I live in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, a deep-red place. It voted for President Donald Trump by 30 percentage points. It’s majority Republican in registration with almost as many no-party voters as Democrats.
When I’m in line for early voting, I see a lot of people standing heads-down studying the Republican Party palm cards handed out in the parking lot.
Democrats are allowed to live here, at least for now, but the district reflexively votes for anyone identified as a Republican. I might as well live in the Villages. Oh wait, this six-county district does stretch all the way from the beach to northeastern neighborhoods of the Villages.
The district was largely unaffected by the recent state redistricting. No need. It would be hard to make it any more Republican than it is without moving my house someplace else.
Rep Randy Fine: Not a lot of legislation, but plenty of clicks
We are represented by U.S. Rep. Randy Fine. He lives some 100 miles away from the district, but few voters care. He was assigned to us by the Republican Party which is good enough. He’s on the palm card. He’s endorsed by President Trump.
Fine is the kind of representative who is there to inspire clicks on right-wing social media sites rather than to do anything legislative. He regularly burns it up on X, formally known as Twitter, and on YouTube. He calls himself “the Hebrew Hammer,” which, it should be recognized, was the nickname belonging to immortal Detroit Tigers Hall-of-Famer Hank Greenberg in the 1940s. Sacrilege!
DeSantis has kind words for Fine: ‘He repels people’
Famously abrasive with a flair for making enemies, Fine alienates even people who are politically aligned with him. “He repels people,” Gov. Ron DeSantis observed last year. Fine recently came out with the weird assertion that Muslims are coming for our pets. Be afraid! “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one,” he declared.
The result has been that a lot of people from both major parties are lined up to run against him. None of his opponents are all that well known in the district, but that’s OK, Fine’s not too well known in his district, either.
The qualifying period, which would normally have happened already, was postponed because of the state’s redistricting. It’s now the second week of June. But already at least a dozen candidates have shown some level of interest if you also count no-party and third-party candidates. Quite a crowd of opponents for an incumbent without a criminal record.
When Fine first ran in the district in 2025, after Michael Waltz left Congress to serve in the Trump administration, he won with 57% of the vote. Normally winning by 14 points would be considered a blowout, except this was a district Trump had won by 30 points and Waltz by 33 points. That got a lot of people thinking.
Plenty of opponents lining up to take Fine down
The crowd of candidates shifts week-to-week. Democrat Jennifer Jenkins moved her attention to the 8th District after getting a good look at the remapping of Florida’s congressional districts. Jenkins was Fine’s most prominent counter-troller online and her departure shakes up the Democratic field. Another opponent, Republican Will Furry, decided back in January to switch and seek reelection to the Flagler School Board.
The higher-profile Republican candidates still in the race are Palm Coast City Council member and retired Army Reserve brigadier general Charles Gambaro and bro-centric social media influencer Dan Bilzerian. Bilzerian boasts 29 million followers on Instagram despite frequent complaints about antisemitic postings. Fine responded to his entry into the race by pronouncing: “We don’t want Armenians to be able to serve in Congress.”
Fine had raised $2.5 million in contributions as of the end March, loaned it $950,000, and had $761,561 cash on hand. Gambaro raised $79,925, loaned his campaign $256,000, and had $14,651 cash on hand.
Top fund-raising Democrats Eric Yonce and George Selmont had $56,013 and $121,893 cash on hand respectively at the reporting deadline.
As an incumbent, Fine comes in with a huge money advantage. But this is no normal election year and Fine is no normal candidate.
Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Crowded field eyes a run at Rep. Randy Fine
Reporting by Mark Lane, Special to The News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
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