MESQUITE, Nevada – A veteran politician who could be relaxing in the sprawling Sun City retirement community and watching the sunsets over the mesas is instead on the ballot, seeking votes to bring a volatile key district back into the red.

John Lee, 69, a former state representative and former mayor of North Las Vegas, was once a Democrat.

But three years ago, Lee, disillusioned with his party’s policies, abandoned the sinking ship and attracted national attention when he became the first elected official to leave the Democrats during the Biden administration.

He is now trying to unseat Democratic U.S. Representative Steven Horsford (51) in the 4th District, which is “probably the second largest district in the country” in terms of area, Lee said.

“I was mayor of (North Las Vegas) when there was nowhere to eat,” he told The Washington Post in a recent interview at the only Starbucks in Mesquite, a town of 23,000 people full of retirees. “I opened 31 restaurants.”

“I was mayor of the city when we had no choice in schools. Now we have 31 charter schools.

“I have done everything I can to ensure that the quality of life for the people of North Las Vegas is as good as anywhere else in the valley,” he said.

Lee said Nevada’s top Republicans, Gov. Joe Lombardo and Rep. Mark Amodei, as well as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), have urged him to run for Congress.

The candidate said Donald Trump also called him and asked him to run.

Lee, a former plumbing business owner, said his track record in North Las Vegas, a city of more than 280,000 whose World War II-era Air Force school became Nellis Air Force Base, speaks for itself.

Outside of North Las Vegas, where the majority of District 4 residents live, lies a vast swath of predominantly Republican rural areas: Lincoln County, Overton, Logan, Moapa Valley, Nye County, Esmeralda County, Monroe County, and Lyon County near the State Capitol in Carson City.

The Fourth District has sent Horsford to Congress four times. Previously, Republican Crescent Hardy won the seat in 2014 and Democrat Ruben Kihuen reclaimed it two years later.

The back and forth between the parties suggests that the region could once again switch to the Democratic Party, said an experienced political consultant.

According to the source, economic problems combined with Lee’s popularity as a former mayor and his dogged election campaign could be the deciding factor.

Lee claimed that Horsford was absent as a congressman.

“Nobody knows him. He is never anywhere,” said the politician.

During the global pandemic, Horsford “never called and asked, ‘What can I do to help small businesses? What can I do to help my people?’ Nothing. No response,” Lee claimed.

Horsford’s office promised The Post an interview, but so far none has materialized.

Regarding the Democrats’ proposal to eliminate service employee tips from federal income tax, Lee said: “This is President Trump’s issue, and I think it’s great.

“It was never (Horsford’s) idea.”