Basically, the badlands of defeat, the Democrats searched the soul on what was wrong last November, tinkered with a thousand reflections and desperately thrown for a strategy to restart their party in a standstill.
In the middle of the noise, the governor of California Gavin Newsom recently defended an improbable match plan: forget the high road, fight the fire with fire and embracing the very tactics that the Democrats concerned with virtue have long described.
Could the dark art of political gerrymandering be the thing that saves the democracy of Trump’s increasingly authoritarian impulses? It is essentially that the Pitch Newsom does to California voters with its new daring special election campaign.
While the Democrats of Texas are committed to blocking a redistribution thrust led by the Republicans and prevail over the muscles to consolidate the power wherever he can, Newsom wants to restart the own districts of the California Congress to promote Democrats.
His goal: to counter Trump’s driving for more GOP House seats with a power game.
It is a bet that pushes the limits which will undoubtedly be overwhelmed the short -term Newsom political star. Longtime glory could be even greater, but only if it withdraws it. A voting flop would be brutal for Newsom and his party.
The charismatic governor of California was called to shelter in 2026 and did not hide his presidential ambitions in 2028.
But the distinct smell of its original state will be difficult to relax completely in certain parts of the country where California is synonymous with wacky left-handers, regulation of business killers and an uncontrollable homeless crisis. To say nothing of the unhappy dinner of Newsom in an elite Napa restaurant in violation of COVVI -19 protocols – a misstep which has energized a failed recall attempt and still haunts the national reputation of the governor.
The redistribution gambit is the kind of big game that could redefine the way voters across the country see Newsom.
The strategy could be a boon for Newsom’s ambitions in 2028 for a while when Democrats are hungry for leaders, said Democratic Stratege Steven Maviglio. But it is also a massive diced rabbit for Newsom and the state it directs.
“It is a big policy for him if it passes,” said Maviglio. “If it fails, he died in the water.”
The path to follow – which could determine the control of the congress in 2026 – is hardly a forehand.
The “law on the response to electoral fuel”, as Newsom has appointed its voting measure, would temporarily remove the districts of the Congress promulgated by the voters of the Independent redistribution commission.
Under the proposal, the Democrats could collect five seats currently held by Republicans while strengthening vulnerable democratic representatives by leaving Adam Gray, Josh Harder, George Whitesides, Derek Tran and Dave Min, which would save the Millions of Dollars in expensive re -election.
But first, the State’s legislature led by the Democrats must vote to place the measure on the ballot of November 4, then it must be approved by the voters.
If it is adopted, the initiative would have a “trigger”, which means that the redesigned card would only take effect if Texas or another state led by the GOP is advancing with its own effort as Gerrymandering.
“I think what Governor Newsom and other Democrats do here is exactly the right thing we have to do,” the president of the National Democratic Committee Ken Martin said on Thursday.
“We do not bring a pencil to a knife fight. We will bring a bazooka to a knife fight, right? It is not the democratic party of your grandfather,” said Martin, adding that they should not be the only ones to play by a set of rules that no longer exist.
For Democrats such as representative Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), who appeared alongside Newsom to launch the effort, there is “sorrow” to temporarily put their commitment to independent redistribution. But she and others were clearly in the eyes of the need to arrest a president “ready to fake elections in the middle,” she said.
Friedman said that she heard extremely positive reactions to the proposal of all kinds of democratic groups on the ground.
“The answer I get is:” Finally, we are fighting. We have a way to retaliate which is tangible “”, said Friedman.
However, despite the advantage of the recording of state democratic voters, the victory of the voting measure will not be ensured. California voters have rallied twice for independent redistribution in the ballot box in the past two decades and many may have trouble abandoning these beliefs.
A Politico-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab. That voters prefer to keep an independent panel in place to trace district lines with a margin from almost two to one, and that the independent redistribution is largely popular in the state.
(Newsom The press office has argued that the survey was poorly formulated because he asked to completely get rid of the independent commission and to permanently return the line of line drawing to legislators, rather than simply temporarily deleting their work for several cycles until the independent commission then draws new lines.)
