75 short days - That's all it took for Gavin Newsom to DO SOMETHING...

It all played out not unlike a movie, a political drama if ever there was one.

It was mid July, 2025 and California Governor Gavin Newsom was publicly soul searching amid the Democratic Party's multiple defeats at the polls only eight months earlier. Things were about to get far worse for the Democratic Party though. President Donald Trump had asked Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott to redraw his state's congressional maps in an attempt to rig the 2026 midterm elections in the GOP's favor. In response, Abbott - loyal servant that he is - had called a special session of the Texas Legislature. The aim? To flip five Democratic blue congressional districts into five Republican red districts - done without input from and regardless of the wishes of the 46.5% of Texans who are registered Democrats. Even for a party with a long history of cynical plans, this was breaking new ground.

But, something interesting happened on the way to Republicans upending the nation's political climate. Governor Newsom appeared on his “This is Gavin Newsom” podcast. The podcast had only been created a few months before, in February. It was a powerful new tool, one the Governor was still getting used to, one that allowed him to reach not just Californians but Democrats nationwide - Democrats who had, for eight long months, been demanding that someone do something to stop the destruction that a vengeful Trump was now inflicting upon the nation during his second stint in the White House.

During the podcast, Newsom compared Trump’s request to Texas Governor Abbott to his pressuring of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the state’s 2020 election results. “Not dissimilar to him saying, ‘find me 12,000 votes,’” Newsom quipped. Addressing the question of whether California could also redistrict in response to what was happening in Texas, the Governor openly mused. “Maybe we’ll do it here in California." And, in this way, the concept of a mid-cycle Democratic gerrymander of California's U.S. House maps to counter a similar, Republican led effort underway in Texas was - by means of a podcast - floated.

Newsom could have stopped there. Most politicians would have. In most states, members of the Legislature redraw political maps following new census numbers every decade. But, in 2008, California voters had delegated the task to an independent, citizen-led commission. In order to redistrict, an appeal would have to be made directly to the citizens of California. A ballot measure temporarily benching the districting commission would have to be quickly drafted and immediately put to vote statewide during a special election. Huge sums of money would have to be raised to wage battle with Republican opponents of the ballot initiative. The Governor's entire reputation and political future would hinge on passage of the measure and, with it, Republican defeat.

After the podcast, the gears continued to turn for Newsom. Why couldn't it be done? There is the law and there is what the law can be. Between the two, there exists a chasm the passage of which requires guts, courage and confidence. Approximately 20 years earlier, while Mayor of San Francisco, Newsom had made the bold political decision to disregard existing law and instruct his Clerk Recorders Office to begin issuing same sex marriage licenses - for no other reason than that it was the right thing to do. Now, in 2025, Newsom realized there was another right thing that had to be done. Where the rules by which we are governed are ineffective, where those rules permit a would be dictator to game the system to his favor, the answer to Governor Newsom was clear - Change the rules.

The idea was audacious. A pipe dream Republicans surely considered when they first set in motion their plans in Texas. How quickly they must have rejected the notion that Newsom would accomplish the seemingly impossible in California. As Will McCarthy of Politico would later write "Newsom’s plan to tear up California’s popular independent redistricting commission, gerrymander the state’s congressional seats, and then ask voters to sign off on it seemed to be a hubristic plan bordering on delusional. Polls at the time suggested the measure would be enormously difficult to pass. Even many Democrats believed the plan was unrealistic."

What initially began as a lark discussed in passing during a podcast turned into a truncated 75 day sprint to election day that broke records as the most expensive ballot measure in California history. The Republican forces mobilized against the ballot measure, now known as Proposition 50, were spending tens of millions of dollars running non-stop advertisements in California. They were primarily funded by Republican mega-donor Charles Munger Jr., who had himself created a XTwitter account the day after Newsom floated the idea of redistricting in California. “Any attempt to undermine the nonpartisan California Redistricting Commission will be strongly opposed in the courts and at the ballot box,” Munger had written.

Trump, Texas and Charlie Munger all had no idea what was in store for them. Mobilizing the anger that Democrats, Independents and even some who had voted for Trump now felt - all of us united in disgust at Trump's racist policies, images on television of hapless citizens dragged from their vehicles and homes for the "crime" of aspiring to live the American dream, household budget breaking tariffs, Trump's explanation that children could do with fewer toys and his overall nonsensical excuse for "leadership" - Governor Newsom recast himself as the face of "Resistance 2.0” - a defiant opposition of Trump and his Republican sycophants and all of the insanity and cruelty for which their entire disgusting gang stands.

Fighting political fire with fire costs money. Lots and lots of money. Enough money to counter and then some the Charlie Mungers of the world. To this end, Newsom appealed to supporters to contribute to the Yes on 50 campaign. Arguing his case, Newsom swung public opinion in favor of Proposition 50 and, as a result, the money flowed in. In ten weeks, Newsom exceeded fundraising goals for the campaign, including raising $38 million from approximately 1.2 million small dollar donations. The effort was so successful that, a week prior to election day, Newsom emailed supporters to stop contributing and keep their money. Political observers were stunned. Over the span of a single summer, Newsom had become the Democratic Party's single most effective campaign fundraiser.

In addition to his fundraising efforts, Newsom also established a savvy social media presence headed up by a 29 year old Latin woman named Camille Zapata. Zapata and her team referred to themselves as "chronically online." Together, the young staffers behind Newsom released a constant, withering onslaught of attacks and memes on Instagram, TikTok and every other corner of the internet, out-trolling the "Troll-in-Chief" himself. While the words and images hurled at the tyrant appeared at first blush to be mostly symbolic, they actually set the stage for what was to come. Proposition 50 would be the action following the words - an act of doing something big, doing something meaningful, inflicting a gut punch that would send Trump and the entire GOP reeling.

We all know how the rest of the movie played out. There was an injustice in need of being made right. There were villains on the path to doing so. And, there was a hero and those who had his back. And, we applaud him and them. That said, we do look forward to the sequel - the one where Gavin Newsom is elected President in 2028 and decides yet again to go big and bold and break apart a United States Supreme Court that no longer serves the people. Because, that's what heroes do. They are not bound by what is but rather by what should be. And, in doing so, they give us all hope for the future.



https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/tx

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article310796670.html

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article312759766.html

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/newsom-wins-proposition-50-calif-redistricting-21136278.php

https://www.calonews.com/featured-topics/media/the-latina-in-governor-gavin-newsom-s-social-media-team/article_9e97c98e-dfd7-4029-b5e8-11391c2526e6.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/28/gavin-newsom-prop-50-donations-california

https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/10/prop50-money-ads-mailers-billboards/

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/05/no-tick-tock-hed-00631875