GOP firebrand Randy Fine endorsed by Trump for Congress

Republican state Sen. Randy Fine, best known in Central Florida for his threats against UCF and Special Olympics, hinted at a congressional run Monday after President-elect Trump endorsed him to succeed Michael Waltz.

Trump last week tapped U.S. Rep. Waltz, R-St. Augustine Beach, to be his national security advisor and this week called Fine an “America First Patriot” on his Truth Social site.

“Should he decide to enter this Race, Randy Fine has my Complete and Total Endorsement,” Trump wrote on Sunday. “RUN, RANDY, RUN!”

Fine has been reposting other endorsements for his potential congressional run ever since, including one from former Florida GOP Chair Joe Gruters outright predicting that “The Hebrew Hammer is going to Congress!”

Fine wrote on X Monday morning he was flying to Washington, D.C. to “make news.”

Fine, 50, does not live in District 6, which stretches from Mount Dora to Daytona Beach, but members of Congress don’t legally have to reside in their district.

“He would like to have the bigger stage of national politics,” said Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida.

“The big question will be whether Trump’s endorsement will clear the field, or if there will be some other potential challengers who actually live in the district,” Jewett said. “Because perhaps the one thing that might derail him or work against him in the primary is that he doesn’t actually live there.”

Fine, 50, of Melbourne, who made millions in the casino industry, lives about 75 miles south of Waltz’s district.

But unlike state legislators, congressmembers are free to run for any seat. Waltz was criticized as a carpetbagger by former Ormond Beach Mayor Fred Costello in the 2018 GOP primary for living just across the street from the district boundary.

The seat is heavily Republican-leaning, with Waltz won reelection this month by about 30 percentage points.

Fine was elected to the state Senate in his Brevard County district on Nov. 5 by about 19 points over his Democratic opponent, after having served eight controversy-filled years in the Florida House.

In 2019, he floated the idea of a “5- and 10-year potential shutdown” of the University of Central Florida because of controversy over construction spending. He later said he was using “hyperbole.”

Fine, who is Jewish, twice called a Jewish Facebook commenter a “Judenrat,” a term used to describe Jewish Nazi collaborators.

He also threatened in a text to pull funding for Special Olympics over a feud with Brevard school board member Jennifer Jenkins and her support of masks in schools.

Fine called Jenkins a “whore” and was suspended by Facebook after he posted her phone number and told residents to contact her.

Just last month, he was found in contempt of court for giving the middle finger during a video court hearing.

Fine has also been at the forefront of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-woke culture wars, introducing legislation to strip The Walt Disney Co.’s control of the Reedy Creek special district, ban critical race theory in public schools, and ban on gender-affirming care to transgender children.

Fine originally tried to target drag acts in the state by trying to insert them into a statute that mentions “bestiality” and “sadomasochistic abuse.”

Fine’s loyalty to DeSantis led to brief speculation that he would be appointed by the governor to become president of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton last year.

But Fine has recently been on the outs with DeSantis, telling The New Yorker last year he was unhappy with the governor’s “quietness around the rise of Nazism” in the state following high-profile rallies of neo-Nazis in Orlando and elsewhere.

He also criticized DeSantis’ visit to Ireland, whose government has been critical of Israel, saying he was disappointed to see the governor “go to what is clearly an anti-Semitic country that supports Muslim terror.”

Jewett said Fine’s distancing himself from DeSantis and becoming closer to Trump was a smart strategic move.

“Fine switched his allegiance from Gov. DeSantis to President Trump in the Republican primary, and he was one of the few members of the Florida Legislature to do so,” Jewett said. “He took what was, at the time, a pretty bold step. And politically, it paid off.”

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