Schwarzenegger taunts Newsom with message targeting Dem redistricting push
The longtime Hollywood action star, the last Republican governor in Democrat-dominated California, says he's mobilizing to oppose the push by current Gov. Gavin Newsom to temporarily scrap the state's nonpartisan redistricting commission.
'I'm getting ready for the gerrymandering battle,' Schwarzenegger wrote in a social media post Friday, which included a photo of the former professional bodybuilding champion lifting weights.
Schwarzenegger, who rose to worldwide fame as the star of the film 'The Terminator' four decades ago, wore a T-shirt in the photo that said 'terminate gerrymandering.'
The social media post by Schwarzenegger comes as Democratic leaders in the Democrat- dominated California legislature are moving forward with new proposed congressional district maps that would create up to five more blue-leaning US House seats in the nation's most populous state.
Newsom on Thursday teamed up in Los Angeles with congressional Democrats and legislative leaders in the heavily blue state to unveil their redistricting playbook.
4 Arnold Schwarzenegger wears a 'F*** The Politicians. Terminate Gerrymandering' shirt while working out.
Arnold Schwarzenegger/X
Newsom and the Democrats are aiming to counter the ongoing effort by President Donald Trump and Republicans to create up to five GOP-friendly congressional districts in red state Texas at the expense of Democrat-controlled seats.
'Today is liberation day in the state of California,' Newsom said. 'Donald Trump, you have poked the bear, and we will punch back.'
Newsom vowed to 'meet fire with fire' with his push for a rare — but not unheard of — mid-decade redistricting.
4 California Gov. Gavin Newsom embraces former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a news conference in Los Angeles, Calif. on March 22, 2024.
Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag
The Republican push in Texas, which comes at Trump's urging, is part of a broader effort by the GOP across the country to pad its razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in the 2026 midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.
Trump and his political team are aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House, when Democrats stormed back to grab the House majority in the 2018 midterms.
While the Republican push in Texas to upend the current congressional maps doesn't face constitutional constraints, Newsom's path in California is much more complicated.
The governor is pushing to hold a special election this year to get voter approval to undo the constitutional amendments that created the nonpartisan redistricting commission.
A two-thirds majority vote in the Democrat-dominated California legislature as early as next week would be needed to hold the referendum.
Democratic Party leaders are confident they'll have the votes to push the constitutional amendment and the new proposed congressional maps through the legislature.
'Here we are in open and plain sight before one vote is cast in the 2026 midterm election, and here [Trump] is once again trying to rig the system,' Newsom charged.
Newsom said his plan is 'not complicated. We're doing this in reaction to a president of the United States that called a sitting governor in the state of Texas and said, 'Find me five seats.' We're doing it in reaction to that act.'
4 The proposed Congressional district map of California.
California State Assembly
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) said 'Newsom's made it clear: he'll shred California's Constitution and trample over democracy — running a cynical, self-serving playbook where Californians are an afterthought, and power is the only priority.'
But Newsom defended his actions, saying 'we're working through a very transparent, temporary and public process. We're putting the maps on the ballot and putting the power to the people.'
Thursday's appearance by Newsom, considered a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, also served as a fundraising kickoff to raise massive amounts of campaign cash needed to sell the redistricting push statewide in California.
The nonpartisan redistricting commission, created over 15 years ago, remains popular among most Californians, according to public opinion polling.
That's why Newsom and California Democratic lawmakers are promising not to scrap the commission entirely, but rather replace it temporarily by the legislature for the next three election cycles.
'We will affirm our commitment to the state independent redistricting after the 2030 census, but we are asking the voters for their consent to do midterm redistricting,' Newsom said.
Their efforts are opposed by a number of people supportive of the nonpartisan commission.
4 Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a rally about redistricting at the Democracy Center, Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles on Aug. 14, 2025.
Getty Images
Among the most visible members is likely to be Schwarzenegger.
'He calls gerrymandering evil, and he means that. He thinks it's truly evil for politicians to take power from people,' Schwarzenegger spokesperson Daniel Ketchell told Politico earlier this month.
'He's opposed to what Texas is doing, and he's opposed to the idea that California would race to the bottom to do the same thing.'
Schwarzenegger, during his tenure as governor, had a starring role in the passage of constitutional amendments in California in 2008 and 2010 that took the power to draw state legislative and congressional districts away from politicians and placed it in the hands of an independent commission.
