Southern California Congressional Race Pits Anti-LGBTQ+ Trump Republican Against Gay Prosecutor

Sal Ladestro is sitting in the grassy backyard of a popular Palm Springs coffee shop, sipping an espresso drink and lamenting the fact that, come January, he’ll no longer be represented in Congress by Democrat Raul Ruiz.

“I was really flummoxed when they redistricted, because I thought Ruiz was a great congressman for the entire region,” Ladestro said. Even more upsetting to this 60-year-old voter is the notion that, unless Democrats are able to flip the new 41st Congressional District from red to blue, his congressmember will be 15-term Republican Ken Calvert.

“He's really Trumpy,” Ladestro said. “And he's got some really extreme views. He doesn't want to prosecute any of the January 6th protesters at the insurrection. He's 100% against abortion.”

For Ladestro, who is gay, Calvert’s record of opposing LGBTQ+ rights also is troubling. In Calvert’s first campaign, he essentially outed an opponent, sending voters lavender and pink brochures that featured a quote from a local Republican member of the Assembly that read “I don’t want a homosexual representing me in Congress.”

In the past, Calvert, 69, has voted against allowing queer people to serve openly in the U.S. military, and against protecting LGBTQ+ workers from discrimination. Calvert says he’s “evolved” on the issue and now supports same-sex marriage, which he recently supported in a House vote.

“I have looked at what's happened across the nation, over a million marriages, gay marriages around this country, that we're not going to unwind that. So there's no reason to create anxiety within that community,” Calvert said.

That does not convince one of his potential constituents, former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer.

“Ken Calvert's a phony,” Boxer told KQED recently. “He changed his vote on gay marriage because he got Palm Springs in his district.”

Calvert insists that’s not true, given that his new district includes 70% of his current constituents, many of whom were happy with his more conservative positions. “It's not a free ride to take one position or another,” he said.

A stark contrast

Calvert, who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results and called for some of those arrested to be released from jail, is running against a former federal prosecutor who helped build cases against the January 6 rioters.

Will Rollins, 37, is many things Calvert is not: a Democrat, gay, anti-Trump and pro-abortion rights. At a recent fundraiser in Palm Springs, Rollins laid out their differences.

“I am running against a guy who believes we should use the law to dismiss charges against people who assaulted cops at the U.S. Capitol but thinks it's OK to prosecute women who get an abortion and their doctors," Rollins said. "That is the contrast that we're looking at."

Although he’s heavily courting LGBTQ+ voters and donors, Rollins knows he’ll need to win much more than Palm Springs — which represents less than 7% of the new district — if he’s going to defeat an entrenched incumbent. In this very evenly divided district, he pitches himself as an acceptable alternative for voters in the middle.

“I am a pro-small business Democrat who worked in law enforcement. I am reasonable. I want to hear from people who disagree with me. And we just need folks who are going to return the country to a sense of normalcy,” Rollins said.

Some here in Riverside County, including Dave Hissen, are clearly turned off by the toxic partisanship in D.C. and what happened on January 6 in particular.

“Dreadful. And I must tell you, I'm a Republican,” said Hissen, sitting with his 2016 Dodge Challenger at a Saturday morning “Coffee and Cars” event in a parking lot next to an IHOP in Corona. “Those people should be jailed for life. It is an embarrassment.” Still, Hissen said he can’t be bothered to vote. “I'm happy to be apolitical and uninvolved.” 

Later that morning, in a nearby park, about 20 volunteers gathered to knock on doors on behalf of Calvert. This is his home turf — he’s very well-known here.

Betty Nelson was among those volunteers. Nelson, who attended with Frank, her husband of 56 years, said it would be a shame to lose the experience and clout Calvert has accumulated over the past 30 years.

“He has seniority right now,” she said, “and if we could take the House back, he would be the head of the Appropriations Committee, which is very powerful. And I think he could help our country to get back financially on their feet.

Her husband said what happened on January was “unfortunate and should not happen,” but added that “I think it got so blown out of proportion, because it wasn't an insurrection per se. That's the other side pushing it."

Calvert is banking on that kind of loyalty from his base — plus voter anger over inflation and crime.

“Look, the people that I talk to are not thinking about something that happened a year and a half ago,” Calvert said. “They're thinking about what's happening right now. When they go to the market or they go fill up their tank full of gasoline.”

For constitutional expert Harry Litman, a former federal prosecutor whose podcast “Talking Feds” examines prominent legal issues, supporting the lie that Biden lost the election — as Calvert and most Republicans did — is “damn near disqualifying” for anyone seeking office.

“It's one thing to have voted against impeachment, but to actually have voted against certifying the election is not only to have flown in the face of truth and objective accuracy,” Litman said. “It's also to have encouraged — and it wasn't so subtle — the undermining ... of democratic values, starting with the peaceful transition of power.”

Rollins, a newcomer not nearly as well-known as Calvert, will need to draw an inside straight to defeat the incumbent. But his message is resonating with donors. According to campaign finance data filed with the Federal Election Commission, Rollins’ fundraising has kept pace with Calvert's since the campaigns began — although Rollins out-raised Calvert by 2 to 1 in the most recent reporting period.

While Calvert is counting on solid turnout from longtime supporters to seal his victory, Rollins is hoping voters in this newly drawn, more liberal district will be ready for a fresh face — one who played a positive role when democracy hung in the balance.