California Governor Gavin Newsom has hit back at President Donald Trump after the Department of Justice announced Friday that it would be sending election monitors to California.
In a video shared to social media, Newsom argued that the DOJ has no business or basis for sending election monitors, because the upcoming election on Nov. 4 is a “statewide election for a statewide constitution.”
“This is about voter intimidation. This is about voter suppression. Period, full stop,” Newsom said.
Newsom spokesperson Brandon Richards told the Daily Beast, “This administration has made no secret of its goal to undermine free and fair elections. Deploying these federal forces appears to be an intimidation tactic meant for one thing: suppress the vote.”
Donald Trump’s puppet DOJ has no business screwing around with next month’s election.Sending the feds into California polling places is a deliberate attempt to scare off voters and undermine a fair election.We will not back down. Californians decide our future — no one else. pic.twitter.com/olGXV5GBjL
— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) October 25, 2025
“This is a bridge too far,” Newsom said. “I hope people understand that this is a bridge they’re trying to build, the scaffolding for all across this country in next November’s election.”
“They do not believe in fair and free elections,” Newsom continued. “Our republic, our democracy is on the line. We all need to wake up.”
In a statement to the Associated Press, Attorney General Pam Bondi argued that the goal of sending election monitors to polling places is to “ensure transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law.”
“Transparency at the polls translates into faith in the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of election integrity,” Bondi said.
The DOJ plans to send election monitors to polling sites in five counties in California—Los Angeles, Orange, Kern, Riverside and Fresno—for the Nov. 4 special election, as well as polling sites in Passaic County, New Jersey, which will be voting for governor on Nov. 4. All six targeted areas are well-known Democratic strongholds.
The DOJ said that it decided to send election monitors after complaints from Republicans in both California and New Jersey, The New York Times reported.
Republicans in California voiced concerns about the accuracy of voter lists in the five counties singled out for monitoring, while the New Jersey Republican Party claimed that Democrats in Passaic County had blocked the use of cameras in ballot storage areas and refused to require workers with access to mail-in ballots to sign in.
Democrats were skeptical about Bondi’s claims of DOJ election monitors ensuring transparency, with California Secretary of State Shirley Weber arguing that the department had provided no justification for sending federal officials to monitor a state election. “We will not permit tactics masquerading as oversight to erode voter confidence or intimidate Californians,” she said.
“Our voters have earned the right to cast their ballots free from surveillance or interference—from anyone.”
California’s special election was called so that residents could vote on Proposition 50, Newsom’s response to increased Republican gerrymandering efforts around the country.
Proposition 50 seeks to “offset” the gerrymandering in red states designed to deliver more House seats to the Republican party by redrawing California’s electoral maps to deliver more House seats to Democratic candidates.
Former President Barack Obama has thrown his support behind the measure, acknowledging that while in the long term, “we shouldn’t have political gerrymandering in America,” in the short term Newsom’s proposition is a “smart, measured approach… designed to address a very particular problem at a very particular moment in time.”
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