Earlier today, on August 15th, 2025, Democrats in California have released their new proposed House map for 2026. It still has to be approved via a special election later this year, but it seems likely that Democrats response to Republicans gerrymandered map in Texas will succeed. This map, if passed, will create five additional seats that Democrats are favored in in 2026. Here is the map, via Redistricter:
The new map would almost certainly eliminate Doug LaMalfa’s (CA-1) Northern California district, one of Tom McClintock (CA-05), or Vince Fong’s (CA-20) Central Valley districts, one of Young Kim (CA-40), or Ken Calvert’s (CA-41) LA districts, and Darrell Issa’s (CA-48) SoCal district. David Valadao’s (CA-22) Central Valley district, would be made more Democratic, but Trump still won it in 2024 by about 2%.
Here are each of the new districts by their ESTIMATED 2024 Presidential Margin, per Vance Ulrich.
D+ 20+: CA-02, CA-08, CA-10, CA-11, CA-12, CA-14, CA-15, CA-16, CA-17, CA-18, CA-19, CA-24, CA-28, CA-29, CA-30, CA-32, CA-34, CA-36, CA-37, CA-43, CA-44 (21)
D+ 10-19: CA-01, CA-03, CA-04, CA-07, CA-09, CA-26, CA-27, CA-31, CA-33, CA-38, CA-39, CA-41, CA-42, CA-46, CA-47, CA-49, CA-50, CA-51, CA-52 (19)
D+ 5-9: CA-06, CA-21, CA-25, CA-35 (4)
D+ 0-4: CA-13, CA-45, CA-48 (3)
R+ 0-4: CA-22 (1)
R+ 5-9: (0)
R+ 10-19: CA-23, CA-40 (2)
R+ 20+: CA-05, CA-20 (2)
In total, I would rate 40 of these seats extremely safe for Democrats, and another 7 as favored to win in 2026. One, CA-22, I would currently rate as lean Democratic, as it should be a more favorable environment for Democrats than in 2024, when Trump won the district by 2. Finally, I think CA-40 isn’t QUITE safe, but Republicans should be favored to hold it in 2026. The current delegation is a 43D-9R split, but it should be either 47-48D to 4-5R if this measure to bypass the independent commission passes.
We just want to say, that although Democrats in California and all other Democratic controlled states SHOULD fight Trump’s brazen attempt at taking the 2026 midterms by gerrymandering in any way possible, gerrymandering really sucks. We hope that partisan and racial gerrymandering can come to an end as soon as humanly possible, and that there can be actual attempts to improve democracy in the near future. We personally recommend looking at expanding and uncapping the House of Representatives, introducing RCV (Ranked Choice Voting) wherever, and make voting easier for all citizens of the United States.
Map via Redistricter.
About the Author
