Rollins, who also failed to unseat Calvert in 2022 and 2024, is not running again in 2026. 

But seven other Democrats and one Republican are challenging Calvert for his Riverside County seat in one of California’s key swing districts.

Calvert, the longest-serving GOP member of California’s delegation, has held office for three decades in what was once a reliably conservative district. But recent redistricting made it closer to an even split. In February, Republicans held less than a two-point voter registration edge over Democrats, according to the California Secretary of State. 

Calvert’s campaign brushed off the challenges, saying he expects to prevail again next year. 

“It’s clear by the growing list of radical liberals jumping in the 41st District race that Democrats are in disarray,” his campaign said in a statement to CalMatters. “Rep. Calvert continues to deliver results for his constituents and just recently fulfilled his promise to lower taxes for Riverside County voters.”

Cody Wiebelhaus, a Palm Springs health care executive, is his Republican challenger.

The Democratic candidates are lawyer Anuj Dixit, school board member Abel Chavez, entrepreneur Brandon Riker,  investment banker Dave Karson, software engineer Jason Byors, small business owner Ferguson Porter and musician Tim Meyers, formerly the bassist for the pop band OneRepublic.

In campaign messages some are tying Calvert to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and federal funding cuts and other policies.

Republicans are “trying to repackage the same old politics with shiny words and hidden agendas,” Chavez said in a video, referring to the GOP budget bill that reduces taxes for many while slashing social services.

Meyers argues on his website that Calvert has not delivered for constituents, as the Trump administration has waged trade wars and cut cancer research and veterans’ services.

“Our Congressman, Ken Calvert, has spent his entire career running for office, rather than solving problems for working families,” Meyers said on his website. 

The seat is one of a handful that could flip the balance of power in the midterm election. The top two vote-getters in the June 2 primary next year will face off in the general election.

Dixit grew up on March Air Force Base and has worked as a lawyer defending voters against “extreme and illegal forms of gerrymandering,” he stated on his campaign website.

He said he’s trying to “shake up a system that’s been rigged for decades by insiders” and pledges to “go after big businesses that buy elections and dodge taxes.” 

Chavez grew up in the Riverside County communities of Romoland and Nuevo, California, and  attended UC Riverside as a pre-med major.  He switched to business and banking, then became a high school science teacher but said he saw flaws in the schools.

“Underfunded schools, outdated curricula, and rigid bureaucratic policies were preventing students from truly thriving,” he stated on his website.

In 2022 Chavez became a board member for Nuview Union School District, a small district in Nuevo, California. He advocates for education reform and wants to help first-time home buyers.

Riker is a fourth-generation Californian who works as an investment manager and entrepreneur. He became involved in politics by demonstrating against the Iraq war as a teenager, he stated on his website. 

In 2008 he worked as an organizer for former President Barack Obama’s campaign. Now he serves on the board of SafePlace International, which works to find safe spaces for LGBTQ people around the world. His priorities are helping small businesses and improving education.

Pop rock star Meyers grew up in Corona and played for OneRepublic before founding his own label, Palladium Records. He lives in a neighboring area of Los Angeles County now, but unlike California state representatives, congress members don’t need to live in the district they represent. 

Meyers said in a campaign video the cutthroat business environment he experienced in the entertainment industry mirrors the country’s economic system, where he says “the playing field is stacked against hard working people.”

Though campaign finance reports for most of the challengers aren’t available, some have announced early fundraising windfalls. On April 3, Riker stated on his campaign website he raised $250,000 from individual donors during the first 24 hours of his campaign. Dixit reported he raised $150,000 shortly after jumping into the race, according to Politico.

They’ll have to catch up with Calvert, whose campaign committee reported $1.3 million in contributions and transfers, according to the Federal Election Commission. 

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A New York jury deliberated for 9½ hours over two days before convicting Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

After the verdict, California’s Republican leaders quickly cast doubt on the verdict’s legitimacy and argued it would boost Trump’s chances of reelection in November.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield said that Trump’s “only ‘crime’ is running against Joe Biden in 2024.”

Jessica Millan Patterson, the chair of the California Republican Party, said the prosecution was “a politically motivated case brought by a far-left district attorney” and that the guilty verdict “never should have happened.”

San Diego-area Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) called the verdict and the trial “a disgrace.”

Democrats, by contrast, praised the verdict as proof of the American legal system functioning as it should. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who is running for Senate, said that “the rule of law prevailed” despite Trump’s efforts to “distract, delay and deny.”

In California’s most hotly contested congressional races, though, few wanted to publicly tangle with the question of Trump’s conviction.

Representatives for Reps. Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills), Michelle Steel (R-Seal Beach), Mike Garcia (R-Santa Clarita), David Valadao (R-Hanford) and John Duarte (R-Modesto) did not return requests for comment. Nor did representatives for Matt Gunderson, who is challenging Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano) in coastal Orange and San Diego counties, or Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln, who is running against Rep. Josh Harder (D-Tracy) in the Central Valley.

