California hosts at least eight competitive Democrat vs. Republican US House races on Tuesday night, the final results of which stand a good chance of determining the next House majority.
Veteran Rep. Ken Calvert’s* (R-Corona) 15th re-election campaign that has evolved into a deadlocked contest.
The Golden State’s 41st District is fully contained within Riverside County and houses the desert cities of Palm Springs, Palm Desert, La Quinta, and Rep. Calvert’s home city of Corona. The 60-day pre-election voter registration figures report a slight Republican edge, 37.0% to 36.3% over the Democrats with 22.2% registered as Declined to State (Independent) and the remaining 4.5% of voters aligning with minor political parties.
While competitive, this district is one of just eight of 52 California congressional districts where Republicans hold the registration advantage. GOP members maintain all eight of those districts plus four others where Democrats constitute a plurality.
The FiveThirtyEight data organization rates the seat as R+7, and the Dave’s Redistricting App statisticians calculate the partisan lean at 51.9R – 46.6D. The Down Ballot political blog data staff ranks the seat as the 26th most vulnerable district in the Republican Conference. Despite the more favorable partisan statistics, Donald Trump defeated President Biden here in 2020 with only a 49.7 – 48.6% victory margin.
In 2022, Rep. Calvert topped former federal prosecutor Will Rollins (D) by a 52-48% count, which constituted a raw vote margin of 11,100 from a turnout of 236,638 voters. Yet, in the 2024 re-match contest, the last two publicly released polls find a dead even battle.
The Democrats came loaded for bear this year. Mr. Rollins had raised over $11.5 million for his campaign through September 30th versus a still very credible $7.5 million for Rep. Calvert. Outside organizations, however, have come into the California desert to even the score. A total of $10.3 million has been spent either against Mr. Rollins or for Rep. Calvert, while a lesser $6.7 million has been expended to attack the Congressman or support the Democratic challenger. Therefore, the resource battle is also virtually deadlocked.
Before the last redistricting, Rep. Calvert was one of the few Republicans who consistently enjoyed holding a safe seat over his long 32 year career in the House. The addition of the more liberal city of Palm Springs and the influx of more Hispanics in the region has made the district more competitive. The current 41st CD is a minority coalition district, meaning that the accumulation of all minorities constitutes a majority population, 51.8% in this case. The Hispanic segment accounts for 34.2% of the district’s residents.
At this point, the early vote numbers look to favor Mr. Rollins. The CA-41 Democratic early vote is up six points when compared to the last presidential race of 2020, and five points in reference to 2022. Conversely, the Republican participation factor is down ½ point to the 2020 numbers and three points when comparing to the 2022 Calvert-Rollins campaign. The Declined to State or minor party voters are off six points from four years ago and two when referencing 2022.
So far, the total early turnout is low, a recorded total of 91,568 aggregate vote according to the TargetEarly/TargetSmart data organization, which is just 26% of the 2020 district total and 39% when compared with 2022.
The early vote numbers for the 41st are even more of a negative for Rep. Calvert when examining the aggregate California totals. Statewide, looking at the 2020 numbers, the Democrats are down approximately one point in early turnout while the Republicans are up almost six points. Looking at 2022, the Democrats are also down one point, and the Republicans are up two.
Democrats, in all instances, are turning out greater numbers, but the GOP performance is improving when comparing to their own internal totals. Yet, that is not the case in District 41 despite having much more favorable registration numbers than the state as a whole.
It is likely the Calvert-Rollins race will finish close, and that means everyone will have to endure a long political overtime. As we have stated many times, California takes weeks to count the ballots due to signature verification and only counting on certain days, so we can expect to see this race, and several other Golden State congressional contests, being stranded in abeyance for perhaps weeks in the post-election period.
Do you like this page?
Showing 1 reaction
Sign in with
Facebook