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Randy Fine, Jimmy Patronis headline primaries for Waltz and Gaetz's former seats

Steven Lemongello, Orlando Sentinel on

Published in Political News

ORLANDO, Fla. — Donald Trump’s power to pick political winners in his adopted home state gets another test Tuesday with special election primaries for the seats left vacant by former Republican congressmen Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz.

Both men resigned after being tapped for positions in the second Trump administration. And the president endorsed the highest-profile candidates to replace them — state Sen. Randy Fine and Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis — even though neither lives in the district they’re running in.

The primary winners in two GOP-heavy districts are expected to help Republicans in Congress pad a narrow 3-seat majority that will get even slimmer if U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican of New York, is confirmed as Trump’s United Nations ambassador.

The vacancy in District 6, which stretches from Daytona Beach to Mount Dora, was created after Trump tapped Waltz to be his national security advisor, a role he began on Jan. 20.

Gaetz, who held the District 1 seat that includes Pensacola and the western Panhandle, resigned in November after Trump nominated him to become attorney general. But Gaetz later withdrew himself from consideration amid an ethics scandal and said he would not return to Congress.

Fine had just been elected to the state Senate when he announced he’d seek Waltz’s former seat in Congress. Prior to winning the Senate seat, Fine spent eight controversy-filled years in the state House, where he grabbed headlines for floating a shutdown of the University of Central Florida and threatening in a text to pull funding for Special Olympics over a feud with a Brevard County School Board member he called a “whore.”

He’s made more headlines since he joined the Senate. He filed a bill to ban local governments, public schools and state universities from displaying flags promoting a “fictional” Palestine, “pro-violence” Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights and other “woke” topics. He also filed one to repeal a 2014 law allowing undocumented students, often known as “dreamers,” from receiving the same in-state college tuition benefits as other Florida residents.

But Fine’s stint in the state Senate will end soon whether he wins election to Congress or not due to the state’s resign-to-run law, which required him to leave office before the general election on April 1.

Fine, of Melbourne, lives about 75 miles south of District 6, but Congress members aren’t required by law to live in the district they represent.

His website features a photo of himself and Trump, the words “President Trump endorsed” amid a waving U.S. flag, and the social media post in which Trump endorsed him.

Tuesday, he faces two GOP opponents, Ehsan Joarder of Hernando County and Aaron Baker of Sorrento in Lake County.

Baker said on his website he’s “the only Republican candidate living and working in our district.”

“Anyone, regardless of their background, has the ability to step up and create meaningful change,” Baker stated. “I’ve witnessed how disconnected leadership can devastate the very communities it’s meant to serve.”

Joarder said on his site he was running because he was “tired of century-old politicians making decisions that compromise our future.”

 

On the Democratic side, Ges Selmont, a St. Johns county businessman who previously ran for Congress in 2018, faces Josh Weil, a Kissimmee school teacher who lives in Orlando.

“I’m running for Congress because too many people are one or two missed paychecks away from financial ruin, in the richest country in the history of the world,” Selmont states on his campaign site.

Weil said he was running “to help millions of Americans struggling with housing, health care, and basic security.”

The winners of the two partisan primaries will face Libertarian Party candidate Andrew Parrott and independent Randall Terry in the April 1 general election.

Terry, of Tennessee, is the founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, once based in Melbourne, which made national headlines for blockading clinics.

Ten Republicans have filed to run in the special primary election in District 1, including Patronis, who lives outside the Pensacola-area district in Panama City.

Patronis got in hot water earlier this month for his explanation of why the congressional lines are where they are.

“Let me give you a little civics lesson,” Patronis said at a debate. “Do you know why District 1 is where it is? It’s because a Republican Legislature is in charge right now. … We try to create as many Republican congressional seats as possible, OK? So what happens is you get gerrymandered lines.”

Florida Democrats slammed Patronis as having “admitted to Republican gerrymandering of congressional districts in Florida, an act explicitly forbidden by Article III, Section 20 of the Florida Constitution.”

Among those facing Patronis in the GOP special primary election is former state Rep. Joel Rudman, the mascara-and-leather-wearing “Rock Doctor” who fronts the hard-rock band Freedom Fighters.

The winner of Tuesday’s GOP primary will face Democrat Gay Valimont, independent Stephen Broden and several write-in candidates in the April 1 general election.

Both seats lean heavily Republican, with both Gaetz and Waltz winning by more than 30 points in November.

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©2025 Orlando Sentinel. Visit at orlandosentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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