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Several House candidates who lost their races in 2022 are planning to run again in 2024, setting up potential rematches in key swing districts.
On Tuesday, former federal prosecutor and 2022 Democratic nominee Will Rollins announced he would seek a rematch against GOP Rep. Ken Calvert in California's 41st District.
In a statement announcing his campaign, Rollins highlighted that the 2022 election was the closest of Calvert's career, which has included ten years in Congress.
Rollins lost to Calvert by nearly 5 percentage points last year.
Also on Tuesday, Michelle Vallejo, an activist who was the Democratic nominee for the House in Texas' 15th District, announced she was running again.
She was bested by now-Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Texas, who beat Vallejo by nearly 9 percentage points.
In addition to Vallejo and Rollins' announcements this week, other Democratic candidates making a comeback include attorney Josh Riley in New York's 19th District and former state Sen. Kirsten Engel, the former Democratic nominee in Arizona's 6th District. Republican Air Force veteran J.R. Majewski is also running again in Ohio’s 9th District
In 2022, Riley lost to now-Rep. Marc Molinaro, a Republican, by less than two percentage points, Majewski lost to Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur by 13 percentage points and Engel lost to now-Rep. Juan Ciscomani, a Republican, by less than two percentage points.
Some of these candidates came close to winning — Rollins even attended the beginning of orientation for new House members while the votes were still being tallied in his race — and see a chance to gain more ground among voters in 2024.
The candidates also enter the race with some name recognition, having been a major party nominee just one election cycle ago.
Three Republicans who could face rematches — De La Cruz, Molinaro and Ciscomani — flipped Democratic-held seats in 2022.