Newsom tells Texas crowd taking back House is ‘the whole thing’ for Democrats in 2026

California Gov. Gavin Newsom in Texas on Saturday told a crowd that Democrats winning back the House of Representatives in 2026 is “the whole thing.”

Newsom, 58, continued to ride high over the weekend, four days after California’s Proposition 50 — to redistrict the state’s congressional map in favor of Democrats — passed in a landslide.

Newsom also couldn’t resist taking a jab at his frequent foe, President Donald Trump.

“He is an historic president, however — historically unpopular,” he told the crowd in Houston. “And he had a very bad night on Tuesday.”

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Along with Prop 50 in California, Democrats also won gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia and Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani handily beat Democrat-turned-Independent candidate Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayoral election.

Proposition 50 was a response to Texas’ legislature redistricting their congressional map in favor of Republicans over the summer, and on Tuesday after Proposition 50 passed, Newsom called on other Democratic states to follow suit.

“We need to see other states, their remarkable leaders that have been doing remarkable things, meet this moment head-on as well,” he said in a late-night news conference on Tuesday. “We can de facto end Donald Trump’s presidency as we know it, the minute Speaker Jeffries gets sworn in as speaker of the House of Representatives. It is all on the line.”

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He continued his celebration on Saturday, telling the crowd: “There were lines around the block two hours after polling had stopped because people wanted to be heard, not just seen, they wanted to send a message. But as I said, we cannot rest until we take it back.”

The governor reiterated, “There is no more important race in our lifetimes than the House of Representatives, and taking back the House and getting speaker [Hakeem] Jeffries sworn in next November. It’s the whole thing. It’s the whole thing.”

“And so that starts today,” he continued. “It started on Tuesday.”

Newsom added, “We can shape the future here in Texas. We can shape the future all across the South and across the United States of America. You have that power.”

Trump and the GOP have spearheaded an effort to pad the party’s razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in the 2026 midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats. Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio have drawn new maps as part of the president’s push.

Trump is aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections.

Although he hasn’t announced his intentions to run for president, Newsom has been widely seen as a possible frontrunner for Democrats in the 2028 presidential election.

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While two other Democratic blue state governors with likely national ambitions in 2028, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Wes Moore of Maryland, are mulling new maps in their states to create one or two more blue-leaning congressional districts, Newsom has been the most visible leader so far in the redistricting wars and the first Democrat to succeed.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.