Will Rollins (D.) lost his second consecutive congressional bid to Inland Empire Rep. Ken Calvert (R., Calif.), failing to win over voters with his exaggerated prosecutorial record.
Calvert led Rollins by nearly 3 points with 87 percent of the vote reported when the Associated Press called the race for California’s 41st Congressional District at 3:45 p.m. Wednesday. Calvert, a businessman first elected in 1992, is set to enter his 17th term in Congress. His victory builds on the Republican majority in the House.
"I'm going to be honest, losing sucks, especially after campaigning back-to-back for three years," Rollins said in his concession speech Wednesday.
After Rollins launched his second run for Congress, the former assistant U.S. attorney repeatedly leaned on his prosecutorial record and adopted a law-and-order platform. But a series of Washington Free Beacon reports found Rollins heavily embellished that record, which consistently reflected a soft-on-crime approach.
Rollins claimed he "took on" the Sinaloa Cartel, ISIS, and MS-13 during his tenure at the Department of Justice. But an exhaustive Free Beacon review found no evidence the Democrat had any role in fighting the Sinaloa Cartel or ISIS. Only one case involved a gang member loosely affiliated with MS-13—a meth dealer who, with Rollins’s help, scored just five years in prison after originally facing a life sentence.
In fact, another Free Beacon review found Rollins repeatedly helped meth dealers secure cushy plea deals, dropping or reducing charges that removed life sentences and knocked years, sometimes decades, off prison time. Some defendants were caught peddling thousands of meth doses, while others had lengthy criminal records, including domestic abuse.
Rollins was also assigned to a bizarre case involving a serial poisoner who poured bleach on groceries 15 times in a multi-store crime spree. The defendant, who had a violent background, faced 60 years in prison, but Rollins helped drop that to less than 5.
Rollins claimed to have prosecuted Jan. 6 defendants, but the only case that could be tied to the former prosecutor was that of zany Beverly Hills cosmetologist Gina Bisignano—a case that was not resolved before Rollins abandoned his role at the Justice Department to run for Congress.
Rollins’s embellishments didn’t stop with his tough-on-crime portrayal. He also used fake police officers and a judge in a February ad to double down on his law-and-order claims.
"Will Rollins, a counterterrorism prosecutor, took on ISIS terrorists and went after the Sinaloa cartel to stop illegal drugs from crossing our border," the ad states.
The spot included C-list actors who appeared on shows such as Grey's Anatomy and the Chinese-produced teacher-student romance Ms. Swan, Teach Me Love.
Rollins narrowly lost his 2022 race against Calvert, but was considered one of the top overperformers that year. Tuesday’s election was expected to be tight after redistricting swapped heavily Republican areas in California’s Inland Empire for parts of the Coachella Valley that include overwhelmingly liberal Palm Springs.
This year, the Democratic Party viewed Calvert’s seat as key to winning back the House majority and more than tripled its spending compared to the last election.
Update Nov. 14, 3:08 p.m.: This piece has been updated to include comment from Rollins's concession speech.