California Democrats made Prop 50 about Trump. Polls show it’s working as voting ends

While lopsided polling and fundraising have given the Yes on 50 campaign an undeniable advantage, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s team is taking nothing for granted as Election Day arrives.

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A day before voting ends for Proposition 50, California voters appear poised to approve Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts in Democrats’ favor.

Recent opinion polls show strong support for the Yes side. Newsom’s campaign is flooding the airwaves with star-studded advertisements and drowning out its opponents’ faint final pitch to voters. And the governor has even asked supporters to back off on donations, as the influx of contributions was crashing the state’s campaign finance website.

“You can stop donating now. Thank you,” proclaimed the subject line of an email from Newsom’s campaign to supporters last week. “We have hit our budget goals and raised what we need in order to pass Proposition 50.”

If approved, the measure would temporarily suspend California’s current congressional maps, which were drawn by an independent citizens commission, and replace them through 2030 with districts drawn by Democratic insiders.

Newsom and his allies say California must counter mid-decade gerrymandering efforts in Republican-controlled states such as Texas, Missouri and North Carolina in order to give Democrats a fair chance to win back the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections. Mail-in voting has already been underway for more than four weeks.

Some of Prop 50’s major opponents are also privately resigned to the reality that the measure will pass, despite putting on a defiant game face.

“I don’t run away from a fight,” insisted Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Republican from Oroville whose district would be dramatically altered under the new maps, at a recent No on 50 news conference.

But just moments before, LaMalfa also conceded that the opposition was “outnumbered 2 to 1” when it came to spending in the crucial final days of the campaign.

“We are outgunned on the fundraising side,” he said.

A spokesperson for the No on 50 campaign did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Two of California’s most reputable nonpartisan pollsters last week found that a solid majority of likely voters are supporting, or have already voted for, Prop 50.

The Public Policy Institute of California found that 56% of likely voters said they would support the measure, compared to just 43% who said they would oppose it. The survey also found that nearly seven in 10 Californians, regardless of party, said the outcome of the special election was “very important” to them. That’s a record high level of interest in a ballot measure.
A “No on Prop 50” sign at the Kern County Republican Party booth at the Kern County Fair in Bakersfield on Sept. 26, 2025. Credit: Larry Valenzuela / CalMatters/CatchLight Local
“The PPIC survey has not registered such a high level of interest in a ballot proposition since we began measuring it over 20 years ago,” said its survey director, Mark Baldassare. The poll relied on responses from 943 likely voters and had a sampling error margin of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

The Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found an even larger gap between Yes and No voters, with a whopping 60% of likely voters saying they’d vote to pass Prop 50 and just 38% who would vote no. Similarly to PPIC, the IGS poll also found an extraordinarily high level of engagement, with 71% of likely voters saying they had heard “a great deal” about the measure.

“There are a lot of indicators that suggest the Yes side is going to win comfortably,” said Mark DiCamillo, IGS’ director of polling, in an interview.

The poll interviewed 4,946 Californians who had already voted or were considered likely to vote and had a sampling error margin of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

DiCamillo noted Prop 50 was likely defying conventional wisdom on ballot measures, which gives the No side an advantage with undecided voters who want to preserve the status quo, because of the hyperpartisan and nationalized message.

“The results suggest that Democrats have succeeded in framing the debate surrounding the proposition around support or opposition to President Trump and national Republicans, rather than about voters’ more general preference for nonpartisan redistricting,” said Eric Schickler, co-director of IGS.

Still, Democrats are taking nothing for granted and are investing heavily in mobilizing their voters. The Yes campaign has rallied tens of thousands of volunteers to knock doors, make phone calls and send texts to up to 16 million voters, said campaign spokesperson Hannah Milgrom. Newsom will also be traveling across the state as part of the final push.