California Gov. Gavin Newsom is sending a team of election lawyers, poll observers and hotline operators into five of the state’s most competitive congressional districts ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms, casting the move as a direct warning to President Trump.
“A warning to Donald Trump: I’m deploying election lawyers to key battleground districts in California to protect every vote,” Newsom wrote in a post on X, adding that he had “just made it a FELONY to illegally seize ballots.”
A warning to Donald Trump:
I’m deploying election lawyers to key battleground districts in California to protect every vote.
And I just made it a FELONY to illegally seize ballots.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) October 29, 2026
According to KCRA, the effort is being run with the California Democratic Party and will include nearly 1,000 trained volunteers: more than 800 poll observers, 134 attorneys and 54 hotline operators. KCRA and The Sacramento Bee report the teams will be stationed at county election offices covering California’s 6th, 13th, 22nd, 45th and 48th congressional districts starting on Election Day and remaining “as long as necessary,” in the words of Newsom’s campaign.
The Sacramento Bee reported that Newsom first announced the plan on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
A response to DOJ monitors
The deployment follows the Justice Department’s announcement that it plans its largest-ever election monitoring effort, sending roughly 1,000 monitors to counties across the country, according to KCRA. DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels told the outlet the federal monitors will “merely observe” and report potential violations of federal law, with those reports reviewed after Election Day.
The administration has also gone to court over California ballots. KCRA reports the federal government sought to stop the state from processing the ballots of up to 20,000 people it alleges are likely noncitizens, and that a federal judge rejected the request on Wednesday, saying it would “wreak havoc” with vote processing already underway. The Trump administration plans to appeal, according to KCRA. The outlet also reported that at least 18 California counties received DOJ letters requesting information about voters the department suspects are noncitizens.
California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks said in a statement reported by The Sacramento Bee that “Donald Trump doesn’t get to decide which votes count, which ballots get counted, or who wins an election. California voters do.”
The districts in question
The seats Newsom is guarding are not random. The Sacramento Bee noted that last year Newsom led a successful ballot initiative to redraw California’s congressional map to make districts easier for Democrats to win, including specific changes to the 13th, 22nd and 48th districts, which the paper describes as Republican-held or battleground seats.
That context matters for Republicans who argue that the real fight in California is over ballot integrity, not federal intimidation. The administration’s push has centered on whether ballots tied to suspected noncitizens should be set aside, while Democrats have framed federal monitors as a threat to voters.
Federal monitoring of elections is not new. A representative of the Campaign Legal Center told Hearst’s Washington bureau, as reported by KCRA, that the monitoring program has existed for decades. KCRA also reported that both parties deployed monitors during California’s last election and no major incidents were reported.
With five days until Election Day, lawyers on both sides will be watching California’s count closely.
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- Original post: Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) on X, Oct 29, 2026
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