WASHINGTON — Rep. Randy Fine easily turned back a Republican primary challenge Tuesday by far-right influencer Dan Bilzerian, who suggested in one campaign ad that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler needed to be reassessed.
With most of the expected vote in, Fine had scored 56.9% of the vote compared to Bilzerian’s 18.7%. Aaron Baker, who Fine defeated in a special congressional election last year, was third on 13.0% while Palm Coast City Councilor and retired Army officer Charles Gambaro was fourth with 9.7%.
Bilzerian’s shocking commercial — which referred to Fine (R-Fla.) as a “fat Jew,” “Shylock,” “Jewish supremacist,” “Satanic whore,” and “Satan’s creepy little minion” — drew a rare bipartisan rebuke from both House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
The spot also used artificial intelligence to make Fine appear fatter and show him hugging a bag full of cash, while frequently cutting to the Israeli flag.
As footage of Hitler played in the background, a singer asked: “Should we revisit that Austrian painter’s opinions?”
Here’s the latest coverage on the Aug. 18 midterm primary elections
On the Saturday before primary day, Bilzerian posted an image of an impromptu campaign event with the caption: “District 6 understands the jewish [sic] problem.”
Six days earlier, Bilzerian — who initially gained a social media following in the 2010s by posting photos purporting to show him living an extravagant lifestyle — shared a post reading: “It’s not red against blue. It’s us against the Jew.”
Fine, who has his own history of controversial comments, is heavily favored to win the November general election in the deep-red district, located on the Eastern Florida Coast and including the city of Daytona Beach.
In the Democratic primary, local realtor Eric Yonce eked out the win with 32.1% of the vote, followed by local police officer Ronnie Murchison-Rivera (26.9%), entrepreneur Steve Morgan (23.3%) and Marine veteran Robert David Cooper II (17.7%).
Fine, 52, won an April 2025 special election to take over the seat from Mike Waltz, who was initially tapped by President Trump to be national security adviser before becoming US ambassador to the United Nations.
The congressman has frequently been accused of Islamophobic comments, such as when he appeared to suggest in a Fox News interview in May of last year that nuclear weapons should be used on the Gaza Strip.
“In World War II, we did not negotiate a surrender with the Nazis,” he said at the time.
“We did not negotiate a surrender with the Japanese. We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender. That needs to be the same here.”
“If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one,” Fine wrote on X in February, while on Sunday he declared: “Jihadi [Zohran] Mamdani does not belong as Mayor of NYC. He needs to be deaturalized and sent back home to Uganda.”
