(Bloomberg) — California Governor Gavin Newsom is betting his political future on a controversial ballot measure that would redraw the state’s congressional maps to favor Democrats. A coalition of super wealthy and working people is giving him a big financial advantage.
Over the past 11 weeks, Newsom and his allies brought in more than $120 million for Proposition 50, about three times the total raised by the proposal’s opponents. The governor’s backers include billionaires George Soros, Michael Moritz and Reed Hastings, as well as the state’s influential nurses, teachers and public employee unions and an army of small donors.
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A flood of contributions “broke the seal” and helped dispel initial concerns over donor fatigue after Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential loss and worries that Newsom supporters would hold back because of the potential for White House retribution, said campaign consultant Juan Rodriguez. The campaign also got a big boost from House Majority PAC, which is supporting Democrats nationwide.
The lopsided haul has enabled the governor to blitz the airwaves ahead of the Nov. 4 vote on the ballot measure, an initiative that has propelled his rise to become a top Democratic antagonist of President Donald Trump. Newsom, a potential presidential contender in 2028, has championed Proposition 50 as a way to neutralize a move by Texas Republicans to grab as many as five extra seats in the US House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections.
The spending spree appears to be having an impact. An Emerson College poll of likely voters conducted last week found increasing favorability for the redistricting measure at 57%. That was comparable to the 56% support in a survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.
A poll released Thursday from the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, showed that 60% of likely voters backed the proposal, compared with 48% of registered voters surveyed in August.
“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%,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement.
Gavin Newsom holds up a signed bill related to redrawing the state’s congressional maps in Sacramento on Aug. 21.Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Newsom is asking voters to temporarily override a hard-won independent commission that draws California’s congressional district maps in favor of a partisan revamp designed to flip five Republican-held seats to Democrats – and improve the odds of a Democratic takeover of the House.
California’s effort is a direct response to an unusually timed redistricting drive in Republican-dominated Texas. After a push from Trump, Republicans redrew Texas congressional maps in such a way as to favor the GOP in five Democratic-held districts. Other Republican states are also following the Texas example in a redistricting battle that has spread across the country.
In Ohio this week, a bipartisan redistricting commission unanimously backed new congressional lines for the 2026 elections that tilt two districts toward Republicans.
Republicans currently hold a 219-213 majority in the US House, which also has three vacant seats. A loss of control by the GOP next year would go far in blunting Trump’s power.
“Californians are up in arms and they understand that we only have one play right now and that is to get Prop 50 passed and put a check on unfettered power by a would-be dictator,” said California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, a prolific Democratic fundraiser who last month hosted a soiree in her San Francisco apartment that yielded more than $200,000.
There’s a hole in Newsom’s fundraising web: Silicon Valley.
Tech leaders, long a wellspring of Democratic support, have increasingly backed Trump. Cooper Teboe, who connects tech tycoons donors with Democrats, cited Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz as notable names who aren’t backing Newsom’s redistricting plan.
“The list of who is missing is so much longer than the list of who is supporting,” Teboe said. “You’re missing some really big dogs.”
But Newsom’s war chest is large enough to fuel a surge in advertising. The campaign has lavished more than $51 million on digital ads, compared with $18 million for the “no” side, according to AdImpact. In the final two weeks, Newsom’s team is expanding into Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Korean, as well as onto WhatsApp and other nontraditional platforms.
The ad battle is pitting former President Barack Obama against former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In one ad, Obama tells voters that “Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election.”
Schwarzenegger, an architect of California’s independent redistricting commission, has emerged as the best known opponent of Proposition 50.
“Yes, they are fixing the elections in Texas, but that does not mean California should fix the elections because of that,” he said in an interview. “This is a scam.”
Charles Munger Jr., an heir to the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. fortune and another big backer of the independent redistricting commission, has spent more than $30 million on an opposition campaign to Proposition 50. But outlays have tapered off recently, support from national Republicans has lagged and Trump himself has largely stayed out of the California debate.
The GOP can still brag about forcing Newsom to spend heavily on Proposition 50 after the Texas redistricting effort required no expensive campaign effort.
“We have to get creative, we have to get incredibly targeted,” said Jessica Patterson, who heads a No on 50 campaign co-led by former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. “That’s what we have to do when we’re outspent.”
A few prominent supporters of the ballot initiative have used Newsom’s campaign to grab some of the political limelight for themselves.
Tom Steyer, a billionaire climate investor, spent more than $12 million backing the measure with prime-time television ads featuring himself. Billionaire mall magnate Rick Caruso, who is considering a run for Los Angeles mayor or California governor, paid for mailers encouraging people to vote yes on Proposition 50 – alongside his own picture.
The fundraising bonanza has put Newsom in the unusual position of telling donors that the campaign has enough money.
“You can stop donating now,” he said in a mass email. “Thank you.”
–With assistance from Romy Varghese.
(Updates with Ohio redistricting in 10th paragraph.)