Voters from California should not expect to see a special election campaign focused on the thoroughness of reconfiguring the districts of the state congress.
While many opponents will probably attack the change as undervaluating the will of California voters, who massively supported the weeding policy of the redistribution process, Bank on Newsom launched the campaign as a referendum on Trump and its sly efforts to keep the Republicans to control the Congress.
Newsom used a similar strategy when he demolished the recall campaign led by the Republicans against him in 2021, which the governor described as a battle of “life and death” against “activists of the far right anti-vaccin and anti-vaccins. Among the Democratic Environments of California, this message proved to be extremely effective.
“Wake up, America,” said Newsom on Thursday during a Los Angeles rally launching the campaign for the redistribution measure. “Wake up to what Donald Trump does. Wake up to his assault. Wake up to the assault against institutions and knowledge and history. Wake up to his war against science, public health, his war against the American people. ”
Kevin Liao, a democratic strategist who worked on national and state-of-the-country campaigns, said his discussions on political groups based in DC and California have exploded in recent days with texts on the moment when Newsom was creating for himself.
A large part of the Liao Fodder group group involved the release of the Newsom digital team, which has raised fishing for an art form on its @govpressofficeo official account on the social media X.
The missives have largely imitated the cleaning of the president’s social media, with a hyperbola, small insults and a strong dependence on the “Caps Lock” key.
“Donald has finished – it is no longer” hot “. Hands (so tiny) and now me – Gavin C. Newsom – have removed his “step”, one of the messages read last week, conscientiously republished by the governor himself.
Some messages have also ended with the initials of Newsom (a riff on the signature of Trump “DJT”) and sprinkled in key reminders of Trumpian, such as the “Day Liberation” sentence, or a cover of Time magazine with the smiling mine of Newsom. The account has collected 150,000 new subscribers since the beginning of the month.
Shortly after Trump took office in January, Newsom marked a fine border between criticizing the president and his policies and being more diplomatic, in particular after the California forest fires – in the hope of appealing to any semblance of compassion and presidential responsibility that Trump had.
Newsom had spent the first months of the new administration trying to reshape the account of California-vs.-Trump which dominated the president’s first mandate and to move away from the brand of “resistance” before his party.
These conciliation openings coincided with the embrace of Newsom of a more ecumenical posture, welcoming Maga leaders on his podcast and taking a position on the participation of transgender athletes in female sports which contradicts democratic orthodoxy.
Newsom insisted that he embarked on these conversations to better understand the political opinions that diverge from his, especially after Trump’s victory in November. However, there was the unmistakable puff of an ambitious politician trying to expand his national attraction by moving away from his reputation as a liberal from the west coast.
Newsom’s reluctance to read the Trump resistance coat ended after the president sent California National Guard troops to Los Angeles in the midst of immigration and demonstrations that followed in June. These actions have revealed that Trump’s uncontrolled justification and an abjective lack of morality and honor, said Newsom.
In recent times, Newsom has defended the juvenile tone of the messages from his press aids to mock Trump’s own hats, and wondered why the criticism would excite his parody and not the statements of the president’s disarticulated social media.
“If you have problems with what I publish, you are sure that hell should have concerns about what it publishes as president,” said Newsom last week. “So, since it drew attention, I’m happy.”
In a deficit economy of the attention to stand out is half the battle, the posts sparkle with a fanfaron without an excuse. And they clearly indicate that Newsom is in the joke.
“For a certain set of people who worked under the old rules, it could be considered” wow, it’s really weird. ” But I think they are making the calculation that Democrats want people who will play in this new set of rules that Trump has established, “said Liao.
At a time when the Democratic Party is always occupied by post-deferential recriminations and what is to embark vision, Newsom is emerged from the peat bog with something that looks like a plan.
And he bet the house on the will of his deep blue condition to fight the fire with the fire.
The staff of the staff of Times Seema Mehta and Laura Nelson contributed to this report.
