Gavin Newsom’s name will not be on the ballot for Proposition 50, the November 4 special election, where a “yes” vote from Californians would redraw Congressional districts to favor Democrats in the Golden State. President Donald Trump’s name won’t be on the ballot either, but make no mistake, this will be the first primary of the 2026 election season and could shake up the 2028 presidential election too.

If Prop. 50. passes, it would cement Newsom as the Democrats’ top political heavyweight, doing battle with Trump and his MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement. And should Prop. 50. thwart Republicans from maintaining their slim majority in the House of Representatives via redrawn red state congressional districts to favor the GOP — should the Democrats regain the House in 2026 — Newsom would be in line for party sainthood.

I have to hand it to Newsom, this is pretty brilliant.

Normally, it is the national Democratic Party that sets the schedules of the presidential primaries, the candidates are merely along the ride. California never gets a coveted early slot, instead it is back in the pack on “Super Tuesday.”

This time, Newsom outfoxed his own party. He called his own election in his own state. And he even got to help draft the actual ballot. How democratic is that? To be sure, Prop 50. calls for a temporary return to political congressional gerrymandering to fight Republican gerrymandering elsewhere. It’s an anti-democratic move to combat an anti-democratic move. In other words, it’s American politics in 2025.

California Republicans are making this about Newsom. “What’s happening in this building is pure corruption. It is illegal, it is unfair,” Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, said the other day. They’re falling right into his trap. The more Republicans make this about the governor, the greater the legitimacy of his November victory.

While it’s a little early to call this race over, the early polling is looking good for the governor. Nearly half of those surveyed are signaling their support for temporarily abandoning the drawing of congressional districts by an independent commission (to resume after the 2030 elections) and to go with a Democrat-friendly set of boundaries instead. About 20% are undecided.

“This will be an intense campaign with both sides spending tens of millions to try to move those undecided voters,” Eric Schickler, co-director of the Berkeley Institute of Government Studies, told the Bee. For Newsom, the more money, the better. The greater the national focus on this election, the more this becomes a litmus test of Newsom’s leadership.

It’s clear as mud how much closer to the White House a November victory would bring Newsom. Locking horns with Trump may open the door for a different change candidate with broader appeal. Democrats went with a Californian for president the last time and that didn’t exactly go so well.

Yet Newsom, like Trump, has that uncanny ability to stay in the public spotlight. He is set to deny fellow ambitious Democrats the national spotlight for weeks on end. All this partisan redrawing of maps around the country is the worst of policy. But for Newsom, the politics couldn’t get any better. Newsom just gerrymandered the Democrat’s presidential primary system with an early election of his own.

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