{"id":170598,"date":"2026-02-26T21:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/170598\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T21:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:49:08","slug":"james-fishback-makes-an-unexpected-visit-to-fgcu-on-campaign-trail-eagle-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/170598\/","title":{"rendered":"James Fishback makes an unexpected visit to FGCU on campaign trail \u2013 Eagle Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gubernatorial candidate James Fishback stopped at FGCU on Feb. 20 to share his plan for Florida, answer questions and hear voter concerns. However, this was only announced the previous night, Feb. 19, on Instagram.<\/p>\n

Upon arrival, Fishback was met in the lobby of Sugden Hall by the University Police Department (UPD), already present from the concurrent Byron Donalds Turning Point USA event being held in the same building. He was told he was not allowed to remain in the building, as he did not have permission to be there, but could remain outside as long as it did not prohibit other students from getting by.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was at Seed to Table last night and a lot of FGCU students were there and they told me that congressman Donalds was going to be here tomorrow,\u201d Fishback said.<\/p>\n

A police officer and an FGCU administrator stayed present throughout the speech to ensure other students were not prevented from passing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe officers are good men, they\u2019re protecting the school, and I appreciate the staff here at FGCU, but there\u2019s a question of whether or not we have a First Amendment right or not,\u201d Fishback said. \u201cIf congressman Donalds is allowed Turning Point space, why shouldn\u2019t I?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fishback went through his campaign platform for the crowd. Most of which were of the general public and not FGCU students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I like about Fishback is that he genuinely cares about Florida,\u201d freshman Sophia Forderhase said. \u201cHe\u2019s working overtime on this campaign with much less funding than a traditional campaign, which shows he cares.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first issue he plans to tackle is affordability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means you have to be able to get a great-paying job right out of college when you graduate as an Eagle, whether that\u2019s this year, next year, three years from now. It doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d Fishback said. \u201cYou should be able to get a great-paying job without having to compete with foreign labor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He went on to explain how this carries on into buying a home. According to Axios<\/a>, the average age to buy a home in Florida is 42. He wants to make homeownership more accessible to younger people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, if you go try to buy a home in Lee County, Collier County, Charlotte County, Hendry, it doesn\u2019t matter. You\u2019re not going to be fighting against two or three families,\u201d Fishback said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to compete with hedge funds, private equity firms, Blackstone, Blackrock.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the public, a big selling point seemed to be Fishback\u2019s stance on Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFlorida lent $385 million to Israel. I will divest every single penny we send to Israel, and I will bring it back home to create a statewide down payment assistance program called Rise and Shine that gives young married Florida couples a $10,000 check so they can cover the down payment on their home,\u201d Fishback said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some, like congressman Donalds, question this plan. While others are in favor of Fishback supporting this effort, especially in the way he carries himself when discussing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat initially drew me in was definitely Fishback\u2019s stance on Israel. I\u2019ve never seen a candidate for anything be so courageous and authentic. His bravery is a big selling point for me,\u201d attendee Haley Smith said.<\/p>\n

Another big pillar of Fishback\u2019s campaign is his commitment to conserving the environment and maintaining Florida\u2019s natural beauty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say for me, the biggest draw to Fishback is his plans for conservation in Florida and bringing back the citrus industry. I believe there needs to be Florida Fish and Wildlife reform and we need to stop developers from destroying wildlife areas and he seems to agree,\u201d attendee Bryce Mitchell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though the event was last-minute, it became an opportunity for attendees in support of him to learn more about him and get involved in Florida politics in general, which is what Fishback, a young Floridian himself, wanted people to take away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think young Floridians want a governor that they can see and talk to and ask tough questions of and I think that\u2019s what they got here today,\u201d Fishback said. \u201cIf you knew Charlie [Kirk], you would know that he wanted to debate more than anything and he wouldn\u2019t pick favorites. Sure, he would endorse people, but at the end of the day, he would\u2019ve wanted rigorous open conversation, with no topic off limits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gubernatorial candidate James Fishback stopped at FGCU on Feb. 20 to share his plan for Florida, answer questions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-170598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}