Californians go to the polls Tuesday in a ballot likely to further tilt the liberal state towards the Democrats, as the party seeks to neutralize gerrymandering ordered by President Donald Trump.
Governor Gavin Newsom and his allies want voters to approve a temporary re-drawing of electoral districts that would give the Democratic Party five more seats in the scramble for control of the US Congress in next year's midterm elections.
They say they are only doing it to level the playing field after Texas Republicans pushed through their own redistricting -- under White House pressure -- to help maintain a narrow Congressional majority that has so far given Trump carte blanche.
Republicans say it is a naked power grab that will disenfranchise the party's voters in California, a state where they are heavily outnumbered by Democrats.
The vote is "a political ink-blot test," Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Barbarak wrote Monday.
"A reasoned attempt to even things out in response to Texas' attempt to nab five more congressional seats. Or a ruthless gambit to drive the California GOP to near-extinction.
"What many California voters see depends on, politically, where they stand."
- Gerrymandering -
Electoral districts across the US are traditionally drawn following the national census taken every ten years, theoretically so the electoral map reflects the people who live there.
In reality, most boundaries are party political decisions, so whichever grouping is in power at the time gets to set the rules for the next decade's contests.
California did away with such partisan gerrymandering under former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, giving the power instead to an independent panel.
If "Proposition 50" passes on Tuesday, politically drawn boundaries will take effect for all elections until the next census, when the panel will once again determine the maps.
- 'Stick it to Trump' -
Like almost everything in US politics at the moment, one figure looms over Tuesday's vote.
"Stick it to Trump on November 4th," booms one of the largest advertising campaigns.
The accompanying TV commercial has an irate Trump gorging on fast food as he hate-watches the imagined election result, jabbing at his TV control as he mutters about his victimhood.
"If the Democrats don't get dirty and get in the mud with the Republicans to fight back, we're going to get run over," 61-year-old contractor Patrick Bustad told canvassers in Los Angeles last week.
Trump "wants to be a dictator, not a president," said Bustad, recalling how the Republican refused to concede the 2020 presidential election.
Opponents of Proposition 50 have their own bogeyman.
Newsom "wants it his way so he can rig it," retiree Paula Patterson told AFP in the oil-producing town of Taft last month.
"The Democrats are going to take over, and we're not going to have any rights," she said.
Polls predict the initiative will pass handily -- offering Newsom high-profile proof of his willingness to stand up to Trump.
For a man widely expected to take a run at the White House in 2027, that would be very helpful.
The telegenic governor has already begun projecting an air of confident authority, with his campaign largely winding up a week before the ballot.
"You can stop donating," he told supporters.
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