Ready, set, go.
The 67-day sprint to decide who will become the Republican and Democratic nominees for Congressional districts 19 and 22 began June 12.
Qualifying ended at noon that day — and the starting line is crowded. Ten Republicans and three Democrats qualified to run in District 19 in the Aug. 18 primary. Seven Republicans and two Democrats qualified to run in District 22.
Neither district has an incumbent running. Rep. Byron Donalds is relinquishing the job to run for governor. His 19th district includes most of Lee County and a portion of coastal Collier.
The field is so crowded partially because there are no incumbents running and because both districts lean Republican, said Sean Ewing, an assistant professor of political science at Florida Gulf Coast University.
District 22 changed dramatically after the Florida Legislature redrew the districts during a special session last month. The district no longer includes eastern portions of Palm Beach and Broward counties, where Rep. Lois Frankel lived. The new boundaries include most of interior Collier and all of Hendry County.
The last-minute redrawn district could create confusion for voters, Ewing said; many voters won’t be aware that the district has changed.
DISTRICT 19
Campaigning in District 19 began months ago with television ads and social media thrusts by many of the candidates. Several of the candidates had moved to Southwest Florida from other parts of the country, and used ads to introduce themselves to local voters.
Chris Collins was a Congressman from New York and was the first Congressman to endorse presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2015. Collins’ Marco Island home was in District 19 until redistricting put his residence in District 22, but he decided to remain in the District 19 race. Congressional candidates are required to live in the state they represent, but not specific districts.
Jim Oberweis won a state Senate seat in Democrat-dominated Illinois, but lost a race for a U.S. Senate seat and suffered a controversial loss in a U.S. House race. He and his wife moved full-time to Bonita Springs, where they have owned a home for decades.
Catalina Lauf is another Illinois transplant who moved to Bonita Springs. She lost a Congressional Republican primary in Illinois in 2020 to Oberweis. She is being targeted by a conservative group questioning her previous stand on pro-life issues.
Madison Cawthorn, who won a U.S. House seat in North Carolina in 2020 when he was 25, but lost it two years later after several controversies, is running. He moved to Cape Coral in 2022.
Ola Hawatmeh, who owns property in North Fort Myers, is running for the first time in Southwest Florida. She unsuccessfully ran for a Congressional seat in New York in 2020.
Jim Schwartzel is making sure voters know he was born and raised in Southwest Florida. The Fort Myers resident owns Sun Broadcasting, as well as print publications Gulfshore Life, Gulfshore Business and The Naples Press.
Will that be a hometown advantage? Ewing said it can be used to separate a candidate from the others, especially when there are so many candidates.
“But I think voters don’t place a whole lot of stock in where somewhere is from as long as they currently live in the place and are following election rules,” he said.
Others running are Sarasota Charter Review member Greg “Tex” Bukowski of Osprey; Naples resident John Strand, who calls himself the Patriot for Congress; former Marine Mike Pedersen of Cape Coral; and Linda J. Sawyer, a North Fort Myers resident who describes herself as an “evangelical constitutionalist.”
Oberweis had spent nearly $2 million as of March 31, about half of what he loaned himself. Nobody else was close in spending. Schwartzel had spent $255,000. He had loaned himself $1 million. Lauf spent $600,000 and Cawthorn a little more than half of the $500,000 he loaned himself.
“Fundraising is a pretty significant advantage in a primary, especially in a congressional primary,” Ewing said. “Any kind of name recognition they can get through running ads, through holding fundraisers, through any other way they can get their name out there in a field that is very challenging for voters to identify individual candidates and remember names.”
One of three Democrats — Victor Arias and Robert Neeld of Cape Coral or Howard Sapp of Fort Myers — will face the GOP winner. Neeld, a perennial candidate, had raised no money as of March 31. Sapp has loaned himself $32,000, while Arias has loaned himself $20,000 and raised nearly $3,000 more. Fundraising totals for April and May are due this week.
A Democrat has never won a Southwest Florida Congressional seat. Donalds defeated Democrat Kari Lerner with 67% of the vote in 2024.
DISTRICT 22
Democrats have a better chance in District 22. Cook Political Report has rated it leaning to the GOP by 4 points.
Several Republicans jumped into the race after the redistricting.
Naples businessman Casey Askar decided to seek a Congressional seat for a second time. He finished third in the 2020 GOP primary against Donalds.
Richard Evans, a certified public accountant from Ave Maria, also previously was a local candidate for the U.S. House. Evans lost to longtime incumbent Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart in the 2024 Republican primary for Florida’s 26th congressional district before it was recently redrawn.
Michael Thompson of St. Petersburg decided in May to take the plunge. He is the former head of the Lee County Republican Executive Committee.
Michael Carbonara of Cooper City filed to run in April. He moved to Florida in 2012 and has started several businesses, including a genomics company.
Terri Hasdorff of Loxahatchee lost a GOP Congressional primary in Alabama in 2020. She served in the White House during the George W. Bush administration.
David Burck of West Palm Beach is a former Marine and police officer who works in the real estate field. He said he will stay in the race even though he no longer lives in the district because of the redistricting.
Belinda Keiser of Parkland is a vice chancellor at Keiser University and a Parkland city commissioner, and was endorsed by four members of the Florida Legislature.
Burck and Carbonara are the only candidates to file campaign financial summaries. Burck has raised $131,000, while Carbonara has $2.5 million in his coffers, of which $2.3 million is his own money.
Pia Dandiya of Jupiter and Kaysia Earley of Plantation will vie in the Democratic primary. Dandiya is a first-generation American whose parents came from India. She founded a school in Harlem, New York, when she was 28. Jamaican-born Earley owns her own law firm. Neither candidate had filed their campaign contribution disclosures as of March 31.
District 19 candidates
Republicans
Greg “Tex” Bukowski
Madison Cawthorn
Chris Collins
Ola Hawatmeh
Catalina Lauf
Jim Oberweis
Mike Pedersen
Linda J. Sawyer
Jim Schwartzel
John Strand
Democrats
Victor Arias
Robert M. Neeld
Howard Sapp
Others
Seth Haskin of Fort Myers, no party affiliation
Alexandra Zakhvatayev of Cape Coral, write-in
District 22 candidates
Republicans
Casey Askar
David Burck
Michael Carbonara
Richard Evans
Terri Hasdorff
Belinda Keiser
Michael Thompson
Democrats
Pia Dandiya
Kaysia Earley
Important dates
July 20 — Voter registration deadline
Aug. 6 — Last day to request mail-in ballot
Aug. 8 to 15 — Early voting
Aug. 18 — Primary
Oct. 5 — Voter registration deadline
Oct. 22 — Last day to request mail-in ballot
Oct. 19 to 31 — Early voting
Nov. 3 — General election
To register to vote, to see if you are registered or if you want to vote by mail, go to the Collier County Supervisor of Elections website, colliervotes.gov; or the Lee County Supervisor of Elections website, lee.vote. You will have to sign up again to vote by mail even if you have voted by mail in the past.