During any campaign season, voters and nonvoters alike are inundated with ads and text messages and emails begging for money for a political cause or candidate.

That’s been true for California’s special election on redistricting, only called a couple of months ago.

But in a fairly unusual turn of events, Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has spearheaded the campaign in favor of mid-cycle redistricting, had a different message for donors on Tuesday, a week before Election Day: Keep your money.

“We’ve raised enough money to win this campaign,” Newsom said in a video posted on social media on Oct. 28.

“That doesn’t mean we’ve won the campaign, quite the contrary, but we reached our goals, we’ve reached our budget,” Newsom said.

“So please, don’t send any more money to the Yes on 50 campaign,” he said, encouraging supporters to instead focus on getting people to vote who have not yet cast their ballot.

California voters have been asked whether to implement new, partisan congressional maps for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. That would mean forgoing the current maps drawn by a 14-member group comprising five Republicans, five Democrats and four commissioners not affiliated with the two major parties.

The idea is a partisan one, an effort to favor Democrats in California’s congressional elections as a way to counter similar, Republican-led plans elsewhere in the country to boost the GOP at the behest of President Donald Trump.

Recent polling has shown Proposition 50, the redistricting measure, on track to pass.

A recent Emerson College poll found 57% of likely California voters surveyed said they support Prop. 50, while 37% opposed it. Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, noted some demographic groups that were hesitant to support Prop. 50 a month prior had increased their support for it when asked for the survey conducted Oct. 20-21.

Meanwhile, another recent survey of likely voters by CBS News/YouGov, found 62% supported the measure and 38% opposed it. (This survey was conducted from Oct. 16-21.)

Voting in the special election is already underway, with ballots mailed to all registered California voters earlier in October. Those can be returned through the mail, at drop boxes or early voting sites and vote centers, many of which opened over the weekend.

Still, the strategy of telling potential donors to keep their wallets closed is “entirely unprecedented,” said Matt Lesenyie, an expert in political psychology who teaches at Cal State Long Beach.

“It seems like something your opponent would do,” Lesenyie said, “to get people to stop supporting that campaign.”

Campaigns generally raise money right up until the election — and even after — because of how much money they’ve spent and debt they’ve incurred, said Lesenyie.

But with this type of election — there’s only one thing on the ballot for voters to decide — people who are going to participate most likely already cast their ballot or have a plan to do so. Extra money for extra advertising probably won’t convince anyone now in these final days of the campaign, said Lesenyie, especially when many people are tired of how much money is in politics these days.

But Lesenyie said it’s also “excellent branding” for Newsom, who over the weekend finally openly admitted he’s considering a run for president.

“It suggests a management and foresight about not just this political fight but coming fights,” said Lesenyie.

Even Jessica Millan Patterson, the former California GOP chairperson who is leading the No on 50 campaign, said having more than enough money is “a great problem to have.”

“It’s not one I’ve ever had. We’re very familiar with being outspent,” said Patterson, adding the anti-Prop. 50 side had acknowledged the campaign would be an uphill battle from the onset. “I’d love to be in the situation where I could tell people we have everything we ever need.”

The Yes on 50 campaign has raised more than $114 million this year, according to filings with the secretary of state’s office. It also has some $37 million on hand left to spend.

Newsom, in his Tuesday video, said $38 million in small donations came from some 1.2 million contributions.

Meanwhile, the anti-Prop. 50 Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab campaign raised nearly $11 million this year and has about $2 million left to spend. Another effort opposing the redistricting measure, called Protect Voters First, raised nearly $33 million and has about $336,000 still on hand.

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(Staff writer Linh Tat contributed to this report.)

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