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CHICO, Calif. – Voting began this week for a statewide special election that would drastically alter California’s congressional map. Proposition 50, or Prop 50, could add as many as five Democratic-held seats in Congress in time for the 2026 midterms.
The measure asks California voters to temporarily allow the legislature to decide the state’s district maps through 2030, after which the power would return to the independent California Citizens Redistricting Commission. If Prop 50 wins, it could leave as a few as four Republican-held seats across the state after 2026.
Recent polling shows Prop 50 will likely pass. Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democrats say Prop 50 is a necessary countermeasure to Republican-led redistricting efforts in Texas.
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The entrance to California State University, Chico. (Amalia Roy)
However, UC Davis Professor Jim Adams warned a win for the Democrats in the short term could have negative long-term consequences.
“I think that even if Prop 50 does help the Democrats win a handful of additional seats in California, by winning the battle in California, the Democrats may make themselves lose the war nationally,” Adams told Fox.
Adams, a Democrat, said he agrees with Prop 50 supporters that he wants to see something done to curb Republican redistricting efforts in other parts of the country.
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“There is certainly a visceral satisfaction for the Democrats in feeling that Proposition 50 helps them to fight back. I don’t question the Democrats need to fight back. The question is, are they fighting smart with Proposition 50,” he added.
Prop 50 has the potential to spark political backlash, not only within California Republicans or independents in 2026, but on a national scale during the presidential election in 2028.
If Prop 50 passes, California’s northern districts risk going from mostly red to completely blue after the midterms.
The downtown area of Chico, California. (Amalia Roy)
Chico, California, sits in Republican-held District 1, which is represented by Rep. Doug LaMalfa. It’s one of the districts targeted in Prop 50. The proposed map would likely flip the district by pulling in voters from closer to the more Democrat-leaning Bay Area.
In 2024, President Donald Trump won Butte County by about 3,000 votes over then-Vice President Kamala Harris. On the streets of downtown Chico, that political split showed when asking voters their feelings on Prop 50.
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Don Tarman and Martin Bettencourt both said they support the proposition, adding that it’s a reaction to Trump’s presidency.
“We agree with Gavin Newsom that Trump is trying to sway the election for the House. He picked up supposedly five votes in Texas. We’ll see how the vote comes out when we get to the election. But yeah, we’re not Trump fans. I think Gavin Newsom is trying to fight back a little bit,” Tarman said.
Bettencourt said he doesn’t typically support redistricting, but this is “a different time.”
“I don’t like redistricting. I think it’s mean to the voters. I think they take away power from them, because they move it around and adjust it,” he said. “I think we’re in kind of a different time, so we’re reacting off the top of the ticket, which is the president, and we have to do what we have to do to compensate for that until we get someone better in a position of power.”
A ballot box sitting outside the Butte County Library, Chico branch. (Amalia Roy)
Jim Henderson and Eleanor Engelbrecht are among those who don’t agree with the proposition – both of them saying that redistricting in California is not an ideal response to the efforts in Texas.
“When say they do it in Iowa, then do we have to have Oregon do the same thing and the next thing you know everything is being gerrymandered? It’s unfortunate the governor of Texas didn’t recognize that this wasn’t an appropriate way of dealing with the elections, but he made his decision, and I don’t think we should feel compelled to say, well, if you’re gonna do it, we’re gonna do it also,” Henderson said.
Engelbrecht said the country is going through enough change and things need to just “settle.”
“Right now, we’re going through a lot of change already, and I don’t think this is the time we need to be, I don’t know, dusting and cleaning really. I think that we really need to let things settle. I think where our country is at right now, there’s a lot of divide already, and I think really this comes down to defending fair elections,” she said.
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If Prop 50 passes, there will likely be a legal battle. California Republicans are already filing lawsuits against the measure.