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The conservative Club for Growth Action announced Tuesday that it’s endorsing businessman Michael Carbonara in the crowded Republican primary for a newly drawn House seat in Florida, according to plans first shared with The Hill.
The new seat, the redrawn 22nd Congressional District, stretches from West Palm Beach to Delray Beach and favors Republicans by 4 percentage points, according to the nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report.
The conservative political group is backing Carbonara, who is running against six other Republicans for the party nod ahead of Tuesday’s primary. His most serious challenger is Keiser University vice chancellor Belinda Keiser.
The group also launched its first ad of the primary, notably attacking real estate executive Casey Askar in the GOP contest.
“’We have losers. We have losers,’” clips of President Trump can be hard saying in the 30-second ad, called “Sore,” before a narrator adds “like sore loser Casey Askar.”
“Askar sued Republican Byron Donalds after Donalds beat him for Congress, even after Askar took a $3 million zero-interest loan from a campaign donor’s bank, sparking an [Federal Election Commission (FEC)] complaint for alleged conspiracy,” the narrator says. “Now sore after losing big to Byron, Askar’s running again in a new district where he doesn’t live. A shady, sore-losing carpetbagger. That’s Casey Askar.”
Club for Growth Action noted that the ad is a part of a $700,000 buy and will air across the district heading into next Tuesday.
Askar ran against Donalds in Florida’s 19th Congressional District in 2020, losing in the GOP primary that summer. Donalds later won the seat that November.
The real estate executive later sued Donalds for defamation after the congressman accused Askar’s campaign of telling voters in a text message that the congressman had purportedly left the race. A Florida judge sided with Donalds in the lawsuit, according to Forbes.
The ad also references a FEC complaint Askar received in 2020 from the Stanley Center pertaining to a $3 million line of credit Askar withdrew from a larger $5,000,000 he obtained before officially filing his congressional candidacy.
The FEC determined in 2022 that the Askar campaign violated campaign finance law by “failing to disclose complete and accurate information regarding the line of credit from Northern Bank in the Committee’s reports.”
Florida’s 22nd district is one of a handful that Republicans are looking to net in November after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) pressed GOP lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional maps before the midterms. The district, under its old lines, is currently represented by Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat.
Republicans are hoping to gain as many as three or four seats this fall.
Trump has notably not endorsed in the primary as of Tuesday, but the GOP nominee will have a strong shot at winning the redistricted seat in November.
Carbonara has loaned himself over $4 million in the primary alone, while Keiser has spent about $3.5 million of her own money. Askar has loaned himself $2.5 million.
Carbonara has also received scrutiny during the primary over his ties to a data center in Michigan and questions around whether his campaign was involved in copyright infringement requests that have resulted in Google searches pertaining to the businessman’s data center ties being taken down, according to WLRN.
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