Berliner Tageblatt - 'Fight fire with fire': California mulls skewing electoral map

The flyers warn Trump "is rigging and trying to steal the 2026 elections before we can vote."

"California can protect fair elections by fighting fire with fire," they say.

Trump set in motion a vicious cycle this summer by asking his allies in Texas to redraw electoral boundaries in a way that will provide five more Republican seats in Congress for next year's midterm elections.

The maneuver was intended to maintain a slender right-wing majority in the US House of Representatives.

It was also highly unusual -- redistricting normally occurs every decade in the United States, after each national census.

To counter Trump's ploy, California is now holding a dramatic referendum.

The goal: to amend its constitution so California too can alter its electoral map and create five districts favorable to Democrats.

With just days to go before voting closes Tuesday, Californians appear likely to approve the measure.

"I'm not really for it, but I'm gonna vote for it, because I think it's what's necessary...to level the playing field," 61-year-old contractor Patrick Bustad told canvassers.

"If the Democrats don't get dirty and get in the mud with the Republicans to fight back, we're going to get run over."

- 'Stick it to Trump' -

Trump "wants to be a dictator, not a president," said Bustad, recalling how the Republican refused to concede defeat despite losing the 2020 presidential election.

Spearheaded by state governor Gavin Newsom, the California referendum represents for many a difficult moral dilemma.

Unlike most other US states, California has abandoned gerrymandering -- a controversial practice by which legislators redraw electoral maps to benefit their party.

Back in 2008, under then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Golden State voted to hand the power to draw up district boundaries to an independent commission.

Newsom's new "Proposition 50" asks voters to temporarily abandon this equitable system, and return to partisan redistricting for the next five years.

Polls predict a landslide victory for in favor of the measure.

Newsom's confident campaign even stopped fundraising more than a week before voting closes, telling supporters: "You can stop donating."

Mutual loathing between Trump and California has backdropped the entire campaign.

One prominent "Yes on Proposition 50" ad imagines a furious Trump raging at his television as news breaks of the referendum's passage, with a simple slogan: "Stick it to Trump."

- Injustice -

Faced with resentment, Trump and his supporters have not campaigned in California against the vote.

The most notable Republican voice against the measure has been Schwarzenegger, who has warned that "two wrongs don't make a right."

Sara Sadhwani, a member of California's redistricting commission who supports "Prop 50," said that she usually imparts the same message to her three children.

"However, I also tell my kids that when a bully comes after you, you can defend yourself," she added.

"And I think that's what Californians are being asked in this moment -- there is a very real attempt to rig this election nationally."

Still, the political scientist laments how the entire situation has become a "race to the bottom."

Several more Republican states -- Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana -- and Democratic states -- New York, Virginia, Illinois -- are also considering joining the redistricting battle.

"Trust in elections is at an all-time low, and I don't see this as really improving that situation," she sighed.

That deepening mistrust is already palpable in Taft, a Republican stronghold north of Los Angeles.

With the likely passage of the referendum, "the Democrats are going to take over, and we're not going to have any rights," said Paula Patterson, a 66-year-old retiree.

Newsom "wants it his way so he can rig it," she added.

F.Pavlenko--BTB