In early 2023, Rep. Steven Horsford received a great honor by becoming the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. This important bloc now has 58 members and is looking to expand the numbers after the 2024 election.
Unlike the vast majority of his predecessors, Horsford is a frontline member, meaning the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has designated his seat as a competitive one. He’s one of a burgeoning group of Black battleground representatives, reflecting the diversity of the caucus, whose early membership featured representatives from safe Democratic seats, typically with majority-Black populations, but now includes representatives from districts with a wide range of geographic and racial demographics.
Horsford’s own district is majority-minority, but has a white plurality and a large Latino population. It includes everything from highly-populated northern Clark County to rural, mountainous areas.
Being a battleground representative means “you’re not overly partisan”, said Horsford, a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and moderate New Democrat Coalition. The attitude fits within the culture of the Congressional Black Caucus, which he described as “very progressive when it comes to voting rights and social justice and criminal justice reform, but pretty pragmatic when it comes to job creation [and] investing in communities.”
Rep. Steven Horsford has struggled to retain this seat ever since it was created. He even lost this seat in 2014! The question for Horsford is whether or not he can shake off these struggles for the 2024 election.
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Steven Horsford for Nevada-4
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What’s the Big Idea?
County results for Nevada’s 4th district in 2022.
THIS HOUSE RACE IS RATED AS LIKELY DEMOCRATIC, with a D+3 PVI
Nevada’s 4th district has only existed since the 2010 Census reapportionment, and boy, what an interesting decade it has been. The district was meant to be a Democratic-leaning swing seat, and that is how it acted in 2012 when Steven Horsford and Barack Obama both won the district comfortably. It was thought that Horsford would quickly entrench himself and that would be all.
2014 was a nasty surprise, as the Reid machine failed to work and Horsford was unceremoniously drummed out by little known Cresent Hardy in an upset. Rep. Hardy only served one term because the Reid machine handpicked Ruben Kihuen to oust him in 2016. Clinton only narrowly won the district that year, and Kihuen very narrowly won back the seat.
Rep. Kihuen had sexual harassment issues and chose not to run for re-election. That opening allowed Steven Horsford to win the primary in 2018. Former Rep. Cresent Hardy also tried to regain the seat, but the blue wave in 2018 gave Horsford a cushion, and Horsford won that year.
2020 proved that this district wasn’t as Democratic as first advertised, as President Biden only won this seat 51%-47% under the old lines and Horsford won by about the same margin. Democrats shored this district up in 2022 by making it a district Biden would’ve won 53.0% to 44.8%. Horsford won 52.4% to 47.6% over businessman Sam Peters in the lower turnout of an off-year election: 222k voted in the 2022 election compared to 332k in the 2020 election.
Here’s where this 4th district race will be won.
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North Las Vegas: This suburb of Las Vegas is the political base of Horsford, and also the area he needs to work to turn out all of his voters. The city is home to many of the Black and Hispanic workers at the casinos, and it is important the Reid machine makes sure the vote firewall is created successfully or this district will fall to the GOP.
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Central Las Vegas: While not as Democratic as the previous area, central Las Vegas is also home to many workers who are employed at the casinos. Horsford is still new to many of these constituents thanks to the transience of the population, so he will have to introduce himself and rely on the union vote to create a big firewall to off-set the unfavorable portions of the district.
Here’s where we need to keep the margins down, or we lose.
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Northwestern Las Vegas: This portion of Las Vegas is majority white, and it votes heavily for the GOP. Horsford needs to keep the margins in this portion of Las Vegas as narrow as possible to avoid defeat. There are blue precincts out this far, but not many of them.
- Cow Counties: These counties are hopelessly and lopsidedly red, so Horsford cannot waste much time catering to them. The Pahrump area in particular has been growing like mad, and it is staying beet red at the same time.
Rep. Steven Horsford: From Rags to Riches
Rep. Steven Horsford cares deeply about the Black community in America.
