Prop 50 Approved by CA Voters by More than 2 Million Votes

This report was updated hourly through Election Night. The next update will be at 5pm Nov. 5. Bookmark this page for updates.

Two minutes after the polls closed in California, CNN called the Prop 50 race in the starting gate, predicting that voters had approved the change in the state's Congressional Districts.

At 8:15pm, with nearly 4,000 of the state's 18,399 precincts counted, about 21%, the Secretary of State issued its first report, confirming the CNN prediction: 3.2 million votes in favor of redrawing congressional districts, with 1.6 million voting against the changes.

By 10:50pm election night, the ratio of YES-to-NO had stabilized: 4.7 million for Prop 50, and 2.6 million against. With 71% of the state's ballots counted, this more than 2-million-vote margin remained, assuring victory for the redistricting plan.

The victory was a watershed moment for Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had proposed and pushed the measure, alone among Democratic governors. Tuesday night, he invited them to join the effort to blunt Republican efforts to redraw their own districts to the GOP advantage.

Two days later, the ballot count showed the victory margin had grown: The Secretary of State's elections office reported 5.7 million YES votes, 64%, and 3.2 million NO votes, 36%. As of the evening of Nov.6, 76% of ballots had been counted statewide, with 2.7 million ballots to process.

In Santa Clara County, voters approved the redrawing of congressional districts by a 71%-to-29% margin, as of Nov. 6.

The measure will suspend California’s current congressional maps, which were drawn by an independent citizens commission, and replace them through 2030 with districts drawn by Democratic insiders.

The plan will have little impact on South Bay congressional districts.

The big changes will occur in Marin and Sonoma and northern counties, where the current 1st District, represented by Republican Doug LaMalfa, will be cut in half, with its coastal counties, including Sonoma and Marin, included in a revised 2nd District, represented by Democrat Jared Huffman. The plan also will change boundaries for LaMalfa’s 1st District and the 4th District, represented by Democrat Mike Thompson, creating two Democrat-majority districts.

Total spending on this campaign likely totaled more than $100,000.

The latest campaign financing reports for the Proposition 50 campaign showed that $50.4 million was raised to support the ballot measure and $44.3 million was raised in opposition to the congressional redistricting plan. Most of the money raised both for and against today’s ballot measure came from fewer than 20 total contributors.

The top 10 contributors to Yes on 50, Governor Newsom’s Ballot Measure Committee totaled 95% of the campaign’s money.

Topping the list were two national political action committees, the House Majority Political Action Committee for Prop 50, $16.4 million, and the Fund for Policy Reform, $10 million.

Funds remaining from the governor’s 2022 campaign contributed $2.6 million, and renowned Welsh billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz pitched in $2.5 million. Prominent billionaire philanthropist and Cargill heiress Gwendolyn Sontheim contributed $2 million.

Nearly 75% of the money raised to defeat the redistricting plan was contributed by wealthy atomic physicist Charles Munger Jr., who had donated $32.8 million as of Oct. 23

Three decades of journalism experience, as a writer and editor with Gannett, Knight-Ridder and Lee newspapers, as a business journal editor and publisher and as a weekly newspaper editor in Scotts Valley and Gilroy; with the Weeklys group since 2017. Recipient of several first-place writing and editing awards, California News Publishers Association.

2 Comments

  1. Reportedly, there is already a federal lawsuit on file against Prop 50, by a prominent conservative SF civil rights law firm on behalf of the Republican Party and several individual plaintiffs. Allegedly, the partisan gerrymandering was (at least in part) motivated to benefit one ethnic or racial group, in violation of the federal Civil Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court will likely need to weigh in before this travesty becomes law.

  2. Most Californian’s, not all, are stupid and Gavin Newsom knows it. Voting for policies that inevitably destroy the state but make him rich. One of the most beautiful states going to hell in a hand basket. Too many uneducated voters voting for stuff they don’t even understand and don’t bother to understand. You idiots are destroying this once beautiful state.

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