Over the next two months, Democratic and Republican donors are expected to funnel as much as $200 million into a California ballot fight that could heavily shape which party wins control of the U.S. House next year.
It is an enormous amount of cash to raise in such a brief amount of time, but one that befits the stakes of the race.
That was the message that Gavin Newsom, the state’s governor and the face of the ballot measure to gerrymander districts in California, delivered when he made a surprise appearance in an Aug. 18 briefing for advisers to the state’s billionaire donors.
Mr. Newsom had not been listed on the “campaign briefing” advertised to the donors, but after Jim DeBoo, his top campaign adviser, ran through the polling, Mr. Newsom hopped in the Zoom meeting to encourage the richest Californians to get into the fight.
Democrats, he told more than 20 donor advisers that Monday afternoon, could not unilaterally disarm as Republicans drew new maps to gerrymander Texas to their advantage, according to four people on the call. So he had to raise millions. Fast.
The surprise November election has jostled a sleepy political fund-raising class, particularly among Democrats, who are still recovering from the doldrums after a heartbreaking 2024 campaign.
In just over two months, each side could raise well over $100 million, which is what Mr. Newsom’s advisers are privately targeting. That money began to be spent en masse on Tuesday, with both sides releasing dueling ads and reserving more than $10 million in airtime in the coming weeks. They are scrambling now, knowing that ballots will be sent to voters in about a month.
The contours of the big-money sprint were laid out in more than two dozen interviews with campaign officials, political consultants, donors and donor advisers. Many individuals spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about private fund-raising details.
The new congressional districts that voters are being asked to approve in the ballot measure, Proposition 50, were drawn to flip five Republican seats in California and shore up four vulnerable incumbent Democrats. The new lines would apply not just in 2026 but 2028 and 2030 as well.
Given that a single competitive House race can cost more than $40 million, the opportunity to substantially swing the dynamics of nine districts for three election cycles makes financial sense to big donors. And California ballot measures have no contribution limits.
Republicans appear to have a modest head start on fund-raising. They can count on the biggest donor in the race so far — the son of Charlie Munger, the Berkshire Hathaway billionaire — and they have sent out a wave of early mailers to voters. Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker, is mobilizing Republican networks and trying to capitalize on the tech industry’s rightward tilt.
Mr. Newsom has told top donors that he has invested $10 million of his accumulated campaign funds into the fight in hopes of urging donors to make a “meaningful seven-figure commitment” of their own. He has been aggressively asking wealthy donors, unions and trade associations for contributions between $2.5 million to $5 million each, according to people close to him.
The asks come from Mr. Newsom in one-on-one meetings with some of the state’s wealthiest people, or from his longtime fund-raisers, Kristin Bertolina Faust, Stefanie Roumeliotes and Ryan Baukol.
Mr. Newsom says that the fight is a matter of saving American democracy and wresting control of federal government from Mr. Trump. But donors say they are aware it could also catapult Mr. Newsom toward the top of the Democratic presidential sweepstakes in 2028 if his ballot measure is successful — and hobble him if he fails.
Some early backers of the measure have included two major state labor unions, which have donated $4 million; Reed Hastings, the co-founder of Netflix, who contributed $2 million; and the leading super PAC for House Democrats, which has transferred $3.5 million.
Mr. Hastings told The New York Times that he supported it because it “neutralizes the Texas power grab of five House seats.”
Ron Conway, the tech investor well-known in Silicon Valley for aggressively sending political fund-raising emails, is working in concert with Mr. Newsom and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, on fund-raising for the ballot measure, according to three people in touch with him.
Mr. Newsom’s team has told other Democrats that they expect Mr. Conway to contribute over $2 million to the cause, according to two people briefed on the effort. Mr. Conway confirmed through a spokesman that he is supporting the measure but declined comment.
Mr. Conway’s decision to give influenced Paul Graham, the co-founder of Y Combinator, the tech start-up incubator. Mr. Graham typically does not back partisan efforts, but said he donated $500,000 after conferring with Mr. Conway.
“Like most people in the venture business I’m a political moderate, so it worries me when one party tries to tip the scales in their favor,” Mr. Graham said.
Another billionaire supporter of Mr. Newsom is expected to be Mike Moritz, a venture capitalist. “When electoral vandals are on the rampage in Washington and Texas, we have no choice but to fight,” he said.
Mr. Newsom has largely centralized power over fund-raising for Proposition 50, though his donor briefings also have been organized by the House Majority PAC and the Democratic National Committee, according to a person with knowledge of the efforts. The California Donor Table, a progressive group, aims to raise at least $5 million for its own effort supporting the measure, including to target voters of color.
But many Democratic donors, including those on the August call with Mr. Newsom, privately say they are holding back. Mr. Newsom’s team has been frustrated at times by the pace of Democratic giving, according to people close to the team, which they attribute to both the hangover of the 2024 election and to Mr. Trump’s retribution campaign against his enemies — particularly important in a state that requires the public disclosure of donors’ names.
The biggest X-factor in the race is Charles Munger Jr., a bow tie-favoring physicist whose father was Warren Buffett’s business partner at Berkshire Hathaway. Mr. Munger, a moderate Republican, had spent tens of millions of dollars on redistricting and other ballot measures more than a decade ago in California, then essentially disappeared from state politics.
Then, on July 16, he re-emerged with a not-so-cryptic warning on social media that unwinding the redistricting measure “will be strongly opposed.”
He formed his own campaign committee, and his first check opposing Mr. Newsom’s measure came a month later. It was $10 million. A week after that, he put in another $10 million, which his spokeswoman described as the “start” of Mr. Munger’s effort to get his message out.
Mr. Munger’s campaign has already sent glossy four-page mailers widely to state voters, and booked nearly $9 million in television advertising over the next three weeks. He has so far declined interviews.
Bill Bloomfield, a Republican-turned-Democratic donor who backed prior ballot measures to create California’s independent redistricting system, gave $1 million to support Mr. Newsom’s effort to temporarily redraw political lines. He said he also directly reached out to Mr. Munger, a friend he thinks “the world of,” to try and talk him out of the opposition push.
Mr. Bloomfield did not hear back. “I’m very disappointed in his position,” Mr. Bloomfield said.
Mr. Munger is not allied with Mr. Trump’s team, and he recently told an associate that he wanted nothing to do with Mr. Trump’s donors, according to the associate. Mr. Munger’s spokeswoman said he has no plans to raise outside cash.
There is also an explicitly pro-Trump, partisan effort guided by Mr. McCarthy and his allies in the state. People raising money for the McCarthy effort include those close to Mr. Trump, such as the top Washington lobbyist Jeff Miller, and one of the president’s top finance aides in the state, Julie Westlake. So far, Mr. McCarthy’s committee has reported raising less than $9,000. He did not respond to a request for comment.
An operative leading Mr. McCarthy’s effort is also running a nonprofit social welfare organization that is not required to disclose its donors. The group, Right Path California, has already sent out mailers that blast the “Politician Power Grab.”
Some officials working on the “No” campaign are exploring whether Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and former California governor who championed independent redistricting in the state, will help them raise money from tech leaders, according to a person briefed on the matter. Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, opposes Proposition 50, but his top aide said he has no current plans to raise money for the “No” effort.
Mr. Bloomfield said that as long as proponents of the California measure raised $80 million to $100 million, it would be sufficient to offset Texas’ new map.
“I actually think this is an example of where the second wrong makes a right,” he said.
Theodore Schleifer is a Times reporter covering billionaires and their impact on the world.
Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent.
Laurel Rosenhall is a Sacramento-based reporter covering California politics and government for The Times.
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