Strong majority of Californians now back Gavin Newsom’s gerrymandering gambit, poll says

Nearly six-in-ten California voters approve of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s gerrymandering efforts, according to an Emerson College poll released Friday morning.

The survey found that 57% of likely voters in California support Proposition 50, the Nov. 4 ballot measure to allow the state’s Democratic-dominated legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map to flip up to five House seats from red to blue — while just 37% oppose the Newsom-backed measure. Including undecided voters, the share increases to 60% of voters who back the redistricting measure, and 40% who said they do not support it, according to the poll.

Newsom’s office did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

“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,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement. “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%.”

Regardless of if respondents intend to vote yes or no, 56% said they think the ballot measure is a good idea, while 44% think it is a bad idea, the poll found.

Among Californians who plan to vote “yes” on redistricting in the Golden State, 89% said it is a good idea, and 11% said it is a bad idea, according to the poll. Meanwhile, among those who plan to vote “no” to the ballot measure, 93% responded that it is a bad idea while 7% said it is a good idea, the survey found.

By comparison, in Emerson College’s September poll, 51% of likely California voters said they would vote for the proposition, 34% said they would vote against it and 15% were undecided.

A Politico–Citrin Center–Possibility Lab survey released in August found that at the time just 36% of California voters favor returning redistricting authority to lawmakers from the state’s current California Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Newsom spearheaded the effort to redraw California’s House map in reaction to Texas Republicans who proposed and eventually approved a redrawn map that seeks to flip up to five seats from blue to red in the Lone Star State.

Former President Barack Obama claimed on Wednesday that President Donald Trump and the GOP are aiming to “tinker around with [congressional districts] to see if they can give themselves an advantage,” Politico reported. Obama has also appeared in recent ads supporting Prop 50.

Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential candidate, wrote in a Wednesday X post that Trump and his administration are “explicitly saying they are going to change the rules of the game in order to insulate themselves from the people’s judgement. Prop 50 matters for California and for the entire country.”

Additionally, Billionaire megadonor George Soros has reportedly dished out $10 million in an effort to boost Newsom’s redistricting campaign. Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, a Democratic megadonor, has shelled out $2 million to bolster the California governor’s gerrymandering efforts, Politico reported on Aug. 29.

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