Inland Rep. Ken Calvert has won reelection, surviving one of the biggest threats to his three decades on Capitol Hill and giving Republicans a crucial seat in their bid to keep their House of Representatives majority.
The Associated Press called the race for Calvert, R-Corona, at 12:45 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 13. He led Democrat Will Rollins by roughly 8,100 votes — 51.29% to 48.71% — going into Wednesday.
RELATED: Ken Calvert declares victory in Inland Empire House race. Not so fast, Will Rollins says
Calvert, 71, declared victory Tuesday, Nov. 12, in the 41st Congressional District race. But Rollins’ campaign said at that time that the race was too close to call and that as many as 80,000 ballots remained uncounted.
Coby Eiss, Rollins’ campaign manager, said the campaign was waiting for an election results update scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday and planned to issue a statement afterward.
Calvert’s win put the GOP one seat short Wednesday afternoon of retaining its narrow House majority. Republicans had 217 House seats compared to 207 for the Democrats, with 218 needed for a majority, according to The Associated Press.
Assuming Republicans keep the House, they’ll control both chambers of Congress for at least the next two years in addition to the White House. Besides electing Donald Trump, voters also gave the GOP a Senate majority.
ELECTION RESULTS: See a chart of the latest vote counts
Going into the 2024 election cycle, Democrats viewed the 41st — cities in the Coachella Valley, Calimesa, Lake Elsinore, Menifee, Norco, Wildomar and parts of Corona, Eastvale and Riverside — as a prime pickup opportunity as they sought to take over the House.
The 41st has a narrow voter registration split between the two major parties. Democrats also hoped high voter turnout in a presidential election year would give Rollins, who narrowly lost to Calvert in 2022, an edge.
A former federal prosecutor, Rollins outraised Calvert in what became one of the nation’s most expensive House races. Rollins led Calvert in early returns, but Calvert took the lead Wednesday, Nov. 6, and never relinquished it.
Unlike 2022, Rollins had stronger backing from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and its super PAC allies, which paid for ads painting Calvert as a corrupt politician and right-wing extremist.
Calvert’s campaign, the National Republican Congressional Committee and its allies attacked Rollins as a tax-and-spend liberal in the mold of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is relatively unpopular in Riverside County. Attack ads from both sides dominated TV airwaves and social media accounts leading up to the election.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
