Gavin Newsom wasn't on the ballot -- but Prop 50's passage made him a massive winner

Gavin Newsom’s 2028 chances got a big boost after California voters approved redistricting
Spearheading the fight to counter Trump-led efforts to expand the GOP House majority stands to help the governor in a 2028 presidential primary.

Nov. 5, 2025, 6:00 AM EST
By Dan Schnur, former Republican campaign strategist and professor of politics and communications at Berkeley, Pepperdine University and USC


(MSNBC) While many will focus on Mamdani-mania in New York City and the outcome of high-profile governors races in New Jersey and Virginia, the political event from Tuesday most likely to affect the 2028 presidential election happened on the other side of the country. Passage of California’s Proposition 50, the redistricting issue on the state ballot, is poised to provide Democrats with five additional U.S. House seats next year — helpful in their fight to win back control of Congress — and to provide a major boost to the presidential prospects of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Through his frequent news media appearances and combative social media presence, Newsom has emerged over the past several months as the closest thing the national Democratic Party has to a Trump-slayer, at least right now. But spearheading the fight to counter the presidential-led mid-decade redistricting efforts provided Newsom with a platform that could further enhance his presence as a leader in the 2028 primary field.

At core, the ballot proposition asked Californians to turn their backs, at least temporarily, on efforts they’d already made to be responsible about redistricting. More than a decade ago, California voters rejected the inherent conflict of interest that allows elected officials of both parties to collude in drawing legislative and congressional boundaries that protect their incumbents from the annoyance of competitive reelection campaigns. In 2008 and 2010, they passed a pair of ballot initiatives that took this power away from the state legislature and granted it to a bipartisan citizens commission.

But that was a different political era and a much different political landscape. When President Donald Trump encouraged Texas Republicans to redraw their state’s congressional districts this summer to protect the GOP’s House majority, it created a domino effect: So far, more than a dozen other states have announced plans or taken steps to redraw their own maps. This gradual decline into craven partisanship already affects one-third of the states with more than one congressional district. Ohio became the latest on Friday. .....................(more)

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/california-prop-50-redistricting-gavin-newsom-rcna241469