{"id":244222,"date":"2026-04-24T03:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T03:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/244222\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T03:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T03:22:10","slug":"james-fishback-far-right-gubernatorial-candidate-speaks-at-university-of-central-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/244222\/","title":{"rendered":"James Fishback, far-right gubernatorial candidate, speaks at University of Central Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of University of Central Florida students lined up Thursday night to hear controversial Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback<\/a> speak on campus, browsing the T-shirts and other merchandise his campaign peddled while they waited.<\/p>\n

Once inside, about 250 people heard Fishback, 31, deliver a populist message that touched on his key campaign points, such cutting aid to Israel, the country\u2019s affordability crisis and the political right\u2019s fixation on culture war issues.<\/p>\n

The crowd of mostly young, white men responded with cheers and applause.<\/p>\n

Attendees said Fishback represents a younger, more right-wing alternative to an aging class of Republicans. But he is also a provocative candidate who has made racist and anti-Semitic remarks and staked out controversial positions.<\/p>\n

But in a UCF lecture hall, as at other college campuses, his message resonated with the young audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is wrong and it is evil to look a family in the eye and say, \u2018There isn\u2019t money for you, but there\u2019s $5 billion to give to Israel to wage a genocide\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When the event ended, 19-year-old John Herrera compared Fishback to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani \u2014 polarizing to his own political party, but exciting to young voters.<\/p>\n

Fishback spoke to the concerns facing young people, he said, like housing affordability.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter today, he got my vote,\u201d said the UCF student.<\/p>\n

Fishback is considered a long shot to win the Republican nomination for Florida governor. Voting and tax records also shed doubt on whether he is lived in Florida long enough<\/a> to qualify as a candidate.<\/p>\n

The latest polling averages have Fishback in the single digits and trailing Congressman Byron Donalds, the Naples Republican endorsed by President Donald Trump, by about 40 percentage points. Two other Republicans, former House Speaker Paul Renner, and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, are running, too.<\/p>\n

He insisted Thursday he was \u201cfirmly in second place\u201d in the race for the Republican nomination, but his support remains below 5% in most polls.<\/p>\n

Fishback, an investment executive, aligns with the \u201cgroyper\u201d sect of far-right conservatives, a group that follows neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes.<\/p>\n

Supporters at the UCF event brushed off Fishback\u2019s past controversial comments.<\/p>\n

Fishback has called Donalds, who is Black, a \u201cslave\u201d to the pro-Israel lobby in Congress and has said white men are the biggest victims of racism. He\u2019s floated levying a so-called \u201csin tax\u201d on women who make pornography for the website Only Fans, and joked about \u201cmaking the trains run on time\u201d \u2014 an homage to the words of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also called Florida\u2019s school cafeteria food \u201cgoyslop,\u201d an anti-Semitic term for low-quality food supposedly forced on the public by Jewish people. He repeated the term on Thursday and then joked he told a reporter who asked about it to \u201cget a life.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a high-school girl, which he denies. When asked about the allegations by a Black constituent, Fishback said the man should be \u201clynched\u201d and argued it wasn\u2019t true because, if it were, he\u2019d have already been arrested.<\/p>\n

Ramiel Brendaro, 25, who attended the UCF rally wearing a blue \u201cAmerica First\u201d hat sold by Fuentes, said he agreed with Fishback\u2019s controversial comments about Donalds.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yeah, he\u2019s a slave to Israel. Like, absolutely yeah. If you\u2019re informed, yeah. He\u2019s a slave to Israel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Brendaro said he thinks Fishback appeals to young voters who are disillusioned with Trump because the young candidates speaks about issues that impact them, such as the high cost of buying a house.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know any Trump young fans anymore. I think they would rather vote Democrat than vote another Republican like Trump again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But others said they came to Thursday\u2019s rally out of curiosity. Several students in attendance said they saw Fishback on Instagram Reels and came to learn more.<\/p>\n

Callie Cerrato, 18, said she was eager to hear Fishback\u2019s plans for affordable housing and Florida\u2019s public school system.<\/p>\n

The daughter of Brevard County teachers, Cerrato said she felt Florida\u2019s schools were going \u201cin the sewers,\u201d citing poor teacher pay and retention.<\/p>\n

Fishback said on his first day as governor, he\u2019d divest the state\u2019s $300 million in funding for Israel and reinvest it in a down payment assistance program for Florida homebuyers, a plan Cerrato likes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to move out of my parents’ house, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh my gosh, I can\u2019t afford to live anywhere,’\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

During his remarks, Fishback said Florida needs to increase teacher pay and downplayed the Republican party\u2019s claims of teachers \u201cindoctrinating\u201d students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe public school teachers who wake up early, who stay late, who dig into their own pockets to cover school supplies or lunch money, they deserve a raise because they\u2019ve earned it,\u201d Fishback said.<\/p>\n

Fishback also vowed to take on insurance companies and abolish property taxes.<\/p>\n

\u201dThey don\u2019t have the have the right to tax us to death to pay for their pet projects and their bloated salaries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fishback criticized Donalds for donations he\u2019d received from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, also known as AIPAC.<\/p>\n

He mused about a hypothetical scenario where he was a police officer chasing Donalds in a car, pulling him over and questioning how his net worth had increased in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoa, easy there. Hands on the wheel. You know what? Get out of the car. We\u2019re going to bring you down to the station interrogate you on how your net worth went up by $4.8 million on $100,000 a year salary in the last five years,\u201d Fishback said.<\/p>\n

Oscar Perez, a 25-year-old registered Republican, said he regrets voting for Trump because the president is now focused too much on foreign wars and aid.<\/p>\n

He came to the UCF rally because Fishback represents what Perez had in mind when he voted for Trump in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like he cares. He kind of aligns to what I was originally going for, which is just caring about my people. Citizens. Florida citizens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of University of Central Florida students lined up Thursday night to hear controversial Florida gubernatorial candidate James…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[445,28,3291,30,29,269,28912,6688,107635,2103,107634],"class_list":{"0":"post-244222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-byron-donalds","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-governor","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-james-fishback","15":"tag-president-donald-trump","16":"tag-republican-nomination","17":"tag-university-of-central-florida","18":"tag-young-voters"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244222","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=244222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}