestle to desert these beliefs.
A POLITICO-Citrin Middle-Chance Lab ballot discovered that voters desire preserving an impartial panel in place to attract district traces by an almost two-to-one margin, and that impartial redistricting is broadly common within the state.
(Newsom’s press workplace argued that the ballot was poorly worded, because it requested about eliminating the impartial fee altogether and completely returning line-drawing energy to the legislators, reasonably than simply quickly scrapping their work for a number of cycles till the impartial fee subsequent attracts new traces.)
California voters mustn’t anticipate to see a particular election marketing campaign centered on the minutia of reconfiguring the state’s congressional districts, nonetheless.
Whereas many opponents will possible assault the change as undercutting the desire of California voters, who overwhelmingly supported weeding politics out of the redistricting course of, financial institution on Newsom casting the marketing campaign as a referendum on Trump and his devious effort to maintain Republicans accountable for Congress.
Newsom employed an analogous technique when he demolished the Republican-led recall marketing campaign towards him in 2021, which the governor portrayed as a “life and loss of life” battle towards “Trumpism” and far-right anti-vaccine and antiabortion activists. Amongst California’s Democratic-heavy citizens, that message proved to be extraordinarily efficient.
“Get up, America,” Newsom mentioned Thursday at a Los Angeles rally launching the marketing campaign for the redistricting measure. “Get up to what Donald Trump is doing. Get up to his assault. Get up to the assault on establishments and information and historical past. Get up to his struggle on science, public well being, his struggle towards the American individuals.”
Kevin Liao, a Democratic strategist who has labored on nationwide and statewide campaigns, mentioned his D.C. and California-based political group chats had been blowing up in latest days with texts concerning the second Newsom was creating for himself.
A lot of Liao’s group chat fodder has concerned the output of Newsom’s digital staff, which has elevated trolling to an artwork kind on its official @GovPressOffice account on the social media web site X.
The missives have largely mimicked the president’s personal social media patois, with hyperbole, petty insults and a heavy reliance on the “caps lock” key.
“DONALD IS FINISHED — HE IS NO LONGER ‘HOT.’ FIRST THE HANDS (SO TINY) AND NOW ME — GAVIN C. NEWSOM — HAVE TAKEN AWAY HIS ‘STEP,’ ” one of many posts learn final week, dutifully reposted by the governor himself.
Some messages have additionally ended with Newsom’s initials (a riff on Trump’s signature “DJT” signoff) and sprinkled in key Trumpian callbacks, just like the phrase “Liberation Day,” or a doctored Time Journal cowl with Newsom’s smiling mien. The account has garnered 150,000 new followers for the reason that starting of the month.
Shortly after Trump took workplace in January, Newsom walked a effective line between criticizing the president and his insurance policies and being extra diplomatic, particularly after the California wildfires — in hopes of interesting to any semblance of compassion and presidential duty Trump possessed.
Newsom had spent the primary months of the brand new administration making an attempt to reshape the California-vs.-Trump narrative that dominated the president’s first time period and transfer away from his celebration’s prior “resistance” model.
These conciliatory overtures coincided with Newsom’s embrace of a extra ecumenical posture, internet hosting MAGA leaders on his podcast and taking a place on transgender athletes’ participation in girls’s sports activities that contradicted the Democratic orthodoxy.
Newsom insisted that he engaged in these conversations to higher perceive political beliefs that diverged from his personal, particularly after Trump’s victory in November. Nevertheless, there was the unmistakable whiff of an formidable politician making an attempt to broaden his nationwide attraction by inching away from his repute as a West Coast liberal.
Newsom’s reluctance to readopt the Trump resistance mantle ended after the president despatched California Nationwide Guard troops into Los Angeles amid immigration sweeps and ensuing protests in June. These actions revealed Trump’s unchecked vindictiveness and abject lack of morals and honor, Newsom mentioned.
Of late, Newsom has defended the juvenile tone of his press aides’ posts mocking Trump’s personal all-caps screeds, and questioned why critics would excoriate his parody and never the president’s personal unhinged social media utterances.
“In the event you’ve received points with what I’m placing out, you certain as hell ought to have issues about what he’s placing out as president,” Newsom mentioned final week. “So to the extent it’s gotten some consideration, I’m happy.”
In an attention-deficit economic system the place standing out is half the battle, the posts sparkle with unapologetic swagger. And so they clarify that Newsom is in on the joke.
“To a sure set of oldsters who operated beneath the previous guidelines, this may very well be seen as, ‘Wow, that is actually outlandish.’ However I feel they’re making the calculation that Democrats need people which can be going to play beneath this new algorithm that Trump has established,” Liao mentioned.
At a second when the Democratic celebration continues to be occupied with post-defeat recriminations and what’s-next imaginative and prescient boarding, Newsom has emerged from the lavatory with one thing resembling a plan.
And he’s betting the home on his deep-blue state’s willingness to struggle hearth with hearth.
Occasions workers writers Seema Mehta and Laura Nelson contributed to this report.
