CalMatters’ 2025 special election Voter Guide reached more voters, thanks to partnerships across the state

CalMatters was already planning its coverage of the 2026 midterm and gubernatorial elections when, in August, the California Legislature approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal for a surprise special election on Proposition 50. Our team of reporters, editors, data journalists, developers and more dug right in to bring people all over California a trustworthy, nonpartisan guide to Prop. 50.

“Soon after I joined CalMatters/The Markup, we started planning our 2026 election coverage,” said CalMatters Director of Product Andrew Losowsky. “Then Proposition 50 was announced, and suddenly the next election was 11 weeks away. I’m so proud of how we all responded.”

Our team started with two hallmark CalMatters election resources: our nonpartisan, clear and trustworthy Voter Guide on our site, and our day-to-day Prop. 50 news coverage.

Then, we got to work on new ways to reach new audiences:

• The same day that the proposed district changes came out, we created and published a searchable map so you could find out if your district would change. We also highlighted, using maps, the districts most impacted by redistricting. 
• When Prop 50 was announced, we asked “How do you feel about it?” and more than 1,800 of you answered, our biggest response ever. We used it to source ideas for stories and essential information, even featuring some of you in our coverage.
• We built our voter guide to be easily embeddable, and more than a dozen news websites did exactly that. As a result, our guide was seen more than 200,000 times across partner sites. 
• We customized our voter guide for Apple News, and afterward, Apple News featured the guide by sending it to all its Californian subscribers through a push notification. 
• We made a separate “Did Prop. 50 pass?” website to give anyone searching the internet a fast yes or no on the results.
• We built a detailed election results tracker, which broke down voting margins by county for anyone who wanted to dive deep.
• We summarized and let you search campaign contributions to both sides of Prop. 50 in real time.
• Libraries printed out and shared our one-page version of our guide, which we produced in color and black-and-white, English and Spanish.
• We made a Prop. 50-specific email newsletter to keep voters informed throughout the election.
• Our team went to community events to share our guide and answer questions, at a music festival and at a UCLA voter education event.
• We partnered on a Prop. 50 debate with Capitol Weekly and the UC Student and Policy Center.

And that was all on top of how we continue to improve our existing, trusted ways of informing voters:

• We built on our 2024 election social media videos, making Prop. 50 skit videos for TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts in partnership with high school students.
• Answering reader questions by email (in English and Spanish), plus in an ever-evolving FAQ.
• Producing Props-in-a-Minute video overviews, in horizontal and vertical and also in Spanish.
• Walking new voters through how to vote, including registration, checking your status and key dates.
• Including thoughtful commentaries on both sides of the issue in our California Voices section.

Here’s more on what made our 2025 Special Election Voter Guide unique.

Our Voter Guide, republished by dozens of other news outlets

We coordinated with local and statewide news organizations all across California to get our trustworthy Voter Guide to as many voters as possible.

Our guide was republished by: CapRadio, KPBS, Jefferson Public Radio, Local News Matters, Lookout Santa Cruz, Yahoo! News via The Desert Sun, San Jose Inside, Long Beach Post, KVCR, KAZU, Mendocino Voice, Stocktonia, Voice of San Diego, Alameda Post, Trinity Journal, San Fernando Valley Sun, Lost Coast Outpost, Times of SD and Yubanet.

CalMatters reporters were called upon to explain Prop. 50 to public radio listeners across the country.  Our reporters shared insights on nationally syndicated shows, including multiple appearances on WBUR’s Here & Now, WAMU’s 1-A, and a segment on  C-SPAN. We were also invited to break down California’s redistricting efforts for listeners in Texas while the state was pursuing its own redistricting campaign. Our team also provided regular support to our partners at the California Newsroom, a collaboration of more than 10 NPR affiliates across California.

To make sure that our partners across the state, who are nonprofit news websites, public media stations, newspapers, TV stations, and more,  we worked to make it easier than ever to republish our work. For the first time, our team built our voter guide differently from the beginning, so that we could share a simple embed code with any partner who wanted to republish it on their site. We also  shared ways to link to our full coverage, download or share our videos, and print simplified one-pagers of our guide. Plus, we offered all the same resources in Spanish.

One of our close partners, Pascale Fusshoeller at YubaNet, reached out when we shared that we’d have a Prop. 50 embeddable guide for the election.

“Our district (CA-03) would change dramatically if voters approve redistricting,” Fusshoeller said. “That’s some exciting news, we’d love to have a fully embeddable guide to Prop. 50.”

Innovations and experiments to make our guide work for readers

Our team, building on innovations from our 2024 Voter Guide, worked to bring our guide to people in their preferred formats and channels. The result? We were there to serve California voters trustworthy information, whether you prefer a suit and tie and going out in public to learn, or if you prefer sweatpants on the sofa scrolling to stay in the loop.

@calmatters

These neighborhoods in San Diego County will see their congressional district maps stretch much farther out if Prop. 50 passes. Hear from a few locals about where they stand. Video and edits: Sarah Al Talqani Edits: Michael Lozano

♬ original sound – CalMatters

We made a printable, one-page nuts and bolts version of our guide to reach people who frequent libraries and for civic groups to distribute in the real world. Library staff in Alameda County both printed copies for patrons and also made versions on cardstock to put up on display.

We made polished videos for YouTube desktop viewers and then made funny, skit-based videos to reach people doomscrolling on TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. We adapted our guide to work just as well on Apple News. We made a video of the biggest donors, and another on wacky districts – all trying out a call-center type dialogue that would feel out-of-place on calmatters.org but right at home on the preferred social habitats of Gen Z and Millennials.

We even tried a youth social media contest to make Prop. 50 videos as cool as saying 6-7 (ok, not as cool, but still, we tried). Schools used our voter guide as class curriculum to help students pitch us fun ways to cover the proposition on TikTok. We then selected the best three ideas and worked with and mentored the young winners to publish their engaging and nonpartisan clips across our channels.

The winning video entries explained: How Nevada County neighbors are split on Prop 50, how Prop. 50 would alter San Diego district maps and how California has districts, just like the Hunger Games.

We partnered with Capitol Weekly and the UC Student and Policy Center on a Prop. 50 debate, featuring proponents from each of the campaigns and moderated by Rich Ehisen of Capitol Weekly and our politics editor, Juliet Williams.And we brought our guide to community events in Southern California. We went to a music festival in Downtown Los Angeles and a voter information event at UCLA, where we spoke to dozens of students about Prop. 50. Our conversations with students even inspired us to make a TikTok video to answer some of the most common “what’s at stake” questions.