What the Florida Primary Results Say About Antisemitism in the GOP
Tuesday night’s primary results in Florida provided a Rorschach test for those following the rise of antisemitism in American politics.
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Although they came up far short of winning the nomination in their respective Republican primary races, candidates who have waded into antisemitic tropes or even embraced explicit Jew hatred did receive double-digit vote shares.
In the gubernatorial primary, businessman James Fishback took home over 177,000 votes, enough for about 10 percent of the vote, in his loss to Representative Byron Donalds, who ran away with the victory thanks in part to his endorsement from President Donald Trump.
On the campaign trail, Fishback tapped into a dissatisfaction among younger Republicans over their party’s support for Israel and the foreign aid Congress has continually given to the Jewish state while many Americans have difficulty affording a home or finding a job. The Trump administration’s war in Iran also provided Fishback ammunition, as he amassed a significant online following. “No American should ever die for Israel,” he declared at an event at the University of Florida hosted by a college Republicans chapter at the school.
However, his campaign rhetoric often ventured beyond mere criticism of Israeli military action or commentary on the geopolitics of the Middle East. Often on the campaign trail, he would promise to take the “goyslop” out of school cafeterias. A portmanteau of the Hebrew word for a non-Jew and “slop,” Jewish groups have argued that the term evokes a conspiracy theory that says Jews are giving non-Jews unhealthy food to keep them controllable.
Fishback also denigrated a major Jewish holy site during his campaign. Appearing at the University of Central Florida, he pledged not to visit Israel if he were elected governor. If an elected official is to visit another country, he argued, “you should be helping people, creating jobs, facilitating trade, not kissing a stupid wall.” He referred to the Western Wall, which visitors, including foreign dignitaries, will often venerate when they are in the country.
Down ballot, influencer Dan Bilzerian, who has said that “Jews are the problem,” won over 18 percent of the vote, or a little under 17,000 votes, in his quest to primary pro-Israel Jewish Representative Randy Fine — or, in Bilzerian’s words, to “get that fat disgusting jew out of office.”
One of Bilzerian’s final campaign videos implored voters to “throw out Shylock and all his tricks” and questioned, “Should we revisit that Austrian painter’s opinions?” while an image of Adolf Hitler appeared on the screen. That post prompted condemnation from leaders of both parties in the House of Representatives.
Jewish Insider editor-in-chief Josh Kraushaar expressed concern over Bilzerian’s vote share.
“Bilzerian, running a neo Nazi campaign, tallied 18% in a heavily Republican older district against Fine. That’s not nothing,” he wrote on X.
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Still, others noted that are factors apart from antisemitism that would have drawn people toward Bilzerian and Fishback.
For his part, Fine has also made inflammatory comments while in office. Days ago, he argued that “Jihadi Mamdani” should not serve as mayor of New York City, but rather should be “denaturalized and sent back home to Uganda.”
Earlier this year, in response to a pro-Palestinian activist calling dogs “unclean,” Fine wrote on social media, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
“He can be a brash individual who does not hold back in his perspectives and can rub people the wrong way,” Denver Cook, chairman of the St. Johns County GOP, which is in Fine’s district, told National Review. (Cook added, however, that he was “completely satisfied” with Fine’s performance in Congress.)
Cook also argued that, while Fishback and Bilzerian both engaged in extremist rhetoric, they became avatars for a general discontent over economics and other policy issues, rather than magnets for antisemitic voters.
“I don’t view it as a criticism of my party or our work or our community or even of Randy Fine,” Cook said of Fishback and Bilzerian’s performances. “I view it as a criticism of what’s going on in society.”
Another county Republican chairman in Fine’s district agreed.
“A lot of those folks were people that just were fed up with certain things, and they ran with it,” Perry Mitrano, chairman of the Flagler County Republican Party, told NR.
On the Democratic side, critics of Israel successfully nominated one of their own to run for Senate. State Representative Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who describes Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide and who offered a resolution calling for an end to the military campaign a month after October 7, will take on Republican Senator Ashley Moody.
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