Florida voters are headed to the polls for the state’s primary, and none of the contests have a weirder set of candidates than the Republican race for Florida’s 19th congressional district.
Among the crowded field of candidates are two convicted felons, both pardoned by fellow convicted felon Donald Trump, as well as an ex-congressman who lobbed accusations of corruption and orgies consuming Washington, D.C. before being ousted.
The ten candidates are running to fill the open seat being vacated by GOP Rep. Byron Donalds, who is seen as the frontrunner in the Republican primary for governor.
Among those vying for the House seat is John Strand, a self-declared former actor, model, and professional spokesperson, who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Strand was convicted on one felony obstruction charge and four misdemeanors, and he served about a year in federal prison before the Supreme Court narrowed the obstruction law, which led to his release. He went on to receive a presidential pardon with roughly 1,500 insurrectionists from January 6. Among his backers are election denier Mike Lindell, Rep. Lauren Boebert and General Mike Flynn.
But Strand is not the only convicted felon running for the seat on Florida’s southwest coast, including Naples, Cape Coral and parts of Fort Myers.
Former New York Rep. Chris Collins is also running in the race, having moved south permanently after serving time for insider trading and lying to the FBI.
Collins was first elected to represent New York’s 27th congressional district in 2012. He and his son were arrested in August 2018 and charged with insider trading and making false statements. Despite the charges, he won his reelection bid that fall. However, less than a year later, he resigned and pleaded guilty.
He began serving a 26-month sentence in October 2022, but he received a pardon from his longtime ally Trump that December. Collins was the first sitting House member to endorse Trump for president when he first ran in 2016, and he later sat on his first transition team.
While Collins is not the only convicted felon running, he’s also not the only former congressman from another state to be running in the primary, which leads to Madison Cawthorn.
Pro-MAGA Cawthorn was first elected to represent North Carolina’s 11th congressional district in 2020, at the age of 25, making him one of the youngest people ever elected to Congress. But his tenure in Washington, D.C. was plagued by controversies.
On January 6, 2021, he spoke to the crowds before they went on to storm the U.S. Capitol, just three days after he was sworn into office.
In March 2022, he turned heads with claims on a podcast that some of his new colleagues from his own party in Congress invited him to orgies and to use cocaine. He described it as a “sexual perversion that goes on in Washington.”
But Cawthorn himself ended up in hot water just months later. He was accused of violating insider trading rules for failing to disclose trades worth hundreds of thousands of dollars three separate times in 2022. His state’s own sitting Senator Thom Tillis called for a probe.
That May, the House Ethics Committee announced it had launched an investigation not just into insider trading allegations but also Cawthorn’s alleged improper relationship with his staffer.
A super PAC opposing the young congressman accused him of having an improper relationship with a male staffer. It also urged an investigation into Cawthorn being cited for illegal gun possession after a firearm was found in his handbag at a North Carolina airport, according to police.
Cawthorn was defeated in May 2022 by primary challenger Chuck Edwards, who has since ended his own reelection bid this month amid allegations of misconduct. In November 2022, Cawthorn vacated his Washington and district offices even though he still had nearly two months left on his term.
He moved down to Florida full time after leaving Congress, but he launched a bid to fill the open seat in October.
Just days before the primary and after early voting was already underway, Trump made a late-game endorsement backing Catalina Lauf in the race.
She worked as an adviser to the Commerce Department during his first term, but recently faced backlash after leaked audio showed she could not answer basic questions about local officials and districts, according to a local report.
Lauf also previously ran for Congress in another state. She ran two unsuccessful bids to represent two separate Illinois districts in 2020 and 2022 before moving to Florida.
Other Republicans in the race include Greg “Tex” Bukowski, Ola Hawatmeh, Jim Oberweis, Mike Pedersen, Linda Sawyer, and Jim Schwartzel.
Polls close on Tuesday in Florida at 7 pm local time.
