Schwarzenegger calls out Democrats, blue states for 'cheating' with redistricting

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger criticized efforts by blue states to redistrict their congressional maps, blasting Governor Gavin Newsom and saying that the idea that his redistricting proposal is temporary is “total fantasy.”

Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper, Schwarzenegger argued that extreme gerrymandering has been a long-standing problem in US politics that transcends recent actions by the Republican Party.

“There has been gerrymandering going on for 200 years,” Schwarzenegger told Tapper. He cited Massachusetts, which voted nearly 40 percent for Trump but has no Republican representatives in Congress, and New Mexico, which voted 45 percent for Trump in 2024 but also has zero GOP representatives.

Schwarzenegger has condemned Newsom’s proposal to redraw the state’s congressional districts to add up to five Democratic-leaning seats, which he did after Texas did the same. Newsom has argued that Proposition 50, which gives up the independent commission that draws congressional districts, is temporary.

“I think when he — when they say this is temporary, there is no such thing,” Schwarzenegger said. “I mean, the longest programs are government programs that are temporary. Okay, just remember that if this is a tax program or if it is the redistricting program, anything that is temporary with government is permanent.”

"In the year 2032 when the independent redistricting commission is supposed to come back, they‘re going to say, ‘Wait a minute. There‘s still gerrymandering going on in Texas. There‘s still gerrymandering going on in Ohio. There‘s still gerrymandering going on in Florida. We have to continue with gerrymandering.’ This is what‘s going to happen,” he continued, “They will find an excuse. So therefore I don‘t think it is temporary. So that‘s total fantasy.”

The former governor further accused the Democrats’ efforts to redistrict as cheating, saying if they want to outperform Trump, they need to beat him at the ballot box.

"What the Democrats should do is they should outperform Trump. To me, it‘s all about competition creates performance. And so what they do is with the redistricting commission is that they‘re going to go and try to draw the district lines in such a way that they get voted in, no matter if they work well or not for the American people. So the American people get cheated on this whole thing. That is really the problem here," he said.