Republicans Face 'Ticking Time Bomb' in Key House Race

A California congressional race has been labeled as a "ticking time bomb" by one prominent elections expert amid Republicans' uphill effort to retain control of the House in 2024.

Ken Calvert—a longtime Republican congressman from a once-safely Republican district California's Riverside County—is facing the challenge of his career next November against a formidable Democratic opponent in a race defined by shifting demographics and LGBTQ+ rights, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The 41st Congressional District, which stretches from just outside Anaheim to the affluent, LGBTQ+-friendly desert oasis of Palm Springs, has shifted from red to purple in recent years. The makeup of its population has shifted as well, now boasting one of the largest LGBTQ+ constituencies in the country, according to the Times. And Calvert, who has represented parts of the Inland Empire region since the early 1990s, has a long history of opposition to LGBTQ+ rights.

While he claims his stance on LGBTQ+ rights has softened, Calvert voted for numerous anti-LGBTQ+ provisions in a recently passed version of the National Defense Appropriations Act rife with policies steeped in culture war rhetoric.

Republicans Face 'Ticking Time Bomb'
Representative Ken Calvert speaks as members of the House Californian Republicans listen during a news conference December 11, 2015, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Calvert's race has been labeled as a "ticking time bomb"... Alex Wong/Getty

Last week, Calvert gained attention in his district for using his vote on the influential House Appropriations Committee to kill $3.6 million in funding for three LGBTQ+ projects, including a senior housing development, saying in a statement to the Times that the groups seeking the funds were likely to be used for "pro-communist" propaganda and sexually explicit materials for minors. He added that he did "not believe that U.S. taxpayer dollars should be used on activities that undermine the foundations of our country."

"I do not condone discrimination of any kind and I will always vote my conscience," he said.

That, compounded with a challenge from Democrat Will Rollins—a gay man from Palm Springs who lost by just four points in his challenge to Calvert in the closely contested 2022 midterms—could spell trouble for the congressman as Republicans fight to maintain their slim majority in the House in 2024.

"It's a ticking time bomb for Republicans," David Wasserman, an analyst for nonpartisan election forecaster Cook Political Report, told the Times.

In an email to Newsweek, a spokesperson in Calvert's office noted that the congressman was one of just 31 House Republicans who voted for the LGBTQ+ Business Equal Credit Enforcement and Investment Act during the last Congress, and was also among the group of 39 House Republicans who voted for the Respect for Marriage Act codifying protections for same-sex and interracial marriage into federal law.

His office also noted that while Calvert voted against other projects, he was successful in securing funding for two non-LGBTQ+-related Community Project Funding requests from the city of Palm Springs, which is notably led by an all-LGBTQ+ city council.

Republicans will need every seat they can get to maintain their House majority. As things stand, the GOP carries just a nine-vote majority in the House, leaving Democrats with just a handful of seats to flip to reclaim control of the lower chamber of Congress.

While some 10 traditionally Democratically held seats are rated as "toss-ups" by Cook, 16 seats held by Republicans, like Calvert and Colorado's Lauren Boebert, are considered vulnerable, while a recent decision in a New York-based redistricting case has thrown more than a half-dozen GOP seats—including that of scandal-plagued George Santos—in jeopardy.

Still, Calvert has a history of succeeding in the face of adversity. In 2012, the Cook Political Report rated Calvert's seat a toss-up due to the district's growing Hispanic population and his support of the federal E-Verify program, of which he was the original author, after coming within several points of losing his seat in 2008.

And the odds were squarely against him. According to Wasserman's writing at the time, a big surge in Latino voter participation in Riverside County during the 2008 election was almost solely responsible for Calvert barely hanging on to his seat with 51 percent of the vote in a race that, at the time, was "on no one's radar screen."

In a district that was 45 percent Hispanic at the time, Calvert ultimately won his race four years later with 61 percent of the vote.

Update 7/27/23, 9:37 a.m. ET: This story was updated with comment from a spokesperson in Calvert's office.

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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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Nick Reynolds is a senior politics reporter at Newsweek. A native of Central New York, he previously worked as a ... Read more

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