Daly: The MAGA Misfittery of Florida's 19th

A cast of characters worthy of a sitcom, and what it says about this political moment.

Last week, The Dispatch’s Steve Hayes wrote a fascinating (and entertaining) long-form piece on a hotly contested (but little reported on) GOP primary race in Florida’s 19^th Congressional District. Rep. Byron Donalds currently holds the seat, but he’ll be giving it up to run to be Florida’s next governor. The district leans heavily Republican and pro-Trump, so whoever wins the contest will assuredly go on to win the general election.

The candidates, as Hayes describes, are quite an entangled collection of hardcore MAGA faithfuls.

Perhaps the most recognizable name among them is Madison Cawthorn, who’d previously represented North Carolina’s 11^th District for a single term (from 2021 to 2023). He had plans on staying in that office longer, but a few reelection snafus prevented that from happening. By “snafus,” I’m referring to Cawthorn’s unsubstantiated (and later recanted) claims of being pressured into attending cocaine-fueled congressional orgies on Capitol Hill, the public emergence of photos of him wearing women’s lingerie, and multiple videos showing him simulating sex acts with men (one of whom was allegedly his cousin).

It was a little too weird for Cawthorn’s former constituents, who voted him out in the primary. A week after that defeat, the House Ethics Committee announced that Cawthorn was under investigation for an inappropriate relationship with a male staffer (his second cousin) and a conflicting interest with a cryptocurrency business.

Now a Floridian, Cawthorn is presumably tanned, rested, and ready to give the U.S. Congress another try.

Also running for the Florida House seat is another former congressional representative, Chris Collins. Collins served New York’s 27^th Congressional District for a few terms before insider-trading charges resulted in his resignation and imprisonment. He was supposed to spend over two years in the clink, but Donald Trump pardoned him just a couple months into his sentence.

Believe it or not, Collins isn’t the only individual in the race who was pardoned by President Trump. He shares that apparent honor with fellow candidate, John Strand, a California transplant whose biggest political notoriety, prior to running for Florida’s 19^th, was as an unapologetic January 6 rioter.

Strand (who possibly attended Madison Cawthorn’s vitriolic “Stop the Steal” speech that day) was convicted of multiple crimes for his conduct at the U.S. Capitol, including a felony (for which he served prison time). As with several hundred other J6ers, Trump would later absolve Strand of his legal sins. Strand not only walked away with his freedom, but also a slogan he’s currently using in his campaign ads: “Let’s storm the Capitol for real.”

The good news for fans of law and order is that the remaining candidates don’t have much of a criminal record. Most have instead established themselves as geographically-diverse professional political candidates.

Ola Hawatmeh is MAGA influencer and former New York congressional hopeful. Catalina Lauf is a multi-time congressional candidate, who ran unsuccessful campaigns in three different Florida districts before trying her hand at the 19th. Prior to moving to Florida, she ran for congress in Illinois, where she was defeated in the GOP primary by a guy named Jim Oberweis. Oberweis would go on to lose the general election, and move to Florida… where he’s currently running once again against Laur — this time in the 19th.

As Steve Hayes describes in his piece, Oberweis “has run and lost so many times that he’s known in Illinois as the ‘Milk dud.’ Oberweis ran for U.S. Senate in Illinois in 2002 and 2004. He ran for governor in 2006. He ran for the House in the 14^th Congressional District in 2008 (in a special election and the regular election). He ran for the U.S. Senate again in 2014, winning the GOP primary and losing to Sen. Dick Durbin.”

Also in the race are Linda Sawyer (who ran unsuccessfully in three different Michigan congressional districts over four cycles), recent New Jersey arrival Dylan Modarelli, and former Marine Mike Pedersen.

Oh, and there’s also Jim Schwartzel, a fellow who owns a local country music station called “Trump Country.” He and Pedersen are the only two candidates who’ve lived in Florida’s 19^th district for some time.

What everyone in the race has in common is their expressed adoration of President Trump. As Hayes documents in his piece, it’s pretty much the entirety of each of their arguments for why they should win the nomination: They love Trump more than their primary competitors do.

Case in point, there hasn’t been much in the way of voter outreach or campaign events. The only real campaigning going on, as Hayes describes, has been the campaign for Trump’s endorsement (which everyone agrees would effectively decide the nomination). The effort has included adopting Trump’s policies wholesale, parroting Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, attending events in celebration of Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and landing air-time on Fox News (Trump’s go-to network) to further sing the president’s praises. Chris Collins has gone as far as claiming he was targeted by prosecutors not for the commission of a crime, but rather for being too effective of a servant to Trump.

You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Or course, one might ask why any of this matters (beyond entertainment value). If a congressional district is so reliably pro-Trump that criminals, disgraced former leaders, and failed politicians converge there — from around the country — in hopes of becoming a reliable pro-Trump vote, flatterer, and pseudo-celebrity in Washington, isn’t that the prerogative of everyone involved?

The answer to that question is yes. If the only standard constituents choose to hold their representative to is that of unconditional loyalty to Donald Trump, it’s hard to imagine voters in Florida’s 19th will be disappointed with any of these contenders.

But here’s my question: Shouldn’t voters expect more — especially those who still consider themselves conservatives in our system of divided government?

Our national debt is about to surpass $40 trillion — double the amount it was when Trump first took office. Yet, like the Democrats, Trump still opposes reforming the federal entitlement programs that are the major drivers of our debt. He’s signed more debt-spending into law than any president in U.S. history (and it’s not even close).

Is the rapidly approaching insolvency of Social Security and Medicare not of any concern to today’s Republican Party? How about a catastrophic debt crisis? Is loyalty to Trump really all that matters, at least for the next few years? Shouldn’t our congressional representatives be thinking more about America’s future than live-in-the-moment rump-kissing?

Trump’s trade war has been a major drag on the U.S. economy. The numbers don’t lie. His tariffs have cost us jobs, driven up prices and government subsidies, raised taxes on the American people, and alienated safe and previously reliable trade partners — all while achieving none of the goals the administration promised. Congress could put and end to this failed experiment tomorrow, and the GOP could right the ship and reclaim its “free trade” mantle.

Is personal loyalty to Donald Trump really more important than the health of the U.S. economy? He’d still be our president, after all, even with more principled conservatives in the Republican Congress occasionally voting against his worst ideas.

Sure, the race in Florida’s 19^th is uniquely cartoonish because of the candidates’ pasts… But purely in the realm of congressional representation, is it really all that different than the GOP primaries currently taking place throughout the rest of the country?

Maybe that’s something to think about when it’s time for you to vote in this year’s local primary.