LOS ANGELES, CA — Heading into Election Day Tuesday, the most heated battles in California's 52 Congressional districts are taking place in courtrooms where the Trump Administration is sandbagging ahead of the coming blue wave.
Thanks to rare mid-decade partisan gerrymandering enabled by voters' passage of Prop 50, there are fewer competitive districts on Tuesday's ballot than there have been in years. Democrats are favored to pick up a handful of seats — Districts 1 and 6 and possibly 48 or 22 — on the way to taking Control of the House of Representatives with a comfortable margin, according to multiple polls and the latest ranking by the Cook Political Report.
The uncertainty this election season is less about who or which party will win and more a question of whether the Trump Administration will accept the results.
Though a handful of Golden State swing districts are unlikely to sway the outcome of the fight for control of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Department of Justice has made legal challenges to voting in California at a furious pace in the final week of the campaign. Multiple hearings are scheduled for Monday through Wednesday.
The U.S. Department of Justice sought to block election officials from counting more than 20,000 ballots, and it has begun issuing subpoenas to election officials while President Donald Trump has openly threatened them with criminal prosecution.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a federal appeal seeking to set aside thousands of mail ballots from California voters President Donald Trump's administration claims are noncitizens.
The administration's threats targeting voting in California prompted Governor Gavin Newsom Saturday to send letters to Chief District Judges for the four federal district courts in California, raising concerns that the President will attempt to interfere with California's elections.
"I write to alert you to the risk to election integrity of judges issuing a search warrant to seize ballots, election records, or certified voting technology while an election is underway and before the results are certified," Newsom wrote.
Federal prosecutors appear to be pursuing criminal investigations of local and state election officials despite a warning last week by federal Judge David O. Carter to immediately cease, according to Newsom.
"California's strict chain of custody, documentation, and retention laws related to ballots and ballot materials ensure any evidence of alleged wrongdoing tied to ballots or ballot materials is preserved and appropriately supervised by a court, so there is no legitimate law enforcement reason to seize ballots, ballot materials, and equipment needed to process and tabulate ballots," Newsom wrote. "Indeed, the only reason to do so would be to interfere in a State's lawful counting of ballots and certifying the results of the election.
"Given the United States Department of Justice's persistence in advancing this baseless theory of criminal liability, I have grave concerns federal agents will seek search warrants to seize ballots and ballot materials before the election results are certified. The tactics and rhetoric federal officials are using strongly suggest that, having lost repeatedly in federal civil proceedings thus far, they will quickly pivot to the criminal forum. The well-documented weaponization of the United States Department of Justice to serve the partisan and personal ends of the current President support legitimate concerns about further attempts to disenfranchise voters and undermine election integrity, up to and including seeking to prevent certification of results that recent polling suggests will flip control of at least one House of Congress."
"If you want to know why @GavinNewsom is behaving so bizarrely right now, it's because he's fighting overtime to count every illegal vote in the upcoming election. California admitted as much during the court proceedings in our case," First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli responded on X. "He fights for illegals and noncitizens, and has disdain for American citizens."
Andrew Howe, professor of history in the History, Politics & Sociology Department at La Sierra University, said he expects the GOP to lose control of the House this election and sees an ulterior motive in the Justice Department's legal maneuvers.
"Although the DOJ has cited widespread election fraud, little evidence exists for such claims," he told Patch. "Instead, the motivation underlying the DOJ legal maneuvering appears to be to call the democratic process into question, depressing voter turnout and sowing doubt about election results sure to go against the interests of the current presidential administration."
Cal State University Long Beach Assistant Professor of Political Science Matt Lesenyie said he suspects the administration's legal wrangling is a bad faith effort at altering the media narrative in the face of likely electoral defeat.
"It does not undermine the results. But it does create a media narrative in favor of Republicans," he told Patch. "It's bizarre territory however because the "corrupt system" as it's alleged, has produced a Republican congressional majority. So at what point does this snipe hunt tie up someone like Kim, Calvert. Valadao? It appears to be in bad faith."
A new USC Dornsife poll released over the weekend showed Democratic congressional candidates leading by 8 to 14 percentage points in four California congressional districts redrawn under Proposition 50.
