California leaders hope for high voter turnout for Prop. 50

By Madeline Shannon
The Center Square

With only one day to go in California before Election Day, legislators expect to see a relatively high voter turnout for the Golden State’s congressional redistricting effort.

If passed Tuesday, Proposition 50 will tip the scales in favor of Democratic candidates for five additional seats in the U.S. House. Five current Republican congressmen would be at risk of losing their seats in the 2026 midterm election: U.S. Reps. Kevin Kiley of Rocklin; Darrell Issa of San Diego County, Doug LaMalfa of Yuba City, David Valadao of Bakersfield and Ken Calvert, of Riverside County.

None of the congressmen were available for comment on Monday.

Major changes would come down the pike to current congressional districts if Prop. 50 is passed. One of the biggest changes include new district lines for the Congressional 9th District. That district includes the city of Stockton, as well as Lodi – a city just north of Stockton that is home to nearly 70,000 people. Prop. 50 would split Lodi into three congressional districts, taking away some constituents from the congressman representing the 9th District, Rep. Josh Harder, D-Stockton. City officials and Harder were unavailable for comment Monday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom began the push to redraw California’s U.S. House districts earlier this year after Texas redrew its congressional district lines, which gave Republicans the chance to pick up five new seats in the House. The newly-redrawn maps in California would expire in 2030, when the power to draw district maps would revert to the state’s Citizens Redistricting Commission. That commission, which is not involved in the Prop. 50 redrawing of congressional districts, is charged with drawing both state legislative and congressional district lines every decade after the U.S. Census, according to the commission’s website.

As voters head to the polls before ballot centers close on Tuesday night, voter turnout is expected to be high across the state, some legislators said. Polls are open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, but many have already voted by mail-in ballots, ballots dropped into special, locked boxes and voting centers.

“Turnout is at about 6.6 million ballots returned so far, and that’s out of 23.269 [million] registered voters in the state,” Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, told The Center Square.

“So I feel hopeful voters are engaged and they’re turning in their ballots,” said Pellerin, who oversaw discussions about congressional redistricting as chair of the Assembly Elections Committee.

On Monday, Republican legislators noted that their constituents, while not voting in large numbers in early voting, are likely to vote in larger numbers on the day of the election itself.

“[My constituents] haven’t really seen anything coming out of the Republican Party really driving the vote,” Assemblymember David Tangipa, R-Fresno, told The Center Square.

“A lot of them have waited until polls opened, and they have that now,” Tangipa said. He spoke out against redistricting, both as a member of the Assembly Elections Committee during a committee hearing, and on the floor of the Assembly.

Republican constituents are waiting, in large part, to vote on election day, Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, R-San Diego, told The Center Square. He said Republicans prefer to vote on Election Day and Democrats, who are more likely to support Prop. 50, tend to vote early.

“So I think the numbers will get closer together after tomorrow,” he said.

Multiple legislators also discussed the presence of federal election monitors, which were sent out by the U.S. Department of Justice to monitor the special election in California. However, none of the legislators who spoke to The Center Square on Monday thought the monitors would have much effect, although Pellerin called their presence “puzzling.”

“It is a little puzzling why they want to send observers to a state-only election, but certainly, that is their right,” Pellerin told The Center Square. “I believe they’re going to find that elections are run very smoothly in California.”

Millions of dollars spent both for and against Prop. 50

As of Monday afternoon, approximately $50,346,633 had been spent in support of Prop. 50, while $42,257,807 had been spent in opposition to the initiative, according to the California Fair Political Practices Commission’s Prop. 50 database.

Some of the biggest donors to the effort to pass Prop. 50 include a political action committee called the Ballot Measure Committee, which has raised more than $47.1 million from its top contributors through Monday. Among some of the more noteworthy contributors to the passage of Prop. 50, the California Teachers Association has donated more than $3.9 million, while the California Nurses Association has contributed over $3.3 million. The Washington, D.C.-based National Education Association has contributed approximately $3 million.

A leading donor for the passage of Prop. 50 is Tom Steyer, who has spent more $12.8 million in expenditures, CalMatters reported. Steyer paid for a statewide advertising campaign encouraging voters to vote yes on Prop. 50. In the commercial, which started airing earlier this fall, Trump is portrayed by an actor, who appears to throw food at the TV screen as he yells during the announcement of the Prop. 50 results.

Among the leading donors to the fight against Prop. 50 is Charles Thomas Munger Jr., a California billionaire, who has donated more than any other single donor to the effort against Prop. 50. He has contributed more than $32.7 million, according to the Fair Political Practices Commission, followed by the No on Prop. 50 Committee, which has contributed over $9.46 million from its top contributors alone.

Munger contributed financially to anti-Prop. 50 ads, which show a giant weight being dropped on the phrase “Fair Elections” carefully carved into wooden letters. The letters break as the weight is dropped on them.

Polling for Proposition 50

According to an Emerson College poll published on Oct. 24, California voters are poised to pass Prop. 50, with researchers finding that 57% of likely voters in the state support Prop. 50. The poll found that 37% oppose the initiative.

“With less than two weeks until the California special election for Proposition 50, the measure looks likely to pass, with results again outside the poll’s margin of error,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, in a press release about the poll. “Certain demographic groups that were hesitant to support the measure last month have come around to support Prop. 50, such as Black voters, whose support increased from 45% to 71%.”