Rep. Steven Horsford was born in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1973 to a teen mother who emigrated from Trinidad. His family struggled to get by, so Horsford worked at a Pizza Hut and at a veterinarian's office to help his family scrape by. Horsford started at the University of Nevada - Reno to study political science and communications. When his father was killed by gun violence, he suspended his effort until the following year. After dropping out in order to support his family, he struggled and defaulted on loans, and failed to appear in court. He attributed much of this to a car accident and has since settled all of his debts. He returned to the University, taking courses while helping his family get by, and completed his degree in 2014.
He was the CEO of the Culinary Training Academy and served on the Southern Nevada Workforce Investment Board. In 1996, he worked in advertising at R&R Partners in Las Vegas.
Horsford served in the Nevada State Senate starting in 2004. His district was solidly Democratic and he never had trouble winning either of his two races. In fact, he won with over 70% of the vote both in 2004 and in 2008. In 2009, Horsford became Majority Leader of the Nevada Senate.
Horsford has some skeletons in the closet from this time period. He once parked in a handicapped parking space for over 6 hours. He tried to solicit donations for private meals or access to Nevada politicians. He went on a sponsored trip to the Bahamas before an internet gaming bill was due to be considered before the state legislature. Finally, he started a lengthy affair with a college student who was interning for Sen. Harry Reid. Thankfully, all of these scandals are old news by now and he has stayed out of trouble while in Congress.
Horsford is a strong advocate on gun safety issues. He supports a legislative package that would include background checks, a ban on assault weapons and bump stocks, banning private sales and closing the gun show loophole, an increase in mental-health funding and programs to address bullying in schools. To prevent violence before it starts, Horsford introduced the Break the Cycle of Violence Act, investing in evidence-based community intervention programs.
Horsford is also strong on health care issues after a personal health scare where he needed a six-way open heart bypass surgery to correct a hereditary condition. He strongly believes that health care is a right and not a privilege. Recently, he tried to address healthcare worker shortages by introducing the Health Providers Training Act to bolster funds for training future healthcare workers.
Horsford wants a comprehensive approach to immigration. It isn’t enough to delay enforcement or even provide Dreamers a path to citizenship. He knows a border wall will not solve the problems. He applauded the recent border security bill as a good first step, but believes more needs to be done. Horsford was an original co-sponsor of a bill that would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
There is a huge housing crisis in the Las Vegas metro area and Horsford has some proposed solutions. Through legislation, he wants to hold corporate landlords accountable and crack down on big corporations that rent or sell property at unreasonable prices. He wants to ensure first-time home buyers, especially veterans and working families, get tax credits to help, similar to what MVP Harris has proposed. He has proposed the HOME Act and the Housing Transparency Act to address these very issues.
Horsford has voted with Biden’s stated position 100% of the time, which is great from a member of Congress that doesn’t win much more than 52% of the vote in his district. Horsford has a rags to riches story and is clearly on our side when it comes to the issues.
John Lee: A Political Opportunist
John Lee used to be a Democrat but he switched parties in 2021 deriding his former party as “socialists”.
John Lee was born in England in 1955 to an enlisted soldier on an Air Force base. In his youth, he rose to the level of Eagle Scout and washed dishes at the Silver Nugget casino. He would then go on to found a plumbing company called Vegas Plumbing, Inc. He stills owns and operates the plumbing company to this day.
Lee served in the Nevada Assembly from 1996 to 2000 and the Nevada State Senate from 2004 to 2012 as a Democrat. He cut a more moderate profile than many of his colleagues and that came back to bite him in the 2012 primary elections. First, he tried to run for the House against Steven Horsford and flamed out before the primary even occurred. He then lost the actual primary election for his seat in the Nevada State Senate for much the same reason.
Lee ran for mayor of North Las Vegas in 2013 and won over the previous incumbent. Lee made the expansion and enhancement of North Las Vegas Libraries and parks two of his biggest priorities. In addition, his administration redesigned business licensing procedures, attracting new businesses to the city. Lee also initiated a plan to use state tax credits as an incentive to increase development at the Apex Industrial Park. It seems that he did a lot of things right in his two terms as mayor.
