TALLAHASSEE — James Fishback, a 31-year-old gubernatorial candidate making his first run for public office, will stay on the Republican primary in August, despite a legal challenge to his residential qualifications.

Leon County Circuit Juge David Frank issued a ruling late Monday in Fishback’s favor.  Lt. Gov. Jay Collins had filed a lawsuit seeking to disqualify Fishback and throw him off the ballot.

Fishback quickly took to X to proclaim victory. “It’s official. I will remain on your ballot,” he posted. “The disgraceful lawfare brought by Jay Collins and fueled by Byron Donalds has failed.”

Collins, who is also seeking the GOP nomination for Florida governor, claimed Fishback has not lived in Florida long enough to meet the seven-year residency requirement because he lived and voted in Washington D.C. until 2022.

Both Fishback, the provocative candidate with a penchant for slinging racial and anti-Semitic slurs that appeals to certain Gen Z crowds, and Collins trail well behind Congressman Byron Donalds of Naples, the frontrunner in the GOP race for governor. The primary is Aug. 18.

“Florida law places great weight on subjective intent of the person declaring residency,” Frank wrote in his 25-page order, noting that Florida courts have often ruled that the best proof of one’s residency is where a person says it is.

“The law may be imprudent, or it may give too much leeway to a person seeking or maintinaing residency,” Frank said. “But it is the law.”

The judge also said both Florida and federal law presume candidates are qualified to run for the office they seek.

Frank said that Collins’ lawyers failed to make their case that Fishback intended to abandon his Florida residency for D.C., despite public records showing he lived there from 2019 to 2022.

“Simply put, the plaintiff has not brought forth enough substantial and competent evidence to rebut these important presumptions,” Frank said.

Gubernatorial candidates in Florida must be residents and registered voters of the state for the preceding seven years. Records the Sentinel obtained in April suggested Fishback has resided here for no more than the last four.

Frank said he wouldn’t be deciding the outcome of that election. “That will be in the very sound hands of the voters,”  he said, cautioning that the judicary “must not intrude on a distinctly political process.”:

He also noted that this case was among the first of several brought forward under a new state law that allows people to challenge the qualifications of a candidate before an election. That required him to walk a fine line.

“There was enough evidence on both sides to make it a toss-up,” said Nicholas Boerke, an attorney for Collins. “But he gets on the stand and tells stories and muddies the water.”

Boerke said he would review the order and discuss it with the Collins camp to decide whether to appeal the ruling.

During an all-day hearing last week, Collins’ lawyers presented tax, real estate and voting records documenting that Fishback claimed a Washington D.C. address from 2019 to 2022 and had a handwriting expert confirming that it was his signature on those documents.

He listed his parents’  Washington, D.C. address on federal and D.C. tax forms from 2019 through 2022, registered to vote in the 2020 general election in that city using their address, and bought a condominium of his own near their apartment in 2021. On mortgage documents, he claimed that condo would be his primary residence and received a homestead tax discount for the property.

But Fishback’s lawyers laid out a case that their client was a lifelong resident of Florida who never intended to make D.C. his home. They used utility bills, conference registration forms, the fact he maintained his Florida driver’s license, and testimony from his father and a friend. They talked about the time he spent in Florida building up a nonprofit debating organization while living with his grandmother. They also said he only spent a couple months a year in D.C. with the exception of the COVID pandemic lockdown in 2020.

In early 2020, Fishback said he was back from an overseas trip and visiting his parents in D.C. when the COVID-19 pandemic was announced along with travel restrictions, lockdowns and mask mandates. He could not get back to Florida in time to vote.

So he went to a voting place in D.C., he testified, showed a precinct worker his Florida driver’s license and asked if he could vote in the national election. She handed him a tablet with a form to sign and let him vote, he said.

Fishback, who was 26 at the time, said he had no idea he was making a permanent commitment to living in D.C.

“I didn’t think I was registering,” Fishback told a reporter after the hearing. “I just said, ‘Hey, I want to cast a national ballot’.”

His voter registration form D.C. lists his parents’ D.C. address as his residence, and the box indicating he showed a driver’s license is unchecked.

The Collins lawsuit was filed after several reports raised doubts about Fishback’s residency based on evidence of his voter registration and homestead exemption.

The Orlando Sentinel reported in April it had uncovered records showing he registered to vote and voted in the 2020 election, the only year he did not vote in Florida. Records obtained by the Sentinel also showed he bought the D.C. condo in 2021 and received a homestead exemption for it. And court records obtained from another lawsuit showed he claimed D.C. on his income tax returns in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Responding to the Sentinel’s reporting in April, Fishback said those records indicating he lived and voted in D.C. were incorrect and denied ever voting in the city.

Rather than dispute the accuracy of those records while under oath, Fishback admitted he voted in D.C. and that he made mistakes on his mortgage application and would accept the consequences.

It would be up to D.C. prosecutors to decide whether to investigate the potential mortgage and election fraud.

“It may be that the various election and financial filings and transactions about which the plaintiff complained could result in regulatory, maybe even more severe legal repercussions for the defendant under D.C. law,” Frank observed. “They however do not defeat the presumption of continued residency under Florida law, or the presumption of qualification under federal and Florida law.”