Independent Voters Hold the Key in a Redistricting Special Election 

The Democrats’ entire campaign will more than focus on Trump. The campaign will be all Donald Trump, all the time. You want to stop Trump for whatever reason, the campaign will say, then vote for the new reapportionment map to cut his power.

With the California legislative back from its recess, now begins the quick process of qualifying measures for the special election, including a constitutional amendment, to change the rules in redrawing congressional district maps for the next three election cycles. This mid-decade move is unusual since drawing political districts traditionally happens every ten years after the census.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, leading the charge to redistrict the congressional seats now, says his effort is in response to Texas and other Republican controlled states planning to do a mid-decade reapportionment at Trump’s request to re-enforce the Republican hand in the forthcoming 2026 congressional races. Newsom says he will not go ahead if the Republicans stop their redistricting efforts. Previously, I labeled Newsom’s effort Gavinmandering and cast a pox on both sides for these mid-decade redistricting shenanigans.

In a few days we’ll know if the battle is joined. It appears likely.

Overturning the will of the voters in creating an independent Citizens Redistricting Commission will not be an easy task. A poll last week conducted by Politico and the Citrin Center at UC Berkeley revealed that 64% of Californians support the independent commission, which they passed to end gerrymandering by politicians. It is a tall order to convince voters to give back power to politicians.

As campaigns prepare for the coming battle, old hands in promoting the independent redistricting commission are stepping up to defend the process, chiefly former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charles Munger Jr., a prime financier of the initiatives that created the redistricting commission. But not all former allies are coming to the aide of the commission. And Donald Trump is the reason.

Common Cause, an organization that proudly campaigns to end gerrymandering nationally and was a chief driver in the California independent commission effort has released a statement that basically claims neutrality in the current debate citing the Republican actions in other states promoted by the president. Likewise, donor and political reformer Bill Bloomfield, who helped pass the California commission, is planning to now fund the Gavinmandering effort because of his opposition to Trump.

How this political chess game will play out depends on one major factor—voter turnout.

A special, off-year election tends to have greatly reduced voter participation. Citizens who don’t follow politics much are little inclined to come out to vote on a single issue. Top that with the issue at hand being an arcane subject on governance that will not light a fire under many voters. Although Californians won’t be able to avoid the coming campaign with the gobs of money expected to be spent on both sides. The California election, should it occur, will draw national attention and be the centerpiece of the fall political season.

That’s why the Newsom campaign, like any chess match in which the strategy is to take down the king, will concentrate on President Trump as the reason for the yes campaign.

Supporters of the commission will ask voters to defend good government and their own authority instead of handing power back to politicians, a tried-and-true message. Yet, it is not as dramatic as the proponents charge they are not simply bringing a knife to a gun fight but are hauling out a cannon to do real damage to Trump and his agenda.

The Democrats hope by constantly haranguing Trump they will bring the overwhelming majority of their registered voters to the polls. Political scientists claim that President Trump’s supporters don’t turn out in large numbers in elections in which he is not on the ballot. Will that notion hold when Trump is the central focus of the campaign? While Trump’s name is not on the ballot, he and his policies are on the ballot in a real sense.

In what is projected to be a close election, independent voters likely could make the difference. Registered independent voters are naturally more inclined to support an “independent” committee and less interested in the partisan rhetoric that will fly around during the campaign. In the Citrin-Politico poll, independent voters overwhelming supported keeping the citizen’s redistricting commission by 79% to 21%. Independent, or no-party-preference voters as they are called in California, can make the difference—if they come out to vote.