Lee switched parties from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in 2021, citing the “socialist takeover of the Nevada Democratic Party”. He ran for governor of Nevada under his new political affiliation in 2022 but finished a distant 4th in the primary with only 8% of the vote. Now, he is running for Nevada’s 4th Congressional district against his old rival in Horsford.
Probably the most disturbing fact about John Lee is that child pornography was found on his iPad in 2014. It is alleged that the former mayor got special treatment in the ensuing investigation. Lee claims he was the victim of hacking and that he reported the child porn to the authorities. The FBI dropped the investigation in the fall of 2015 citing a lack of evidence.
As is required for most every member of the GOP, Lee has done a 180-degree turn on many issues. For instance, he now calls for the end of birthright citizenship in a wink and a nod to the white supremacists he now has to court. He also stays mum when the white supremacists make racist presentations at events he attends.
Abortion is another issue where Lee has abhorrent rhetoric though it's not like he was great on the issue even while a Democrat. During his 2022 run for governor, he claimed to want to be the “most pro-life governor” in the history of the state. He would support a near-total abortion ban while in Congress much like he did then. He’s called abortion an “atrocity” and would even strip funding and shutter Planned Parenthood clinics.
John Lee is a political opportunist who sees the trends in Nevada and thinks getting elected as a Republican is going to be easier now that Democrats have increasingly rejected him. Let’s not give him the chance to get elected again.
How Can You Help?
Rep. Steven Horsford relies on the remnants of the Reid machine just like every other Las Vegas politician. The unions and working-class workers are a rich source of Democratic votes but the transience of the population makes contacting voters much more difficult. People choosing to volunteer for this race may make the difference between winning and losing.
Horsford has practically won the fundraising race, with a healthy $2.25M in cash-on-hand which is significantly more than John Lee. Lee may have to run without help from national groups.
With both parties increasingly homing in on seats in New York and California, Republicans with knowledge of the races also said they expect less national GOP investment in the Nevada House races compared with last cycle.
Congressional Leadership Fund, the Kevin McCarthy-backed (R-CA) super PAC that pumped more than $6 million into Lee’s race last cycle, has yet to announce its initial spending, despite having done so by this point last year.
That may not necessarily translate to lower spending totals — given the costly and crowded Las Vegas media market and the fact that fundraising only increases every cycle.
But between competing for ad space and air time with the presidential race and the U.S. Senate race — not to mention the frustrating results from last cycle in a midterm historically linked to big losses by the incumbent president’s party — Lee, Titus and Horsford are likely not going to be as significant of a target for Republican leadership as last cycle.
And it looks like everyone is throwing in the towel here!
Phone banking seems to be the strategy the Horsford campaign is devoting time and resources to. Every night from 6-8PM PDT there is a phone banking shift in Las Vegas. It does not appear to be a virtual event which means only residents in Las Vegas can help him.
Canvassing is finally happening in the Las Vegas area now that the weather is cooler. Tomorrow is a “Superwalk” to kick off the start of canvassing. in North North Las Vegas will have further door-knocking events every Saturday. Hopefully Horsford will expand to Las Vegas proper as well as that is a critical section of his district to engage.
This may be the year that Rep. Steven Horsford wins more comfortably than normal. The GOP is not seriously targeting his seat and recent polling has him up by a 10-point margin (46%-36%). He sits in the 32nd most vulnerable seat held by a Democratic member of Congress, which also affirms he has the chance to finally win big.
John Lee is a political opportunist who switched parties when it was convenient for him to do so. He was rejected by Republicans in 2022 and now the general electorate has a chance to reject his new party affiliation as well.
Horsford has been busy leading the CBC which has drawn his attention towards Washington, DC. Hopefully he can multi-task and serve his constituents in a potential swing seat at the same time. The question for him is whether he can shake off his history of close races and win this one without a doubt.
Steven Horsford for Nevada-4
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