“Tonight the American people…are writing a comeback story,” Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA) posted on the evening of Election Day 2025. “We are standing up to Trump’s cruelty and corruption.”
Swalwell contended that the blue wave was led by California, where resounding support for redistricting — a direct countermeasure to Trump’s gerrymandering push in red states like Texas — was at least as significant as Democratic Party gubernatorial victories in New Jersey (Mikie Sherrill) and Virginia (Abigail Spanberger), and the astonishing win by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in New York City.
Tonight the American people — led by California — are writing a comeback story. We are standing up to Trump’s cruelty and corruption. And when Democrats are in the majority we will cut our time in hell by half.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) November 5, 2025
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been the most high profile national critic of Trump, essentially bet his 2028 presidential hopes on passing Prop 50, the “Election Rigging Response Act.”
Newsom’s ability to persuade the electorate to change the U.S. Congress from 3,000 miles away appears to reveal a powerful governor whose positions are largely popular and aligned with Californians, contradicting the negative portraits of California and its leadership promulgated by Trump and the White House.
LIVE NOW: Proposition 50 WINS. https://t.co/h2aKNa7n1t
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) November 5, 2025
[Note: California, unlike Texas and its Gov. Gregg Abbott, has a law requiring a popular vote to enact such a change. Texas was able to push their redistricting initiative through a Republican legislature without subjecting it to the direct will of Texans.]
In pushing Prop 50 before the vote, Newsom warned Americans alarmed by the prospect of being governed permanently by a minority, that “red states all across the country are bending the knee to Donald Trump, helping him rig the 2026 election.”
Despite fierce opposition — and heavy opposition funding — from people like physicist and billionaire Berkshire Hathaway heir Charles Munger Jr., Newsom’s anti-Trump ballot measure passed 63.8% to 36.2%, a 27-point-plus landslide.
Many considered the elections as a referendum on Trump’s divisive presidency, which is how New Jersey Governor-elect Sherrill explicitly asked New Jersey voters to view it. Sherrill’s victory over the Trump-endorsed Republican Jack Ciattarelli, 56.2% to 43.2%, scans like a mandate.
In Virginia, Governor-elect Spanberger’s win over Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, was even larger — a nearly 15-point shellacking also signaling a mandate.
In comparison, Trump’s victory over Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election — which the President and the GOP have invariably described as a mandate — was as slim as the current House and Senate GOP majorities. Trump beat Harris 49.8% to 48.3%.
Trolling Trump and the White House, Newsom appropriated Trump’s signature phrase — make America great again — and claimed his own party’s successes had accomplished the goal.
We just did. https://t.co/0k4Bcw5LTO
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) November 5, 2025
