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Will he or won’t he? That’s what has the pundits and players buzzing. After his shocking defeat in Nevada’s 4th Congressional District (NV-04), outgoing Rep. Steven Horsford (D-North Las Vegas) is already signaling he may not want to stay out of Congress for too long. After being approached by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee about a 2016 NV-04 rematch with incoming Rep. Cresent Hardy (R-Mesquite), Horsford is now saying he’s open to a rematch.
Last week, we looked under the hood of the campaign in NV-04 and uncovered some eye-popping truths. Democrats currently have a 10.96% voter registration advantage in the district. Horsford consistently outraised Hardy throughout the year. Yet because both Horsford’s campaign and the Nevada State Democratic Party failed to put together a robust field program before the ugly early voting numbers started trickling in, they ceded the field to Hardy. And because there was no compelling “top of the ticket” message for many base Democratic voters, they just didn’t vote.
We’ve already been hearing some pundits blame Horsford’s loss on a “Republican Wave” that swept across the country this year. However, that argument doesn’t hold water once we start examining results in similar West Coast “swing districts”. If the 2014 Election was some “uncontrollable Red Tide”, then why weren’t these colleagues of Horsford also swept out of office?
Reps. Kurt Schrader (D-Oregon), Ami Bera (D-California), Raul Ruiz (D-California), and Scott Peters (D-California) should have been among the first to fall in such a massive “Republican Wave”. Democrats only have a mere a small 2.08% edge in Schrader’s 5th Congressional District (OR-05) that spans the Portland suburbs to the Oregon Coast and a modest 2.31% voter registration advantage in Bera’s 7th Congressional District (CA-07) in the eastern Sacramento suburbs. Meanwhile in Ruiz’s Coachella Valley based 36th Congressional District (CA-36), Republicans have a 0.97% registration edge. And in Peter’s North San Diego based 52nd Congressional District (CA-52), Republicans actually have a 1.28% registration edge. President Obama won all four seats, but by less than 7%. And Republicans spent plenty of money contesting the three California swing districts.
Yet in the end, Republicans came up short in all four. Counting is still underway in California and Oregon. And while Bera is just clinging to a 0.4% lead in CA-07, Peters is currently ahead in CA-52 by 3.2%, Ruiz is actually winning CA-36 by a more comfortable 7.6% margin, and Schrader is actually leading by a commanding 14.43% margin.
All four of these West Coast swing districts are actually more conservative than NV-04, a seat President Obama won by just over 10% in 2012. A closer demographic match might actually be the 26th Congressional District (CA-26), a Ventura County based district that’s currently held by Rep. Julia Brownley (D-California). Like NV-04, CA-26 is a minority-majority district that includes blue-collar areas (like Oxnard) and swankier suburbs (like Thousand Oaks). Yet here, Republicans felt they landed a star recruit in State Assembly Member and Active Duty Navy Reservist Jeff Gorell (R). Unlike NV-04, national Republican money flowed into CA-26 throughout the year. Yet over the weekend, Gorell conceded to Brownley as her lead gradually grew to 2%.
Another district demographically similar to NV-04 is Washington’s 1st Congressional District (WA-01). Like Horsford, Suzan DelBene (D-Washington) won a hard-fought contest in 2012 in a district that includes urban, suburban, and rural territory. President Obama won the district by 10.8% in 2012, and the district spans from “Microsoft Land” in Redmond all the way to the Canadian Border. Like CA-26, Republicans thought they found the perfect candidate in Pedro Celis (R), a Microsoft engineer with a compelling life story. But here, the results haven’t even been close. As of now, DelBene sports a healthy 10.04% lead.
So what happened in these other Western swing districts that didn’t happen in NV-04? Why did Steven Horsford fall while these other Democrats lived to serve another term? What did Nevada Democrats do (or not do) to make Horsford so vulnerable when he never had to be?
Higher turnout certainly helped Suzan DelBene and Kurt Schrader. And funny enough, both their respective states had “lightning rod” “Culture War” ballot initiatives this year. Oregon had a marijuana legalization initiative that’s passing by a nearly 12% margin statewide. And Washington State had a gun safety initiative for expanded background checks that’s passing by just over 18% statewide. Did those ballot initiatives actually attract more voters to the polls, particularly voters who also tend to vote for Democrats?
While California turnout isn’t too much higher than Nevada’s, it looks like at least some of the campaigns and local parties there were prepared for the midterm challenge. Ventura County Democrats’ constant presence in the field probably played a role in Julia Brownley’s reelection. Scott Peters never took his eye off the ball in San Diego. And statewide, California Democrats decided to embrace ballot initiatives for health insurance rate regulation and criminal sentencing reform. The former failed while the latter passed, yet both may have helped in motivating Democratic voters to turn out this year for an election that featured no US Senate race and an uncompetitive Governor race (sound familiar?).
These Western Democrats all survived the 2014 cycle. So why didn’t Steven Horsford? This is a question that Nevada Democrats must keep asking if they want to avoid repeating the mistakes of this cycle and win back what they lost. And of course, this is what Horsford himself must tackle if he decides to try again in 2016.