This would be amazing if it happened and it very well might. Randy Fine won the Republican primary to fill Mike Waltz’s old House seat. Ron DeSantis hates Randy Fine. So he’s basically staying out of it. Not a good sign in Florida. Remember, DeSantis wasn’t too thrilled about Lara Trump becoming a senator and he got his way, not Lara. Rick Scott is supporting Fine but then who cares what Rick Scott thinks? Bottom line: If Democrat Josh Weil could win in a district Trump won by 30 points and Waltz won by 33 points, oh mama would that send a message.
House GOP leaders have in recent days been calling donors to plead for financial help in the race to fill the seat previously held by Mike Waltz, who is now President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. In addition, Fine, a state senator, has made personal pleas to Florida-based lobbyists and donors for a quick infusion of cash before the April 1 election, according to two sources familiar with those conversations.[…]
Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who leads the House GOP’s campaign arm, said Fine “needs to do better” on his fundraising. But Hudson was confident Republicans would hold on to the seat and said he didn’t expect the National Republican Congressional Committee to spend in the race.
“I would have preferred if our candidate had raised money at a faster rate and gotten on TV quicker,” Hudson told reporters Monday. “But he’s doing what he needs to do. He’s on TV now. We’re going to win the seat. I’m not concerned at all.”
Fine’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Fine has been significantly outraised by his Democratic opponent, teacher Josh Weil, who has raised a whopping $9.7 million to Fine’s $561,000, according to fundraising reports filed last week with the Federal Election Commission. Fine also just started airing his first TV ad last week as part of a joint ad buy with the Florida Republican Party, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Almost ten million dollars compared to a little over half a million? Man. In any other election that would tell the tale decisively. And it may tell it decisively here. The fact that this is a deep red district that everybody believes cannot be won by a Democrat is what makes this a news story. Would you believe Steve Bannon is against Fine? Damn.
Steve Bannon on his podcast today: “Trump won that district by 30 points in November. We have a candidate that I don’t think is winning.”
… Conservative news website Florida’s Voice: “Florida Dems are holding their own against Republicans in Florida’s 6th Congress District early voting, according to current data. The early vote turnout – which includes mail and in-person voting – rests at just R+0.5 points. Each party has turned out about 20,000 voters, while no party affiliation and “other” account for around 7,000 voters.”
… It is still a longshot for Weil, but he is likely getting a big percentage of the indy vote over highly controversial and obnoxious Fine. If he even keeps this to a single-digit loss that would rattle Mike Johnson quite a bit.
My guess is that this is already rattling Mike Johnson — or would rattle him if he knew enough about local politics to be rattled. Johnson is the Pete Hegseth of House Speakers, he never would have gotten the gavel during any normal process or in any normal era. He simply was a default candidate after the House was literally exhausted following the debacle with ousting Kevin McCarthy.
Let’s see what happens. This could be a watershed moment if the Democrat won. It would send a giant wakeup call to the country. And so far Weil is doing everything right.
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I saw something about this and my gut reaction was that the Democrat will lose – too steep a hill to climb. At the same time the fact that it became news that GOPers were begging donors to step up at the last minute suggests their internal polling shows this Fine is on very thin ice. In fact it smacks of panic from the GOP. I still think they’ll pull off getting the asshole GOPer into Waltz’s old seat but the margin will be embarrassing for them. Only scraping by by a few percentage points, or even in single digits will scare the hell out of a LOT of Republicans and not just in the House. Combine that with the anger they are seeing from rank and file conservative voters at Town Halls and in various protests and they will feel the “big squeeze” of Trump on one side and voters on the other. I hope it’s painful as hell for them! It could be an interesting summer and early fall. Much is being made of Democrats deciding to retire but we might see a larger group of Republicans decide to “spend more time with family” or “pursue other endeavors” etc.