Authored by Susan Crabtree via American Greatness,

California Republicans appeared down but not out on Wednesday after enduring a resounding defeat on Prop 50, handing Democrats a potential gain of up to five House seats in next year’s midterms and giving Gov. Gavin Newsom a huge win to boost his 2028 presidential ambitions.

California GOP Chairwoman Corrin Rankin filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday seeking to immediately block and ultimately cast aside the newly approved map of state congressional seats, which passed in Tuesday’s election by roughly 28 percentage points. With 77% of the estimated vote total counted in California, the redistricting measure was ahead 63.9% to 36.1%.

Brushing off calls for her resignation from a few influential conservative voices and enduring ridicule from Newsom, Rankin forged ahead, arguing in the GOP lawsuit that the new map illegally uses race as a factor to favor Latino voters, thereby violating the Constitution’s equal protection and voting rights guarantees.

“This is about the Constitution – it’s about the rights that our ancestors have fought so hard for in this country,” Rankin, the first African-American to chair the state GOP, said at a Wednesday morning press conference.

“It’s about sticking with the Constitution, and it’s about equality and fair and equal treatment. And we believe that Californians, no matter what color your skin is, no matter what your socio-economic background is, you deserve to be treated fair. You deserve to be treated equally.”

Newsom’s office provided a snarky response to the lawsuit, noting that they hadn’t reviewed it yet but commenting, “Good luck, losers.”

Proposition 50 tossed the state’s U.S. House district maps, which were drawn by an independent commission in a lengthy deliberative process after the decennial census, and replaced it with new maps quickly drawn by Democratic lawmakers and their consultant, Paul Mitchell. The voter-approved gerrymander was designed to neutralize a GOP-favoring redistricting plan in Texas.

The lawsuit was filed by the Dhillon Law Group, a California-based firm founded by Harmeet Dhillon, who now serves as assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice. It argues that the new map-making process was rushed and didn’t follow the multi-step process required. The attorneys cited the 1986 Supreme Court case Thornburg v. Gingles, which established a three-pronged test based on the Voting Rights Act, including a written analysis of the current maps showing voter dilution of minority groups when redistricting.

Mike Columbo, the attorney who drew up the complaint on behalf of the California Republican Party, pointed to comments Mitchell and Democratic leaders in the legislature made that the redistricted maps “increase [the] power of Latino voters.”

The attorneys asked for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent Prop 50’s maps from going into effect. The lawsuit requires both sides to submit evidence to a three-judge panel; whoever loses that argument will appeal to the Supreme Court, which they predicted would need to make a decision by Dec. 19 so candidates for Congress can determine which districts they want to run in. That’s the deadline that candidates can begin collecting signatures to offset filing fees for the 2026 midterms.

Already, the new maps are setting off a scramble by Democratic candidates and incumbent House Republicans who are evaluating which district best suits them. In at least one case, the redrawn maps are already forcing sitting GOP members into contentious face-offs in a survival of the fittest contest for the competitive Republican districts.

Rep. Ken Calvert, the longest-serving California Republican in the House, announced he would challenge incumbent Rep. Young Kim for Californian’s redrawn 40th district, which was gerrymandered as safe for Republicans, while Calvert’s was redrawn to favor Democrats.

Marni von Wilpert, a Democratic San Diego city councilmember who turned the city’s most conservative district blue in 2020, announced she would challenge longtime GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, an 11-term incumbent.

Republican Kevin Lincoln, former mayor of Stockton, who already announced a rematch against Democratic Rep. Josh Harder, whom he lost to in 2024, is now eyeing switching districts and challenging Rep. Adam Gray, whose district under the new map is gerrymandered to include part of Stockton’s downtown.

State Assemblyman David Tangipa, a rising star in the state GOP, accused Newsom and state Democrats of weaponizing the redistricting process and diminishing the voices of some demographics to benefit Latinos.

Lauding California’s ethnic diversity as “beautiful,” Tangipa said he is “appalled by what has happened.”

“This whole process was a sham,” he said.

In the 24 hours after Prop 50 passed, Newsom focused his messaging on President Trump, arguing the big win “sends a powerful message” to his longtime political foe, casting it as a “repudiation” of Trump and a victory for the Democratic Party.

“What a night for the Democratic Party – a party that is in ascendency, a party that’s on its toes, no longer on its heels,” he said at a midnight press conference after the win.

Meanwhile, Rankin, who was elected to chair the California GOP in March, rejected calls for her to step down, arguing the party did everything it could to defeat the measure in a short time frame.

She pushed back against intra-party criticism that the California GOP botched the campaign against Prop 50 and defended the party’s get-out-the-vote efforts.

State Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, who has spent years heading the grassroots group Reform California, complained that the party sent out expensive direct mail pieces that were not targeted daily or at all to Republicans who had yet to vote.

“During the last three weeks of the ‘No on 50’ campaign, the California Republican Party raised and spent $11 million, and we left it all on the field,” she said. “We did a robust mail program. Our job is to message Republicans and make sure Republicans are turning out. We sent out 10 mailers, we spent millions on digital ads, on YouTube ads, and a text-messaging campaign.

“I think we did an excellent job – I’m very proud of our grassroots effort. All of our central committees throughout California were getting out the vote every single weekend. We were phone-banking every weekend. We were door-knocking every weekend … everyone worked incredibly hard.”

Asked about the non-targeted expensive mail campaign, Rankin said she is planning an “after-action” report.

DeMaio and Mike Netter, who co-chair Rebuild California, argue the party squandered the more than $11 million it spent on the effort on expensive direct mail pieces that blanketed the GOP instead of a targeted texting campaign focused on Republicans who had yet to vote and should have updated that list on a daily, if not hourly basis.

Netter, a plaintiff in the CA GOP’s new lawsuit challenging the new maps,  told RealClearPolitics that he received a direct mail piece from the California GOP the day after the election.

When it comes to the texting campaign, most Republicans across the state didn’t receive a text from the California GOP, but they did receive at least one from Demaio and his Reform California group. One explanation is that the California GOP was texting only those who had opted in to receive texts from the party, while other groups were using cell phone numbers culled from the voting rolls to blanket all registered Republicans.

Both DeMaio and Netter said the “No on Prop 50” messaging was disparate and uncoordinated, with no nationally recognized figure leading it.

Newsom, Netter told RCP, used Prop 50 as a distraction to avoid talking about his record on the real issues in California, high gas prices and cost of living, homelessness, and crime. Newsom had a singular and jarring message: Stop Trump, while the “No” side tried to use logic and reasoning.

“Gavin Newsom, by creating all these car wrecks, is taking everybody’s attention off the fact that the car is defective to begin with,” Netter said. “Newsom staged a car wreck called Prop 50, to take everybody’s eye off the fact that what we voted on last night will not affect our daily lives one bit.”

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