How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help California’s Proposition 50 prevail | California

There are many ways to characterize Proposition 50, the only ballot initiative on which Californians will vote this election season.

You could say it has to do with congressional district lines being redrawn every ten years, off schedule. More accurately, you could say it’s about balancing Republicans’ efforts to swing congressional seats in their favor in Texas and elsewhere with a gerrymander that favors Democrats. Like the measure’s critics, you might call it a partisan power grab that risks undermining 15 years of careful work to make California’s congressional elections as fair and competitive as possible.

But the way California governor Gavin Newsom and the Democrats are selling this to voters boils down to something much simpler and more visceral: It’s an invitation to raise the middle finger to Donald Trump, a president whom less than 40% of Californians voted for and who many hate, for reasons that go far beyond his attempts at election manipulation. For that reason alone, the yes campaign believes it is heading for an easy victory.

“There’s actually a double whammy here,” said Garry South, one of California’s most experienced and outspoken Democratic political consultants who spearheaded the measure. “Trump and Texas are the state Californians love to hate. How can you lose a startup that sticks to both?”

Proposition 50, also known as the Election Fraud Interference Act, proposes amending California’s constitution and suspending the work of the state’s independent redistricting commission until 2031 so Democrats can create five additional safe seats. This would not significantly shift the balance of power in California, as Democrats currently occupy 43 of the state’s 52 House seats.

But that would make up for the five seats that Texas Republicans, acting at Trump’s direct encouragement, wrested for themselves earlier this year. Newsom’s slogan was “Fighting fire with fire,” and many influential national figures in the Democratic party (from New York’s leading congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to former president Barack Obama) signed on to the motto.

Democrats are optimistic they will see a significant shift in the vote in their favor next year because Trump’s approval ratings are already underwater in swing states he narrowly won last November, and voting in California is as low as February 29%.

But that won’t mean more congressional seats if district lines are redrawn in a way that protects vulnerable Republicans and eliminates meaningful competition. Accordingly a guess Republicans already have a clear 16-seat advantage in House races, thanks to nationwide gerrymandering efforts following the 2020 census, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Texas’ move increases that advantage to 21 seats. Similar, smaller-scale moves in Missouri and North Carolina brought that number to 23.

“Republicans want to rig the next election and steal enough seats in Congress to have two more years of unchecked power,” Obama charged. widely broadcast campaign advertisement It started circulating last week. “With Prop 50, you can stop Republicans in their tracks.”

Polls and focus groups show many Californians have mixed feelings about abandoning their state’s nonpartisan district maps, but a slim majority say they still see the need to do so and plan to vote yes on Nov. 4.

Support for the measure is increasing. Earlier this month, the yes vote had barely reached 50%. -most between votingAbout 15 percent of survey respondents said they were undecided. Another 30% said their support, pro or con, was soft.

Two surveys But the report released this week showed Proposition 50 passed by at least a 20-point margin, with yes votes currently in the high 50s or low 60s. Fully three-quarters of those who want to vote yes told a CBS News poll conducted by YouGov that they did so to oppose Trump, just as the yes campaign has encouraged.

But ballot initiatives are not like other elections; especially in off-year elections where turnout is likely to be lower than normal.

“Date [these] “Campaigns in this state show that late-deciding voters tend to vote against initiatives,” said Dan Schnur, a former Republican campaign consultant who teaches political communications at Berkeley and the University of Southern California. “They express a natural skepticism that occurs when voters don’t know much about a measure. They want to guard against it making their lives worse.”

The latest polling data suggests that such last-minute skepticism may not apply in this case; This is likely because Trump is a polarizing and motivating factor. Polls show consistently higher support for Proposition 50 among so-called “high propensity” voters (those who go to the polls repeatedly), and early mail-in voting results indicate stronger-than-usual numbers, with registered Democrats outnumbering registered Republicans. almost two to one difference.

The “yes” side has outstripped the “no” side, becoming much more visible in campaign ads and appearances. Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, who represented the Southern California district for 16 years, pledged over the summer to raise $100 million to defeat Proposition 50 but achieved only a fraction of that. less than $6 millionAccording to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And conspicuous was the absence of the big Republican guns that would normally hit the campaign trail; This suggests to many political observers that they think the fight is unwinnable.

Overall, the yes campaign outpaced the no campaign by approximately $138 million to $82 million.

Even the appeals of the No campaign’s most visible proponent, Arnold Schwarzenegger, proved ineffective. According to a Emerson surveyTwo-thirds of voters say it makes no difference to them what Schwarzenegger thinks. As a Republican, he has no credibility in the eyes of many Democrats, and as a Trump-hating moderate he has little traction with the Republican base. More than 20 percent of voters say his advocacy makes them more likely to do the opposite of what he wants.

The problem with the no campaign, South and others say, is that it doesn’t have a compelling enough message to counter the visceral appeal to “fuck Trump,” especially at a time when California voters are angry about ICE raids, military deployments in U.S. cities including Los Angeles, federal funding cuts, the demolition of the White House’s East Wing and more.

Some groups have made the case that Proposition 50 is undemocratic, including one led by billionaire Charles Munger Jr., who donated more than $30 million to the no campaign. But national polls have consistently shown that calls for democracy have little sway with voters, as both parties think democracy is in danger. Calling Proposition 50 a “power grab” merely reminds voters that Republicans in Texas seized power first.

Other opponents, including Steve Hilton, the leading Republican candidate in next year’s governor’s race, have sought to stoke voter discontent with Newsom, trying to use the initiative as a distraction concocted by a governor with national ambitions who should be focusing on the state’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. Hilton calls Proposition 50 an “illegal and corrupt contribution” [Newsom’s as yet unannounced] presidential campaign”.

This serves as red meat for the Republican base. But the last time Republicans tried to turn California voters against Newsom with a standalone ballot initiative — a 2021 recall vote — Newsom prevailed by a 62-38 margin. And Newsom’s approval numbers have only increased as a result of Proposition 50.

“The no side has two problems with its core argument,” South said. “It’s too complex and too abstract. The average voter has no idea what their line in Congress is. And they don’t care.

“So the choice comes down to this: You can screw Trump, or you can pay homage to the redistricting commission that voters approved in 2010 and probably don’t remember. There’s no way this thing can lose.”