California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference with Texas lawmakers at the Governor’s Mansion on July 25, 2025 in Sacramento, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
California Gov. Gavin Newsom warned President Donald Trump on Monday that he will push to redraw his state’s congressional district maps if Trump does not call on Texas and other Republican-led states to end efforts to redraw their own districts.
“You are playing with fire, risking the destabilization of our democracy, while knowing that California can neutralize any gains you hope to make,” the Democrat Newsom wrote in a letter to Trump.
Newsom said that the GOP-led states are seeking to redesign their congressional maps to “rig the upcoming midterm elections” to benefit Republican candidates.
If the Republican majority in the Texas legislature is successful in redrawing district maps, it is expected to give their party an additional five seats in the House of Representatives.
Democrats currently need to flip three House seats to win back control of that congressional chamber in the 2026 midterms.
Trump, in an interview last week with CNBC, said that his fellow Republicans are “entitled to five more seats” in the House. Trump accused California and Illinois, which have Democratic-controlled House caucuses, of gerrymandering their congressional districts to maintain that edge.
Newsom, in his letter to Trump, wrote, “This attempt to rig congressional maps to hold onto power before a single vote is cast in the 2026 election is an affront to American democracy.”
“This is not what the Founders envisioned, and California cannot stand idly by as this power grab unfolds,” Newsom wrote.
“If you will not stand down, I will be forced to lead an effort to redraw the maps in California to offset the rigging of maps in red states,” Newsom wrote.
The governor added that if the other states “call off their redistricting efforts, we will happily do the same.”
Newsom’s warning is among the starkest examples of Democrats vowing to counter the effort in Texas to redraw congressional maps.
That effort has reached a fever pitch in recent days as Democratic state lawmakers have fled Texas to deny Republicans a quorum needed to advance legislation in the state House.
A number of Democratic lawmakers on Sunday suggested that the party has to “fight back” against the redistricting effort.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday reiterated his warning that the Democratic lawmakers will be arrested upon their return.
“If they want to evade that arrest, they’re going to stay outside of the state of Texas for literally years,” he said on Fox News.
The push to redraw congressional maps ahead of the 2026 elections has also spread to other states, including Indiana.
The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Newsom’s letter.