A representative for Republican Steve Garvey, who is running for Senate against Schiff, said he had no comment on the verdict.

One exception was Scott Baugh, who is running to flip the coastal Orange County seat held by Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine). Baugh, the former chair of the Orange County GOP, characterized Trump’s trial as a political prosecution and said the verdict “should surprise no one.”

“A politically motivated prosecutor and a hostile judge set the trial up for so many prejudicial errors,” Baugh said in a prepared statement. “President Trump will have his opportunity to appeal and I am confident that a fair hearing will expose and resolve these issues.”

And longtime Riverside Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona), who is fighting to retain his once-safe seat in a now-competitive swing district, said in a statement on Thursday evening that Trump’s prosecution was political — but his comment was more muted than the loudest GOP voices.

Calvert said that Americans who believe that “justice should be blind to politics” should be “concerned” by the trial’s outcome. He continued: “It’s alarming that our criminal justice system continues to be taken advantage of by partisan prosecutors who want to use the power of their office to influence our democratic elections.”

Whether to lock arms with Trump has been a fraught question for Republicans in California for nearly a decade, but especially this year. Republicans hold such a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives that a handful of hyper-competitive races in the Golden State could determine which party controls the chamber. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated 10 California races as competitive.

Remaining silent on the verdict makes sense for Republicans in those competitive battleground districts, said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine.

“You’ll notice that the loudest voices supporting Trump on this tend to be Republicans in very safe seats,” Schnur said. “Candidates who need to reach swing voters don’t have that luxury.”

One challenge for candidates, said UC San Diego political science professor Thad Kousser, is that partisan allegiances determine how voters viewed the trial.

Polling has found that Democrats overwhelmingly saw the trial as fair, while only a tiny percentage of Republicans agreed. Independents were evenly split. A Trump-like message about a rigged, unfair trial that might resonate with a candidate’s Republican base could also turn off independents, Kousser said.

“Anyone trying to win a November race in a competitive district needs to worry about both mobilizing their base through more Trump-like rhetoric, but also the cost of alienating the middle,” he said.

Rob Stutzman, a GOP strategist who isn’t involved in any congressional races, said that while the verdict can be used as a tool by both parties to turn out voters in November, it’s a “touchy subject.”

“You may have independents in congressional seats who are indifferent to the verdict, but don’t necessarily want to see Republican incumbents defending Trump or decrying the verdict,” Stutzman said.

But Shawn Steel, who represents California on the Republican National Committee and is married to Steel, of Orange County, said the verdict will have “absolutely no impact” on California’s House races.

“The White House got the verdict they planned years ago,” Steel said. “The Manhattan jurors who convicted Trump did it out of malice and hate. Today’s verdict, along with the not-guilty verdict of the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, proved the steep decline of trust in the American criminal justice.”

Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney who also represents California on the Republican National Committee and whose law firm represents the Trump campaign, said Californians are more concerned with quality-of-life issues, such as homelessness, crime and illegal immigration than they are with the trial.

“People are fed up,” she said. “People are much more motivated in this election to vote because things are getting bad here in California.”

While California Republican House candidates were largely quiet, some of their allies in other states, such as Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake and vice presidential hopeful Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, were not.

“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” Trump told reporters after leaving the courtroom. “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people.”

The Biden campaign said Thursday’s verdict showed that the law applied to everyone, but warned that the only way to keep Trump out of the White House is voting in November.

“Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president,” campaign spokesman Michael Tyler said. “The threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater. He is running an increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution, pledging to be a dictator ‘on Day One’ and calling for our Constitution to be ‘terminated’ so he can regain and keep power.”

In the wake of Trump’s conviction, Democrats seized upon 23 vulnerable House Republicans who had endorsed the former president, including Duarte, Garcia, Calvert and Steel.

“House Republicans have continued to put Donald Trump first and the American people last,” said Courtney Rice, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Their districts deserve better than their cult-like adherence to a wannabe dictator. Each and every one of them should rescind their endorsement, but won’t.”

Trump’s trial, which began in April in New York City, was one of four felony cases that Trump was facing, though it was thought to be the only one likely to see a trial before the November election.

The verdict hinged on whether Trump falsified business records to hide a $130,000 hush money payment that Michael Cohen — Trump’s lawyer and, later, a witness for the prosecution — made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who alleged she’d had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade prior.

Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg had to convince the jury that Trump not only commanded Cohen to make the payments, but that he did so in order to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, rather than to shield his family from the story. Trump pleaded not guilty and denied the sexual encounter with Daniels; Cohen testified that he had been deeply involved in the scheme.

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