I became a Republican in the summer of 1972. I was involved in running President Nixon's re-election campaign in California and became part of his administration at the start of his second term.

After the landslide GOP victory in November 1980 Rollins was hired to serve as Deputy Assistant to the President for Political Affairs under Nofziger. Shortly thereafter Rollins spent most of a year in the hospital dealing with his back problems. In Rollin's memoir he states that he later learned "that a well-known lobbyist who was involved in the 1984 Reagan campaign - a campaign I'd managed - had pocketed an illegal $10 million campaign contribution from a foreign government".

In 1983-84 he was National Campaign Director for the Reagan-Bush '84 campaign winning 49 of 50 states. In December 2007 he was named the national campaign chairman for the Mike Huckabee campaign for President.