Super Splitting

Will Rollins in CA-41 may decide control of the House, and remind Biden of how he won the White House

What should you think about the disastrous-seeming New York Times poll from yesterday showing a big Trump lead?

Think about what has worked, and all the work to do. Think about splitting the anti-Biden coalition, not the splintering of the anti-Trump coalition.

Think about places like California’s 41st District. It is nearly unanimous across race-ratings experts and Congress-focused media: CA-41 could decide who controls the House next year. This makes three-decade incumbent Ken Calvert one of the most vulnerable MAGA incumbents in America.

But that is not how it looked last cycle, when the seat was rated safely and Nate Silver was predicting a double-digit blowout for the Republican incumbent. Calvert’s challenger did not get a dime from the national Democratic Party entities, just like Lauren Boebert’s challenger Adam Frisch. They were the only two House challengers backed by WelcomePAC - and the two most over-performing Democratic challengers out of any competitive race in the country.

These races serve as a reminder of what the New York Times headline omits: the undecideds, and the potentially-persuadables. The voters that Trump said last night he’d expel from the GOP (“We’re getting rid of the Romneys”).

There is far more volatility than most pundits and politicians want you to think. This Super Tuesday, watch out for the volatility. In some states, that can even mean ticket-splitting - where volatile voters can cast a ballot against MAGA for Nikki Haley in the GOP primary, and again against MAGA members down-ballot.

Nervous Ken

So how did the supposedly “Safe Republican” district represented by Ken Calvert in 2022 become a toss-up that can decide House control in 2024?

Because of Will Rollins, a charismatic former aide to Governor Schwarzenegger, who investigated Jan 6th as federal prosecutor. His aggressive challenge in 2022 put this seat on the map - and caused more than 7,000 Republican voters to not support Ken Calvert even though they voted GOP for governor.

Check out Rollins’ latest ad that shows how he won over Republican voters:

Many voters see themselves in how Rollins sees his own Republican grandparents, and how the values their heroes Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower fought for have been abandoned by MAGA. His ad seeks to welcome in Republican voters, rather than push them away, by highlighting his work for a Republican governor (Schwarzenegger) and background in counterterrorism. 

Ken Calvert is taking notice - and Calvert is noticing WelcomePAC’s outreach ahead of Tuesday as well:

There certainly are Republicans who support Will Rollins - they did in 2022, and those voting for Haley against Trump on Tuesday may add to it.

And our research last year showed that the most effective message against Calvert was bipartisanship. Amplifying all the Republicans for Rollins will only help that cause - just as banishing voters from the GOP can doom Trump.

Play To Win

Rollins took a district no one was paying attention to and made it the marquee race of 2024 by attracting independents and moderate Republicans. It’s a story we’ve covered: pundits understate the volatility of the electorate. We’ve been publicly calling out CA-41 for more than three years now. In 2021, my co-founder wrote this for NBC:

Sprinkled across states like Ohio, Wisconsin and Georgia are congressional districts that may initially appear to be the “Safe Rs” that the official Democratic Party campaign entities bypass to focus their resources on more competitive districts. Take Rep. Ken Calvert ... Calvert has been in office as long as I’ve been alive and hasn’t had a well-funded Democratic challenger since 2010. Yet just 52.7 percent voted Trump in his district, and his incumbency has been tainted with scandal.

Giving folks like Calvert a “free pass” every year doesn’t make for good democracy, and it certainly doesn’t advance Democrats into new territory if they concede by not even showing up for the fight.

Rollins’s campaign shows how you win tough elections. When Calvert attacked Will for being soft on crime, Rollins was able to hit back credibly, rejecting calls from the Far Left to weaken bail laws and citing his work as a federal prosecutor.

This year, we are back again. There are a few other races that excite us:

• Wisconsin’s 3rd: MAGA Republican Van Orden hasn’t done anything to dispel voter concerns about his character since taking office (Trump +5). He’s twice been accused of disorderly and inappropriate conduct in the House, including booze- and expletive-filled parties in his office that are so over-the-top, Republican senators have called him out. 

• Pennsylvania’s 10th: Meanwhile, Scott Perry – an alumnus of Pennsylvania’s “Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition” program for first-time nonviolent offenders – has been a cheerleader for the government shutdowns and texts reveal he was an active participant in the plot to overturn the 2020 election. Democrats have a path to victory in the district that Trump won by 4 in 2020 but Governor Josh Shapiro carried by 15 points in his 2022 election. Check out recent articles in The Daily Beast, PennLive, and the Philadelphia Inquirer on our Republicans Against Perry initiative, which deploys the same cross-partisan effectiveness that drove Democrats to victory – and shocked analysts – in 2022.

These districts are part of our “Dozen for Democracy” Win the Middle Slate. They are the path to ending the House Clown show.

They may show a path to keeping the White House as well.