Poll: Nearly half of voters support Gavin Newsom’s redistricting counterpunch
Gov. Gavin Newsom began with a head start in his quest to convince California voters to join him in hitting back at Texas Republicans in a gerrymandering war: a new poll shows 48% of voters support it, compared to 32% who said they’ll vote against it.
But one in five remains undecided, according to the survey from the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
“The results suggest that the redistricting initiative starts out with relatively strong support. Even so, with 20% of registered voters undecided, there is considerable uncertainty about what will happen in November,” said IGS co-Director Eric Shickler. “This will be an intense campaign with both sides spending tens of millions to try to move those undecided voters.”
The initial polling shows support for the measure falls largely along partisan lines. Democrats said they favor the political gerrymander, which Newsom frames as a way to “fight fire with fire” against the Trump administration, 69% to 11%, with 20% undecided.
On the other side, 72% of Republicans say they will oppose it, compared to 15% in support and 13% undecided.
No party preference voters appear a bit more conflicted on the measure: 44% said they’d support it, while 30% oppose it and 26% are undecided.
The IGS poll surveyed nearly 5,000 registered voters in English in Spanish online between Aug. 11-17.
Californians will decide in a special election on Nov. 4 whether to adopt a new congressional map that aims to add five seats to advantage Democrats in the 2026 midterms.
In just the past week Newsom raised $9 million to fund the campaign, according to his political spokesman, Nathan Click. The donations came from 250,000 individual donors through digital fundraising.
Lawmakers passed and Newsom signed the new map Thursday, a day after the Texas Legislature redrew its own map giving Republicans an edge in five new districts.
Because California’s new map would require setting aside the current one drawn by a nonpartisan commission, voters will have the final say to approve or veto the new congressional lines. That’s not the case in Texas, where state lawmakers hold the (usually once-in-a-decade) line-drawing power.
This story was originally published August 22, 2025 at 12:55 PM.
