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Texas, September 2, 2025.- One year before the mid-term elections, the battle for electoral maps was raging. Texas has just adopted a reform that could offer five more seats to the Republicans, pushing California to consider a democratic redistribution. On the sidelines of this partisan duel, Arnold Schwarzenegger goes up to the front and calls for an end to the "gerrymandering", which he considers undemocratic.
In Texas, under direct pressure from Donald Trump, Republican elected officials validated a redistribution designed to dilute the democratic vote. This manoeuvre could consolidate a fragile majority of five seats in Congress during the midterms of November 2026. Texan Democrats, a minority, had tried to block the vote by leaving the state during the summer, without success.
In the face of this offensive, the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, registered in the November 4 ballot proposal 50, which provides for a new electoral division that could bring five seats back to the Democrats. Presented as an anti-Trump referendum, this project divides into the progressive camp.
Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a strong defender of the Citizens' Electoral Redistribution Commission he had established, denounces practices « anti-democratic and anti-American ». In an interview with the New York Times, he sent Republicans and Democrats back to back: « When politicians draw cards, they only think about protecting their seat. Voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around. »
Beyond the battle between Newsom and Trump, this arm illustrates a major issue of American democracy: the future of political representation in a system weakened by Gerrymandering.
W.A.
