In an attempt to keep control of the U.S. House in 2026 regardless of voters' preferences, Republicans are exploiting their state government majorities to gerrymander Congressional maps across the country, which could flip as many as twelve currently Democratic seats. To counteract this, California's Prop 50 would — if passed this November 4 — approve temporary emergency maps enabling Democrats to net up to five seats, blunting the effects of the GOP's gerrymander.
While Governor Newsom's well-funded ballot measure committee is focused on blitzing the airwaves and a field operation led largely by organized labor, MVP's year-round organizing partners in California are working to persuade and mobilize crucial voters who would otherwise slip through the cracks.
The California Donor Table, "a statewide community of donors who pool their funds to make investments in communities of color," and its affiliate, the Progressive Era Issues Committee, are supporting local organizing groups to canvass infrequent Democrats and unaffiliated voters of color to vote yes on Prop 50 — with a targeted focus on current and future competitive House districts.
Stopping Election Rigging, Identifying Voters for 2026
This program has the dual benefit of:
- Educating, persuading, and mobilizing voters to vote yes on the initiative, and
- Refining voter targeting lists and engaging voters in geographies that will be strategic for winning back control of the House next year.
MVP partners involved include:
Targeting Voters of Color No One Else Is Reaching
As this POLITICO write-up puts it:
The Newsom-led committee has elevated familiar Democratic faces in an effort to polarize the electorate along partisan lines, and is enlisting organized labor for a sprawling ground game to make reliable voters aware of the offseason election.
Such campaigning tends to overlook a large chunk of the Democratic coalition, [Ludovic Blain, director of the California Donor Table] argued, especially voters of color. They are more likely to be reached by the type of local organizations that the Donor Table backs than the type of pop-up get-out-the-vote effort being launched by the Newsom juggernaut and its labor allies.
“Once you’re in the bucket of a low propensity voter,” Blain said, “campaigns don’t talk to you.”
Blain’s group is looking to take a different approach. The California Community Foundation, a venerable Los Angeles nonprofit that has reported more than $2 billion in assets and kicked in $200,000 to pass Prop 50, said it is backing the campaign to inform voters “in areas that typically have low participation, especially in off-cycle elections like this one.”
The voters targeted by the Progressive Era Issues Committee are unlikely to see advertising built around polarizing Democratic messengers like Newsom. Instead, they should expect doorstep visits from canvassers ready to emphasize how the outcome of Proposition 50 could shape their lives.
This PBS article features another local organizing partner of the Progressive Era Issues Committee, and spotlights the critical importance of these under-the-radar canvassing efforts:
In the state's Central Valley, Kelsey Hinton is working to mobilize infrequent Latino voters hitched to hectic jobs and child care who are often overlooked by major campaigns. Her group, the Community Water Center Action Fund, dispatches canvassers to knock on doors to explain the stakes in the election.
Operating separately from Newsom's campaign, and backed by funding from a left-leaning political group known as the Progressive Era Issues Committee, they hope to boost voter participation in an area where turnout can be among the sparsest in the state.
What are they finding? "People don't even know there is an election," Hinton said.
