What's at stake:
With troops in DC and 5 new GOP House seats in Texas, California's pushback will hit the Central Valley's congressional maps the hardest.
The political map of inland California is about to be gerrymandered, and Fresno conservatives are sounding the alarm.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s audacious plan to redraw congressional districts in response to Texas Republicans’ gerrymandering would fundamentally transform the San Joaquin Valley’s representation in Washington, D.C., shifting multiple competitive districts into safe Democratic territory.
The proposed maps, crafted in secrecy by Democratic data wizard Paul Mitchell, would dramatically reshape three key Central Valley districts from Stockton to Bakersfield.
Rep. Josh Harder’s CD-9 in the northern Valley would transform from leaning-Democratic to a safe Democratic seat by building an awkward, arcing district stretching from the Delta cities of Antioch and Pittsburg, snaking around Stockton to capture Tracy, Manteca, and Ripon.
Even more dramatic is the Valley’s District 13, where freshman Democratic Rep. Adam Gray, after surviving one of 2024’s toughest campaigns, would see his Republican-leaning district become safely blue.
Gray’s new boundaries would stretch from Mendota up through Merced and Modesto and end at Stockton’s edge – a configuration that has left county politicos puzzled about how a Delta inlet city and a deep Westside farm town could share common interests.
“The Valley has a right to have their own congressman, not share it with the Bay Area,” said Fresno County Supervisor Buddy Mendes. “The only ones that should share with the Bay Area are places like Tracy, Manteca, places that are hooked right off Alameda County. Not in Fresno. That’s just total bullshit.”
But perhaps no Valley incumbent faces a steeper challenge than Republican Rep. David Valadao, a Tulare-area dairyman whose district would see its Democratic registration advantage increase by six points.
Valadao’s new district starts south with a bulbous outcropping that grabs most of Bakersfield, then snakes northward along the San Joaquin Valley’s east side, capturing the small farm towns of Porterville, Lindsay, Tulare, Hanford, Huron and Kerman.
Notably absent from Valadao’s new district: the Republican-leaning towns of Coalinga and Lemoore.
“When I look at California and how our current districts are drawn, it’s concerning,” said Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig, a Republican. “Forty-percent of this state voted for Trump, but we don’t have 40% of the congressional seats.”
The Fresno area itself would see minimal changes, with Clovis Rep. Vince Fong’s district remaining largely intact.
But to the north of Sacramento, the changes triggered by Newsom to grab five new seats are huge.
GOP Rep. Doug LaMalfa’s rural North State district – ground zero for the secessionist “State of Jefferson” movement – would flip from a 17-point Republican registration advantage to a 10-point Democratic edge.
“We’ve moved away from becoming government by the people and for the people,” Magsig said, “and we’ve become a place where people use government to push an agenda and maintain power.”
The redistricting effort represents a dramatic escalation in the national battle for control of Congress – and a potential 2027 impeachment of Trump by a Democrat-controlled House. Newsom has framed the new state maps as a necessary counterpunch to Trump’s pressure campaign on Texas Republicans to deliver him five new House seats through their own gerrymander.
“If Texas wants to rig the maps, California will make sure they pay a price,” Newsom told Politico. “They want to steal five seats? We’ll match and secure more – and turn the tables on their entire strategy.”
In Fresno County, Buddy Mendes said the Republicans may be getting more than they bargained for.
“This is stealing. There’s no other way to put it,” Mendes said about Newsom’s power play. “The Republicans need to forget all this horseshit and get a federal suit filed. They’re [California Democrats] taking people’s civil rights away.”
The changes come as America, over the last week, has entered a new era of partisan warfare. Newsom’s map grab comes the same week as Trump ordered federal troops to take over DC, with the red states of Ohio and West Virginia volunteering their own National Guard infantry to support the president’s plans. At Newsom’s map rally on Thursday, federal agents donning masks and armed with assault rifles were outside for intimidation.
Common Cause, the organization that championed California’s independent redistricting commission, has issued a carefully worded statement that stops short of condemning Newsom’s effort while establishing strict criteria for any mid-decade redistricting.
The group’s California chapter said the political climate has pressured Democrats into using a new set of tools to avoid becoming completely disempowered.
“A blanket condemnation in this moment would amount to a call for unilateral political disarmament in the face of authoritarian efforts to undermine fair representation,” wrote Ariana Marmolejo, a regional communications strategist with Common Cause, in a statement.
Still, the organization’s six-point fairness criteria includes requirements for proportionality, public participation, racial equity protections, and a sunset clause after the 2030 census – conditions that remain uncertain as the actual legislative language has yet to be released.
California Democrats currently hold 43 of the state’s 52 congressional seats. The new maps could push that to 45, offsetting some of the expected Republican gains in Texas and potentially determining control of the House before a single vote is cast in 2026.
Mitchell, the veteran political data analyst tapped by Newsom to draw the new boundaries, defended his work in a Politico story as following all guidelines of the citizen commission except one: the requirement not to disadvantage a political party. But even he acknowledges the uncomfortable position as borne of necessity of the moment.
“Am I doing something that I wished we weren’t being forced into?” Mitchell said in an interview with Politico. “Absolutely.”
The Legislature is expected to vote this Thursday on placing the redistricting plan before voters in a Nov. 4 special election.
Comments are closed.