“Carpetbagger” describes people who move somewhere to run for office. In Southwest Florida, six former congressional hopefuls from other states are taking their shot in this conservative stronghold.
Transcript
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Tomorrow is primary day in Florida. Voters in southwest Florida will decide who should replace Congressman Byron Donalds. He is running for governor. It’s considered a safe Republican seat, but the GOP primary has garnered a fair amount of attention. That is in part because of the 10 Republicans in the primary and only a few of them have local ties. NPR political reporter Maham Javaid joins us to discuss this race. Hey there.
MAHAM JAVAID, BYLINE: Hi.
SUMMERS: OK. This seems really unusual to me. Of the 10 candidates in this Republican primary, only a few have local ties. What’s going on there?
JAVAID: So yeah. It’s a really diverse cast of characters, and most of them aren’t actually from Florida. They say they moved to Florida for the weather because they had a family home there or for its conservative values. But there’s a lot of tension between local candidates and those from out of state, and the transplants are being accused of carpetbagging, which is when someone moves to another state for power or influence.
SUMMERS: Have the candidates responded to that accusation?
JAVAID: Yeah. I was just in the district and posed that question to several. Here’s how some of them responded when I asked them what they thought of the term.
JOHN STRAND: Carpetbagger? Whatever. I don’t use that term. I think a lot of people very clearly moved here, it seems like five minutes ago, to run for Byron’s seat knowing it was going to be open. So I moved here before anyone knew that seat was going to be open.
OLA HAWATMEH: I’d rather be named a carpetbagger that’s making a difference than someone that was born and raised here and has millions that hasn’t done anything for the district. Shame on you.
LINDA SAWYER: They call us snowbirds.
JAVAID: Yeah.
SAWYER: So I’ve been snowbirding for eight years. So like, eight months down here, four months on the Detroit River.
JAVAID: That was John Strand, who moved to Florida from California in recent years, Ola Hawatmeh, who previously ran for Congress in New York, and Linda Sawyer, who previously ran in Michigan.
SUMMERS: OK. So not only did some of them recently relocate to Florida, but some also ran for Congress elsewhere?
JAVAID: Yeah. In fact, the primary has two candidates – Catalina Lauf, a former Trump administration official, and Jim Oberweis, a former state lawmaker – who have run against each other before in Illinois. The primary also has former congressmen from North Carolina and New York. One of those congressmen, Chris Collins, was in prison for insider trading until President Trump gave him a pardon. And John Strand, who we heard from earlier, also got a pardon for his involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
SUMMERS: I mean, look, multiple pardons, multiple former members of Congress. This is quite the primary. And since it’s considered a safe Republican seat, whoever emerges is likely to win the seat. So I do want to ask you about the voters. What do they think of this carpetbagging element?
JAVAID: Yeah. I spoke to a bunch of people, and none of them seemed to care about the fact that those candidates are from out of state. Many of the voters themselves are transplants. So in a way, maybe out-of-state candidates are reflective of southwest Florida. What voters do care about is that these candidates are as socially conservative as the community. Listen to Therese Wilkinson, who lives in Fort Myers.
THERESE WILKINSON: The reason I wouldn’t vote for a couple of them, like some of the ones who are coming from Illinois, New York, they’re just not as socially conservative as I am, as a lot of other Floridians are. So I don’t trust that they’re going to represent my values.
SUMMERS: Last question here. I mean, I have to ask you about the Trump factor. So many Republican primaries are hinging on Trump support. How does he factor in here?
JAVAID: Well, most of these Republicans were hoping to get Trump’s endorsement, and just Thursday, one got it. It went to Catalina Lauf, the former Trump administration official, but she got it just a handful of days before the election. Early voting has already started, and she – she’s having to work really hard to let people know that she’s been endorsed. I also think it’s really interesting that most of these candidates are from different parts of the country, but they all felt that southwest Florida was where they could find a home in Trump’s Republican Party.
SUMMERS: NPR’s Maham Javaid. Thank you.
JAVAID: Thank you.
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