California has passed a ballot measure that will redraw the boundaries of electoral districts to favour the Democrats in next year’s critical midterm elections in a counterattack against United States President Donald Trump’s gerrymandering in Republican states.

Early results from Tuesday’s vote showed voters approved Proposition 50 by a margin of two-to-one in what was seen as a big victory for Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, boosting his party’s chances of winning control of the US Congress in next year’s poll and hence thwarting Trump’s agenda.

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The approval of the measure means Democrats might win as many as five additional seats in the House, offsetting the five that Texas Republicans are looking to pick up after Trump urged them to redraw their own maps. Republicans also expect to gain one seat each from new maps in Missouri and North Carolina, and potentially two more in Ohio.

Trump responded to Newsom’s fightback with fury. “The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” he wrote on his social media site Truth Social on Tuesday.

Newsom, who is staking his claim to leadership of the Democratic Party ahead of the 2028 presidential election on his willingness to stand up to Trump, hit back, describing the Republican’s response as the “ramblings of an old man that knows he’s about to LOSE”. Taking to X after the victory, he said voters had sent a “powerful message” to Trump.

The new district boundaries will apply for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. Normally, they are drawn by an independent commission following the national census taken every 10 years, so the electoral map reflects the people who live there. In reality, most boundaries are rejigged by the parties in power.

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The recast districts aim to dilute Republican voters’ power, in one case by uniting rural, conservative-leaning parts of far northern California with Marin County, a famously liberal coastal stronghold across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

Newsom had sought to nationalise the campaign, depicting the proposal as a means of countering Trump’s efforts to erode democracy. A televised campaign had imagined an irate Trump watching the results on a TV as he threw French fries at the television.

Former President Barack Obama threw his weight behind the move. “Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years,” he said in one advertisement. “You can stop Republicans in their tracks.”

Critics said two wrongs do not make a right. They urged Californians to reject what they call a Democratic power grab, even if they have misgivings about Trump’s moves in Republican-led states.

Among the most prominent critics was Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor who had overseen the creation of the independent commission, approved in 2008 and 2010.

Schwarzenegger had argued that the proposal would “take the power away from the people”.