Veteran Republican congressman’s reign in Riverside County under siege

For decades, Rep. Ken Calvert, 71, presided comfortably over this corner of the Inland Empire. Will Rollins’ candidacy in California’s 41st District was made viable by redistricting changes the year prior that swapped Republican havens like Temecula and Murrieta for a swath of the Coachella Valley that included overwhelmingly liberal Palm Springs, home to one of the largest concentrations of LGBTQ+ voters in the country. About 50 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles at the western edge of the Inland Empire, Corona is the biggest city in the district and Calvert’s hometown. Rollins, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the National Security Division at the Department of Justice, has blasted Calvert for his continued support of Trump, even after Trump became the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes last month, with Rollins saying on the social media site X that the district deserves “a representative who cares more about the 750,000 of us in Riverside County than one convicted felon in New York.” It remains unclear how Trump’s guilty verdict might affect Republicans congressional candidates in competitive districts like Calvert’s, or whether the conviction could nudge swing voters away from supporters of the former president. “If you’re looking at the trend line, this new district is definitely moving toward Democrats after redistricting,” said Erin Covey, a House analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, citing the addition of Palm Springs and the fact that parts of the historically conservative Inland Empire have also shifted slightly to the left.