When Ken Calvert was first elected to Congress in 1992, CA-42, the western Riverside County district, was in the heart of a deep red swathe of Republican California. Today, Calvert is surrounded by Democrats. To the east is CA-36, the Palms Springs district, today Raul Ruiz's D+2 seat. To the north, he's bordered by Mark Takano's CA-41 (D+12) and Norma Torres' CA-35 (D+19). To the west are 3 districts that just flipped from red to blue last year-- CA-39 (Gil Cisneros), CA-45 (Katie Porter) and CA-49 (Mike Levin). In the South is a big desert-- CA-50-- where Duncan Hunter, Jr, the son of Calvert's old crony, Duncan Hunter, Sr, is on very vulnerable and seriously on the ropes.Calvert is the last Republican holdout in the Inland Empire and, with the exception of Hunter, the last Republican holdout in southern California (not counting a part of Paul Cook's CA-08, which begins nearly as far north as Sacramento along the eastern border of the state and makes its way down into Barstow and Victorville). The clock is ticking for Calvert as well. CA-42 is no longer a white majority district.
• White- 44.7%• Black- 5.2%• Latino- 37.2%• Asian-8.9%
Last year, Calvert managed to beat Julia Peacock, a school teacher, spending $1,611,609 to her $149,565. The DCCC studiously ignored the race and Peacock was left to fight Calvert on her own, in a district where the PVI is still a daunting R+9. McCain beat Obama 54-43% there and Romney did even better: 56.5% to 41.4%. Hillary scored the same 41.4% although Trump did worse than Romney and McCain with 53.4%. Peacock actually did better last year than Hillary or Obama had done in the district.The 42nd, entirely in Riverside County, starts up in Corona, goes south through the Temescal Valley, past Lake Elsinore through Murrieta and east to Menifee and beyond into a part of the state where there's not much to do besides manufacture and take meth. The stink of cooking meth hangs heavy in the air in some parts of the sparsely-populated eastern end of the district.Calvert is kind of a lowlife-- who was caught with an underage prostitute in a parked car [read the police report here] and has been involved with some shady financial real estate dealings in the district. Watch Chris Wallace exposing Calvert's criminal activities on Fox News:Who the hell votes to reelect someone like Ken Calvert? Meth-heads? I've long thought it was commuters, stuck in traffic with hate talk radio blaring in their consciousnesses day after day, month after month, year after year. Yesterday, I asked Julia Peacock how she thought she might be able to do better in 2020 than she did in 2018. Here's what she told me:
My team and I have learned a lot. We saw what worked and what didn't. We know that our biggest challenge is money (isn't it always), but it's also making sure we knock on more doors. Our grassroots volunteers knocked on 30,000 doors (not nearly enough) and polled the voters to the tune of 97% pro-Julia. We have to have a larger apparatus for canvassing, and we're already working on that now by reaching out to grassroots organizations across blue areas in Southern California.One of the mistakes we made the first cycle was keeping ourselves close to home. I felt it necessary to work within the district to reach voters right here. However, we didn't have the capacity to turn that into a victory. Lesson learned: We need more help from other groups who aren't married to the Democratic party (which hasn't done squat to shift this district blue in more than a quarter century). We have to earn more attention state- and nationwide so we can raise more money and amplify our message. Will that guarantee victory? Nope. But it has all the potential to push the needle to the win column.We did some things well last time, too. The effort I'm most proud of is how we addressed issues and not political parties. Whether writing postcards, sending texts and emails, or talking to voters personally, we asked what issues mattered to them. Sometimes they had a quick answer and sometimes they didn't, but it always opened up a more honest conversation about common ground that transcends party lines. That's where we're the strongest. We expand that effort to every single voter in the district and we win. Not an easy task, but we're down for the work....We talked to voters about issues everywhere we met them. The issues that came up the most were healthcare, education, and jobs. Close behind was traffic and affordable housing. For younger voters, the environment, gun reform, and higher education. Really, there's such a diverse population, something that Calvert has been ignoring for too long, that the issues are vast and very personal.As for healthcare, 80,000 people in our district alone benefit from the Affordable Care Act. While a step in the right direction, it obviously hasn't gone far enough. One of the most powerful conversations I had was with an NPP voter. His wife is a strong supporter of mine, but he wasn't convinced. He came with her to one of my meet and greets and grilled me for 45 minutes about healthcare, guns, and more. After patiently answering his questions, listening to his concerns, and trying to make valid, humane points about why the current system of healthcare wasn't working, he looked at me and said, "You know, I'd gladly give up all of my guns so my neighbor doesn't have to go bankrupt over healthcare costs." THAT'S the difference we can make with real conversations.Education is a hot button in our community because we are very suburban. Many families, if they can afford it, move here to raise families. They expect quality schools with opportunities for their children. One of the biggest issues I've found as an educator myself is that we're not spending the money necessary to provide social/emotional support for our students. In Riverside County alone, we have 3,000 children on home hospital (still enrolled in the public school, but they study at home, and a certificated teacher visits them 2-3 times per week with personal educational support) for anxiety. Anxiety. Kids are terrified to go to school. Counselors are overworked with caseloads of sometimes over 500 students. They do not have the training or expertise to do more than provide academic support and guidance. We don't invest, especially in California, in the education of our children, which makes families very vulnerable to the for-profit charter movement with their promises of the best education and results with almost zero oversight. Betsy's got to go, to say the very least. Parents want their kids to go to good schools. That's the least our children deserve.What I followed of the Orange County campaigns (when I could, being a full-time teacher and a candidate myself) was the strength of their ground game. I made some connections with some of the activist groups in the OC who canvassed their butts off for their candidates. People all across the area, including here in the 42nd, got brave enough to leave their own backyards to talk to their friends and neighbors. That has to be repeated x1000. It's not lost on me, however, that some of the OC folks had some serious support from big names and national organizations. Our R+9 district didn't get any love from any of those fronts, even though some of the local and regional folks actually on the ground here were pushing hard to get us recognized. We're hoping to change that this time around by, again, getting out of the district and working with activists across the region and the state. I'm hopeful that dropping us to R+7 on all of our volunteer-led efforts might open a few more doors this time around. I know it's worked to get me an interview with TYT on May 28, so I'm excited about that.
Want to help Julia even the odds a little? That Turning California Bluer thermometer above... that's what that's for. Please consider making a contribution-- anything you feel comfortable with. $20.20 is what we usually suggest. You probably never heard this song; listen to it while you decide if today is the day you want to help Julia Peacock replace Ken Calvert in Congress: