Redistricting unites and stirs up state GOP

California’s minority party enters survival mode, talks strategy to defeat Proposition 50.

- SEEMA MEHTA AND JULIA WICK

AT THE California GOP convention in Garden Grove, attendees wore MAGA and pro-Trump merchandise.

Generally speaking, it’s a grand time to be a Republican in the nation’s capital.

President Trump is redecorating the White House in his gold-plated image. The GOP controls both houses of Congress. Two-thirds of the Supreme Court was appointed by Republican presidents.

In California, the outlook for the GOP is far bleaker. The party hasn't elected a statewide candidate in almost two decades; Democrats hold a nearly 2-1 voter registration edge and have supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature.

That’s long been the story for a state party stuck in the shadows in a deep-blue coastal state.

However, amid a sea of “Trump 2028” T-shirts, red MAGA hats and sequined Americana-themed accessories, California Republicans had a brief reprieve from minority status last weekend at their convention in Orange County.

Members of the California GOP — often a fractious horde — were energized and united by their opposition to Proposition 50, the ballot measure crafted by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democratic leaders to redraw the state’s congressional districts to counter gerrymandering efforts in GOP-led states. Newsom accused Republicans of trying to “rig” the 2026 election at Trump’s behest to keep control of Congress.

Voters will decide its fate in a Nov. 4 special election and receive mail ballots roughly four weeks prior.

"Only one thing really matters. We've gotten people in the same room on this issue that hated each other for 20 years, probably for good reasons, based on ego,” Shawn Steel, one of California’s three members of the Republican National Committee and the chairman of the party’s anti-Proposition 50 campaign, said on Saturday. “But those days are over, at least for the next 58 days. ... This is more than just unity. It's survival."