'Most people don't really think about an independent commission much, one way or another. And that's both an opportunity and a challenge for Newsom,' Jack Pitney, an American politics professor at California's Claremont McKenna College, told Fox News.
'It's going to take a lot of effort and money to energize Democrats and motivate them to show up at the polls,' Pitney said, adding Newsom's effort 'is all about motivating people who don't like Trump.'
Fox News' Lee Ross contributed to this report
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Boston Globe
8 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
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Los Angeles Times
8 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Republicans look to reverse federal commitment to EVs for the Postal Service
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Vox
8 minutes ago
- Vox
Why crime is still Trump's best issue
is a senior politics correspondent at Vox, covering the White House, elections, and political scandals and investigations. He's worked at Vox since the site's launch in 2014, and before that, he worked as a research assistant at the New Yorker's Washington, DC, bureau. President Donald Trump shows crime statistics as he delivers remarks during a press conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House August 11, 2025, in Washington, Trump's federal takeover of Washington, DC's police force — which looks like something between an authoritarian power grab and an empty stunt — doesn't look like a political winner at first glance. A poll from YouGov last week showed little support for Trump's move; 34 percent of respondents approved of the idea, and 47 percent disapproved. Yet the pushback from Democrats — which often focused on pointing out that DC crime was trending downward, or arguing it wasn't such a serious problem — shows why the larger crime issue remains perilous for them, and advantageous for Trump. Though Trump is unpopular, crime remains one of his strongest issues, and one of the Democratic Party's worst. That sticks in Democrats' craw. Trump's recitation of DC crime statistics was filled with blatant misrepresentations. Furthermore, Trump himself was indicted four times, and he notably pardoned even the violent rioters of January 6, 2025. How could they be losing the law and order issue to this guy? Yet the polling says very clearly that they are. Polls consistently show the public prefers Republicans to Democrats on crime In May, separate polls from both CNN and YouGov asked respondents about which party they trusted more on over a dozen different issues, and both found that crime was the Democrats' worst of all. (The GOP had a 13-point advantage in one poll, and a 12-point advantage in the other.) It hasn't always been this way. Even as recently as 2021, the two parties were about evenly matched in polling from Langer Research. But in 2022, the GOP's advantage on crime surged to its highest in decades of the firm's polling — and it hasn't gone away since. That's for a pretty straightforward reason: A large majority of the public became convinced, due to very real rising crime rates, that crime in cities had become a very serious problem and that tougher policies are necessary — but Democrats often don't seem like they feel the same way. The crime rates have since declined, but voter concerns haven't gone away. In last week's YouGov poll, a large majority — 67 percent — believed crime was a major problem in US cities, and only 23 percent thought it was a minor problem. And back in April 2024, the Pew Research Center asked registered voters whether they believed the US criminal justice system was generally too tough on criminals, or not tough enough. It wasn't even close. A mere 13 percent chose 'too tough,' while 61 percent said 'not tough enough.' Notably, even a plurality of Biden supporters (40 percent of them) believed the system was 'not tough enough,' while just 21 percent of them thought it was too tough. Among the public, the belief that the criminal justice system is overly harsh on criminals is a fringe view. But among progressive activists, it's a core belief. Democrats have a crime problem For the past decade, the intellectual and organizing energy among progressive criminal justice activists has been around preventing police violence and making sentencing of criminals more lenient. In these circles, distrust of police and law enforcement and disdain for mass incarceration were widespread, and concern about crime in cities became viewed as racially coded. Responding to these pressures, Democratic politicians struck an increasingly awkward balance on crime issues. They've tried to disavow 'defund the police,' and big city mayors who have crime-concerned constituents have tried to get tough. But it hasn't been enough to change the party's brand. Why not? Another YouGov poll — taken in September 2024 — asked respondents about several of then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris's criminal justice policy proposals and Trump's. Harris's specific proposals were generally more popular. But on the question of who would do a better job handling crime? Trump had an 8-point advantage. That's because voters don't make up their minds by tallying a policy laundry list. They look for signals about 'whose side are you on?' And Trump has signaled in many ways that he's on the 'tough on crime' side. Democrats' signals have been more mixed. So when Democrats are tempted to say anyone worried about DC's crime level is ignorant, a scaredy-cat, or a demagogue, they should be aware they're going out on a limb. While voters may think Trump is going too far or mishandling certain cases, the broader crime issue remains favorable to him. It will take some serious work for Democrats to change that perception. Crime remains one of the party's most glaring political weaknesses.
