As the battle for one of the country’s most-watched House races heats up, Will Rollins’ campaign has announced a $1.8 million cash haul for the first three months of 2024 as he works to flip California's 41st Congressional District from red to blue.
“I think it's more proof that rejecting corporate PAC money is something that more candidates should do nationwide, because voters respond to that when you say you're not going to be beholden to special interests and you refuse to take a cent of corporate PAC money,” said Rollins in an interview with Spectrum News. “It resonates with individual donors all over the United States."
The Rollins campaign says it will file an April quarterly report reflecting more than $3 million cash on hand, and that there have been over 30,000 unique donors to the campaign this cycle. Spectrum News has reached out to the Calvert campaign about when it plans to release its updated fundraising numbers.
Rollins is a part of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's “Red to Blue” list, a key part of the DCCC's strategy to flip districts to try and regain control of the House. A source familiar with House Democratic campaign fundraising has confirmed to Spectrum News that Rollins "has consistently been one of the highest fundraisers in the country thus far this cycle and just raised the most ever against Calvert in a single quarter."
While the eye-popping cash haul by Rollins will assist the two-time candidate in his crusade to defeat Calvert, he admits that he thinks “the entire country would be better off if we didn't have to raise these kinds of funds.”
“The reality is you need them,” said Rollins. “When voters see our messages when they hear me talk about my background in law enforcement, my upbringing in a family that was split between Republicans and Democrats, my focus on cutting taxes for working families in Riverside County, delivering more infrastructure projects to people in parts of the Inland Empire where traffic is horrific and has been for years – voters overwhelmingly break for our campaign. And so having the resources that we need to convey those messages is absolutely critical for flipping a seat.”
Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, ran against Calvert in 2022, and lost by around 11,000 votes. A first time candidate at the time, he had little name recognition nationally, and the race became much closer than expected, with Calvert seeing his first serious challenge in his three decades in office. Calvert beat Rollins in the top-two primary system last month by over 23,000 votes, but another Democrat running for the office, Anna Nevenic, had earned more than 13,000 votes. With the party unifying around his candidacy and with the national support of DCCC, Rollins says he's hit the ground running in his second bid for the seat.
“I really look forward to getting into Congress and joining others who have sought to overturn Citizens United, who have sought to ban corporate PAC contributions, who have sought to impose a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress,” explained Rollins. “All of those good government reforms that I think really resonate both locally and nationally, are a testament to how we've been able to get that kind of support and I really think we need more members of Congress committed to fixing the system and, ironically, our ability to raise this kind of money is proof that that's exactly what the electorate is craving and we need more people to campaign on it.”