Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings donated $2 million to redraw California’s congressional map.
Hastings personally funded Gavin Newsom’s campaign to replace California’s existing congressional boundaries before the 2026 midterms. The proposed new map, drawn with national Democrats, could hand the party as many as five additional House seats, mostly at Republican expense. That single contribution put the Netflix brand at the center of a national fight over redistricting.
Boycott calls followed quickly. After Hastings’s donation became public, a widely circulated post on X prompted users to discuss canceling their Netflix subscriptions. The backlash targeted Hastings directly but landed on the streaming company he co-founded, drawing Netflix into a political controversy it never officially entered.
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As originally reported, Hastings framed his donation as a direct response to Republican redistricting in Texas. He accused Texas Republicans of trying to rig the midterm elections and said California needed to “step up and fight fire with fire.” His money will help fund the expensive statewide campaign ahead of a November 4, 2025, special election, when California voters are set to decide whether to approve the new districts.
This is not Hastings’s first major donation tied to Newsom. He previously spent $3 million helping the governor survive a 2021 recall effort. His history of large contributions to Democratic causes has kept his political identity firmly attached to the Netflix name, even when the company itself has no involvement.
Other deep-pocketed donors joined the redistricting push. Silicon Valley venture capitalist Ron Conway backed the campaign, and Y Combinator founder Paul Graham contributed $500,000. California places no limits on individual contributions to ballot-measure campaigns, which has allowed wealthy supporters on both sides to pour enormous sums into the contest.
Opposition spending is just as aggressive. Charles Munger Jr., a defender of California’s independent redistricting commission, had already contributed more than $10 million to defeat the initiative. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy took charge of the Republican countereffort and told former colleagues he planned to raise at least $100 million to block the new map.
National figures have weighed in on both sides. Former President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries backed the Democratic effort. Newsom and other party leaders framed the California campaign as a necessary response to Republican action in Texas, where a GOP-backed redistricting plan prompted the whole fight to begin.
The broader stakes are significant. Republicans currently hold a narrow House majority, and Democrats see California’s proposed map as a rare opportunity to chip away at that margin. With hundreds of millions of dollars now flowing into a state ballot fight over congressional lines, the redistricting battle in California has become one of the most expensive and consequential political contests heading into the 2026 midterms.
