California voters are already casting ballots in what's likely the most important contest of 2025,

one that will play a substantial role in deciding which party controls the U.S. House for the last two years of President Donald Trump's time in office.

Hello, and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Monday, October 20, 2025.

Many voters are frustrated, angry, and wanting to push back against President Trump or Governor

Gavin Newsom from the rural Republican North

State to liberal enclaves along California's coast with just weeks to go before the consequential

November 4th election.

Here to dig into what this special election means, not just for California, but for the

country.

I'm now joined by USA Today, Senior National Reporter Sarah D. Wier.

Sarah, thank you so much for joining me on the excerpt.

Thanks for having me.

First, what is this move in response to?

Can you give us some political context for how this proposition ended up on the ballot?

Historically, the President's Party loses seats in a midterm election.

And so in order to combat that, President Trump started urging states, including Texas,

to redraw their district boundaries before 2026.

So far, Texas already has.

Over the summer of the state legislature,

redrew the district lines, making five seats that were traditionally Democratic,

lean more heavily towards Republicans. California is trying to mitigate what Texas has done

and keep it a little bit more level, making sure that Democrats have a pretty strong chance of taking control of the House in 2026.

...