S1: Well , welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman. On today's show , we're breaking down prop 50 and talking about the election. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. Today , California voters decide on prop 50. If passed , this measure could change several districts in California , flipping five U.S. seats from Republican to Democratic control. Governor Gavin Newsom says it's a response to Texas Republicans redrawing their congressional maps back in August to gain Republican seats after a push from President Donald Trump. KPBS social media host and reporter Jake Gatta is following the election closely , and he joins me now to talk about what prop 50 could mean for San Diegans. Jake , welcome to the show.
S2: Thank you for having me.
S1: So glad you're here. You've really focused on the local impacts here , specifically on the 48th district. What does the district look like and how could that change if prop 50 is passed ? Yeah.
S2: So the 48th is part of San Diego. That has always sort of been a Republican stronghold. It's it's north and east County , lots of places outside of the coastal areas that are , you know , consistently voting for Republicans. And by consistently , I mean , Darrell Issa represents that district. He's been representing some part of that area for the better part of 20 years now. Um , and so part of that is because of the voter registration numbers in that district , in that 48th district , right now , 42% of registered voters are Republicans and only 28% are Democrats. So there's a big advantage for Republicans right now , and that's why that district is consistently going towards Republicans. But if prop 50 passed , that would completely flip and there would only be 29% registered Republicans in that district and 39% of the registered voters would be Democrats. So the the balance of voter registrations would flip in that area in that specific district , and it would give Democrats a huge advantage of voter registrations in that area. And that usually tends to indicate what kind of vote share that's going to get. Right.
S1: Right. And of course , there's been a widespread push by the San Diego County Democratic Party here to drum up support for prop 50.
S2: And that's something that the new county Democratic Party leader told me. Will Rodriguez Kennedy. He said that they're trying to reach voters everywhere all at once , the whole county , and not focusing on , you know , districts or areas that are likely to go Democrat versus Republican or something like that. This is a statewide ballot prop. There's no Districts to win. There's no geographical areas to worry about. And so they're trying to reach voters everywhere , including in some of these places that you would usually think are just full of Republicans. And they're finding that that's not exactly true. And like that , that's something that I think a lot of people , not just in California , but all over the country , sort of have this , this understanding that , like , you can carve out a spot on the map and it's just red or just blue , and that's never the case. It's basically like 50.1% of the voters in that area pick one side for that election. And then we just write it off as like , oh , that's always going to be this way or that. And that's not exactly true. And that's what the people who are doing get out the vote efforts in this area are finding that there's actually a lot more people who are progressive minded or liberal minded or , you know , identify as Democrats in this place that's kind of written off as a Republican area. Hmm.
S1: Well , I know you spoke to several prominent Democrats about their reactions to prop 50 and how it could impact their districts. What did they say ? Yeah.
S2: Well , so I spoke with Sarah Jacobs and Scott Peters , and I asked Mike Levin about it as well. Those are three of the congressional representatives we have here in San Diego. And so Sarah Jacobs is just excited to represent a different part of San Diego was what she said. Um , Mike Levin as well is is not really too concerned , but their districts wouldn't change all that much. Sarah Jacobs district would change geographically , but it would still have a pretty strong advantage of Democratic representative or registered voters. So that means that her , you know , electoral calculus for the next election isn't changing all that much. She's still in a pretty safe seat , as they call it. Scott Peters , however , in the 50th , um , his district would change a lot because if you take Republicans out of the 48th , they have to go somewhere. Those voters aren't just going to disappear. And the way the map is being drawn under prop 50 , it would carve a lot of Republican voters into Scott Peters is 50th district , which would make that balance of voters a little bit more even a little bit more of a toss up. But Scott Peters didn't seem too worried about it. He said he's represented Poway before and he can do it again.
S1: Well , let me ask you this. You know , the Trump administration has sent election monitors to voting locations across California. In response to that , California has sent monitors of their own to watch the federal ones. You know , so we're not sure yet just how this might impact San Diego.
S2: Not and not really like in get involved or anything , but just to watch just to observe. And the point of that is to try and make sure that there aren't violations of the Voting Rights Act occurring. You know , there aren't people being turned away because they couldn't read or because they couldn't pay a poll tax or any of these really blatant violations of the Voting Rights Act. That used to be how different people would get excluded from being able to vote. And so the Department of Justice has sent election monitors to different places since the Voting Rights Act in the 60s. Um , whether or not this instance is expecting to find any Voting Rights Act violations , I'm not sure. I can't speak to why the DOJ currently is sending monitors where they do. But this isn't just , you know , a one time occurrence. This has happened before. Usually it's to try and find election violations and they don't do anything at the polls. These monitors are just there to observe. And so it's not something that we would expect here in California because we don't have really a history of violating those acts. But it is something that the California Department of Justice has said. We want to now monitor those monitors. And , you know , there's kind of a back and forth going , yeah.
S1: Make sure the elections are good. Well , we'll certainly be following your reporting and the results. I've been speaking with Jake Gatta , KPBS social media host and reporter , to find your nearest voting location or read up more on prop 50 , you can check out KPBS. Jake , thanks so much. Yeah.
S3: Yeah. Of course. Thanks for having me.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