"California's redistricting response to Texas appears to be having its intended effect," said USC Center For Political Future Director Robert Shrum. "Our poll shows Democratic candidates leading in all four districts we examined, including the Central Valley's 22nd District, where the contest has been closely watched."
In each of the districts, voters told polsters they were frustrated with rising prices and disapproved the Trump's performance.
According to USC Dornsife, the findings show:
As of Sunday, The Cook Political Report rates District 48 as leaning Democratic and District 22 as a toss-up.
District 22
District 22 was always going to be a challenge for incumbent Republican Valadao, who won his Central Valley seat in a Democratic-leaning district in 2024. After Prop. 50, it's even more Democratic leaning, with additional communities in Fresno and Madera counties.
"Valadao has a much tougher lift in that he's running against a Democrat during an election featuring headwinds for incumbent Republicans," said La Sierra University's Howe.
The change in the district's voter registration comes on top of Valadao's party-line vote last year for Trump's megabill that slashed taxes for wealthy Americans and cut $1 trillion in Medicaid funding over the next 10 years.
According to CalMatters, "Valadao's district has the highest Medicaid enrollment rate of any Republican seat in the country."
Valadao is one of only two remaining House Republicans of the 10 who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The other, Dan Newhouse of Washington, is retiring in December.
In the final days of the election, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been actively detaining people in the District, prompting accusations of voter intimidation, Reuters reported.
Valadao has always had to battle for his seat, even coming back in 2020 to defeat the incumbent who defeated him two years earlier.
"The gerrymander cut into Valadao's potential margins," said CSULB's Lesenyi.
"I think Valadao will do more than squeak by," added Lesenyi.
District 48
District 48 doesn't have an incumbent candidate after longtime Republican Rep. Darrell Issa decided to retire after his current term ends, rather than run for reelection in a district that now leans Democratic.
The new district covers parts of San Diego and Riverside counties, including Ramona, Escondido, Santee, Poway, Temecula, and Palm Springs.
In his announcement, Issa endorsed 48th Congressional District candidate Jim Desmond, a Republican who currently sits on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Trump also endorsed Desmond.
In a district with large Latino communities, ICE arrests became a prominent issue, and Desmond has run his campaign based on local issues rather than his MAGA credentials.
Conversely, von Wilpert, a San Diego City Council member, is running as a force for holding the Trump administration accountable.
District 6
District 6 in the suburbs of Sacramento is also one in which incumbents are playing musical chairs, thanks to Prop. 50. Republican incumbent Kiley is running in a new Democratic-leaning District 6 as an Independent who will caucus with the Republicans. The party change would seem to give him a fighting chance in a new District 6 that leans Democratic.
Closely aligned with Trump, Kiley has distanced himself from the party facing national headwinds.
District 40
Perhaps the state's most closely watched Congressional race is in Southern California's District 40, where redistricting has pitted two Republican incumbents Ken Calvert and Young Kim against each other. A Republican will win this race, but which one?
"Calvert is in a safe seat, he's just facing another Republican who lost her home district as well," said Lesenyie. "Calvert's base of support is in Riverside County and Palm Springs areas, now he's lost a bunch of that and gained a portion of Orange County where he 's less well known. Calvert and Young Kim are both running from Donald Trump. Calvert recently had a mailer that implied Kim was the more Trump loyal candidate. Very interesting strategy."
La Sierra University's Howe sees another interesting dynamic affecting the race.
"Due to a Republican electorate in District 40 that appears to be split between these two candidates, it will likely be independents and registered Democrats who decide which of these two end up in the 120th U.S. Congress," he said. "Having lived in his district for most of my voting life, I can speak from experience regarding Calvert's ability to win elections, even when largely counted out. Incumbents are incumbents for a reason; they know how to run effective campaigns, connect with an electorate — even a partially hostile one — and win."
District 13
In District 13 Rep. Adam Gray won his seat by less than 200 votes in 2024, the slimmest margin of any Congressional race in the country. For much of the last decade, it was one of the purplest districts in the state, swapping parties multiple times in a decade.
Proposition 50 shifted the district in favor of the Democrats but not enough to deter Republicans from investing in the Central Valley district representing Madera, Merced and part of Stockton. Gray faces a challenge from Republican Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln. The seat is considered the best chance of a pickup for Republicans in California, but it is rated Likely Democratic by the Cook Political Report.
Chief issues facing the region include affordability and water rights.
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