California Democrats and Texas Republicans are in an old-fashioned standoff, threatening to redraw their congressional maps in an attempt to sway the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections.
Caught in the middle are a handful of California Republicans, from relative newcomers to seasoned veterans, who represent pockets of the state from the U.S.-Mexico border to the remote forests in the northeast corner.
The Texas GOP is pushing, at the behest of President Trump, to net five additional seats for congressional Republicans, who hold the U.S. House of Representatives by a razor-thin margin. In response, Gov. Gavin Newsom has said California will push back with a map that would increase the number of Democrats the state sends to Washington.
“The idea that the president of the United States says he’s entitled to five seats should sicken everybody,” Newsom said at a news conference Thursday. “There’s nothing normal about that and anyone who says it’s not surprising is normalizing it. That’s shocking.”
The California gerrymandering plan taking shape behind closed doors would increase the Democratic Party’s dominance in the Golden State, adding as many as five congressional districts favorable to Democrats, according to a draft map reviewed by The Times. If the Democrats succeed, those changes could leave Republicans with four of the state’s 52 House seats — down from the current roster of nine.
California’s districts are typically drawn once per decade by an independent commission. Newsom is pushing to put a new map tailored to favor Democrats in front of voters Nov. 4, which would require the Legislature to approve the plan shortly after members return to Sacramento from their summer recess.
Newsom has said California’s redistricting plan will have a “trigger,” meaning a redrawn map would not take effect unless Texas moved forward with its own.
“We want to do it in the most transparent way,” Newsom said. “That’s a process that will unfold over the course of the next few weeks. But we want to see the maps on the ballot. I want folks to know what they’re voting on. That’s what separates what we’re doing from what others are doing.”
The proposed boundaries of the new congressional districts continue to shift, but the goal for California Democrats remains the same: Funnel the state’s Republican voters into fewer seats, boost vulnerable Democrats and turn some GOP-dominant districts into narrowly divided toss-ups.
Here are the Republicans who could face major changes.
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin)
Kiley represents a sprawling district that runs along the Nevada border from Northern California to Death Valley, cutting through Mammoth and Lake Tahoe and the cities of Roseville, Rocklin and Folsom.
Republicans have a 6-percentage-point voter registration advantage in Kiley’s district. The district’s footprint could shrink and shift closer to Sacramento, adding more registered Democrats and trimming off some conservative and rural areas.
Kiley introduced a bill this week to nullify any newly drawn congressional boundaries adopted by states before the next U.S. census, in 2030, which would apply to both Texas and California. He said the bill would “stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.”
Newsom, Kiley said, is “trying to subvert the will of voters and do lasting damage to democracy in California.”
Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale)
LaMalfa represents a safe Republican district that stretches through a vast territory of Northern California that borders Oregon and Nevada. The district includes Chico, Redding and Yuba City.
LaMalfa said in an interview that he had seen one map that shifted his district south to include parts of Sonoma County wine country and shifted some conservative rural areas in the north in another lawmaker’s district. Those changes, he said, would put towns near the Oregon border and Marin County, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, in the same district.
“The Democrats are really way over the line on this,” LaMalfa said. “I hope the weight of how bad this looks collapses on them before we even have to go through these gyrations, and millions and millions of dollars.”
He said he was certain that Republicans would litigate the new map if Democrats push ahead. He said other groups, including Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, have also voiced concerns.
“I’m not even stressed,” said La Malfa, a fourth-generation rice farmer. “If they throw me in some wine country district or some coastal district, and that throws me out, then I can go over here and finish cutting apart this tree that fell on my fence last night.”
Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford)
The proposed plans could add more registered Democrats to Valadao’s predominately Latino district in the Central Valley.
Democrats have tried for years to unseat Valadao, who represents a district that has a strong Democratic voter registration advantage on paper, but where turnout among blue voters is lackluster.
Even before the redistrict dustup, Valadao was once again a top target for Democrats. Valadao represents the California district with the highest percentage of Medicaid recipients, many of whom may lose coverage because of legislation approved by the Republican-led Congress and signed by Trump. Valadao previously lost his congressional seat in 2018 after voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017.
A representative for Valadao didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills)
The plan being considered could force two Republican members of the House into the same district: Kim and Calvert.
Calvert was first elected to Congress in 1992 and is the longest-serving member of California’s Republican delegation. He represents a Riverside County district that includes Lake Elsinore, Menifee, Palm Springs and his home base of Corona. The district, which leans Republican, has been a prime, but unsuccessful, target for Democrats in the last two elections.
Kim, who was first elected to Congress in 2020, represents a Republican district, mostly in Orange County, that includes Mission Viejo, Orange, Lake Forest, Anaheim and Tustin.
Calvert said he strongly opposes “the scheme being orchestrated behind closed doors by Sacramento politicians” to replace maps drawn by the redistricting commission “with a process that would allow legislators to draw district maps that are gerrymandered to benefit themselves and their political allies.”
Deviating from the independent redistricting process “disenfranchises voters and degrades trust in our political system,” Kim said in a statement. She said Newsom should, “for once, focus on addressing the pressing issues making life harder for Californians under his watch instead of trying to position himself for a presidential run.”
Newsom this week said he was pleased to see Republican members coming out in support of independent redistricting.
“That’s an encouraging sign,” Newsom said. “So already, perhaps, people are waking up to the reality of California entering into this conversation. We’re not a small state. Again, we punch above our weight. It will have profound national implications if we move forward.”
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall)
Under the tentative plans, Issa, who has served in Congress for more than two decades, would see his safely Republican district become purple. That could include absorbing Palm Springs, a liberal area that is currently in Calvert’s district and has become a hub of fundraising and political activity for Democrats.
A spokesman for Issa declined to comment but referred to a statement from the state’s nine-member Republican delegation, which said that Trump won 38% of the presidential vote in California last year, but Republicans hold fewer than 1 in 5 of the state’s 52 House seats.
Newsom, the delegation said, is trying to wrest power from the independent redistricting commission and “place it back into the hands of Sacramento politicians to further his left-wing political agenda.”
“A partisan political gerrymander is not what the voters of California want,” the statement said.
Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
