‘LFG’: Newsom Crows About Winning Redistricting ‘War’ After Supreme Court Rejects Trump Admin’s Appeal

(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

The Supreme Court granted California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) a major political victory Wednesday when it declined to hear an appeal challenging the state’s redistricting, allowing the new congressional maps to be used in the upcoming midterm elections in November.

Newsom has been regularly sparring with President Donald Trump throughout the president’s second term, with the governor widely expected to enter the 2028 presidential race and GOP control of Congress on the line for this year’s midterms.

Normally, states only redraw their state legislative and congressional maps every 10 years, after the results of the U.S. Census, but last year Trump began pressuring states with Republican governors and majority control of their legislatures to engage in an early congressional redistricting with the goal of flipping some blue states to red. Newsom fired back with a vow to push for his own large Democratic-majority state to do its own redistricting and thereby wipe out any GOP gains.

After Texas’ legislature voted to redraw its maps, California conducted its own redistricting with Proposition 50, a ballot measure that was approved by the voters last summer. Both were swiftly challenged in court, and it seems that both have survived the litigation.

The lawsuit against California’s new districts was filed by a group of California Republicans and the Trump Department of Justice, accusing the state of engaging in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. Last month, a panel on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California voted 2-1 to reject the plaintiffs’ efforts to block the new California map, finding that it had been done for partisan motivations, which are legally allowed.

The California Republicans and Trump administration appealed the ruling, but on Wednesday, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal or grant any sort of injunctive relief blocking the new maps, allowing them to stand and be used in the November midterms.

The rejection came in a simple one-sentence order that stated, “The application for the writ of injunction pending appeal presented to Justice [Elena] Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied.”

California’s redrawn congressional maps are expected to shift five seats from Republicans to Democrats.

Newsom crowed about the win, sharing a screenshot of a headline with the caption “LFG” (an acronym for “let’s f*cking go”).

“Donald Trump said he was ‘entitled’ to five more congressional seats in Texas,” Newsom said in a statement to The New York Times. “He started this redistricting war. He lost, and he’ll lose again in November.”

Newsom’s press office offered an exuberantly all-caps celebration of the decision from the nation’s highest court.

“BREAKING: SUPREME COURT ALLOWS NEW CALIFORNIA VOTING MAP FOR MIDTERMS!” they wrote.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!