Jim Schwartzel wins costly and heated GOP Primary over Catalina Lauf for Byron Donalds’ CD 19 seat

Jim Schwartzel has come out on top after a heated and costly Republican Primary to succeed U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, who ran for Governor this year.

With most precincts reporting, Schwartzel led the field with more than 29% to Lauf’s nearly 22%. The election also showed President Donald Trump’s late endorsement of Lauf could only do so much to close a gap late in the election. Lauf won Election Day votes in both Lee and Collier counties but could not catch up with Schwartzel’s lead in the early vote.

Both were far ahead the rest of the field including former Illinois state Sen. Jim Oberweis’ 16%, former North Carolina U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s 8%, former New York U.S. Rep. Chris Collins’ 7%, Cape Coral veteran Mike Pedersen’s 6%, pardoned Jan. 6 protester John Strand’s 4%, longtime congressional staffer Ola Hawatmeh’s 3%, business owner Greg “Tex” Bukowski’s 3% and nurse Linda Sawyer’s 2%.

After emerging from a 10-candidate Primary field, the newly minted Republican nominee now advances to a General Election, where Democrat Victor Arias narrowly won his own Primary. But the district leans heavily Republican, as 64% of voters there supported President Donald Trump in the 2024 Presidential Election.

The 33-year-old Lauf, who in the final days heavily stressed the Trump endorsement, embraced the support. “President Trump’s fight is what first called me to public service. I joined his administration because I believed in President Trump’s leadership in Making America Great Again,” she said.

Lauf had already seen significant outside support for her candidacy, including ads from the Protect Freedom PAC closely associated with U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican. Closer to home, U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Pinellas Republican, campaigned heavily for Lauf.

But when it came to spending by her own campaign, Lauf’s campaign spent significantly less than opponents through the pre-Primary fundraising deadline.

Through July 29, Oberweis had spent nearly $3.1 million out of the $5.3 million in his coffers, an amount made up almost entirely from self-funding to the tune of $4.9 million.

Collins, who entirely self-funded his race with a $3.4 million loan, had spent almost $2.5 million through the financial reporting period. Schwartzel had spent almost $1.9 million after loaning his campaign more than $1 million and raising another $1 million in contributions.

By comparison, Lauf spent under $1.6 million, a seven-figure spend that would dwarf most Primary campaigns in the state outside of Southwest Florida. It’s an amount that overshadows the $728,000 spent by Cawthorn, the $292,000 Hawatmeh burned through and the $132,000 exhausted by Strand. No other candidate cracked $100,000 in spending.

For his part, Schwartzel expressed disappointment Trump endorsed a different candidate but confidence his long history of working in the region would win the day.

“Let’s be precise about where that anger belongs. Not with President Trump — I’ve supported him from the beginning, and I’ll support him after Tuesday,” Schwartzel posted. “It belongs with the operation that has worked against us for months.”

The race was unusual in that most top-tier candidates had only lived in Southwest Florida for a few years. Schwartzel’s campaign noted Lauf hadn’t even lived in the district long enough to vote in a Republican Primary in Florida.

“Southwest Florida deserves better than failed career candidates who moved here just to run for Congress,” Schwartzel said. “I’m a businessman with real-world experience. I was born and raised in Southwest Florida, I understand this community, and I’m ready to make tough decisions and fight for President Trump’s America First agenda.”

Lauf said voters should look beyond how long someone lived in the region when deciding if they deserve their vote.

“We are the party of merit. SWFL isn’t looking for the politician who’s been here the longest, voters are looking for the fighter who best represents their values,” Lauf said.

“One of my opponents who is ‘from here’ coerced his employees to get the vaccine and many people who worked for him in the news business left upset because it had a liberal bias. I chose to build my life, like many other Midwesterners, and put down roots here because I believe in what Florida stands for: freedom, opportunity, faith, family and limited government.”

She said her platform and support for Trump for years should be what drives voters’ decision.

“I’ve worked in the Trump Administration, built a business, and fought for the conservative principles that make SWFL special. That’s why I’ve been endorsed by the House Freedom Caucus and many members of the Florida Congressional delegation,” she said. “This district deserves a representative who will take those values to Washington and fight like hell to protect them — and that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

But Collins and Oberweis have also made their own cases with the public, to the tune of millions in expenditures and ads telling both their own stories and the problems with foes.

Oberweis was the first to enter the race after Donalds announced his run for Governor, and he notably has beaten Lauf before, in a Republican Primary when both ran for Congress in Illinois.

“The priority of our Federal government needs to be families, students and businesses creating new jobs — not woke special interests,” Oberweis said on his website. “We must work together to create economic opportunity, to create an impenetrable southern border, and create new monetary oriented foreign policy priorities needed to grow the Florida economy while shrinking the size of our bloated Federal government.”

Collins, who previously represented New York, has noted that he was the first member of Congress to endorse Trump in 2016.

His loyalty paid off once with a pardon from the President after Collins was sentenced to prison for an insider trading scheme. Notably, former House Speaker John Boehner wrote a letter to courts defending Collins’ character before Collins served time in a Pensacola prison, ahead of his eventual pardon.

But Collins said he now wants to return to Congress to help enact Trump’s policy agenda. “Unlike politicians who just talk, I brought jobs back to America,” he said in a TV ad ahead of the Primary. “I’ll deport every illegal immigrant. And I’ll secure our elections.”

The heavy concentration of candidates who previously ran for Congress outside Florida drew some national attention to this race. Cawthorn previously represented North Carolina for a term before losing a Republican Primary in his re-election bid and moving to Cape Coral.

“I know what it means to be underestimated, and I know what it takes to fight back. That same spirit is what I’ll carry to Washington,” he said.

Hawatmeh also brought familiarity with the Hill as a policy adviser to U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana. She took a leave from that position to run for this Southwest Florida seat and has avoided much of the negative campaigning intentionally. Her own polling in early July suggested she was in a front-runner position to win the seat.

“Vote for someone that’s actually going to create positive change in the district and already has a 90-day plan to do so on the key, most important, critical issues in the district: our roads, our water,” she said.