{"id":62871,"date":"2025-11-24T14:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T14:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/62871\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T14:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T14:39:10","slug":"shamwow-guy-running-for-congress-in-texas-as-a-republican","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/62871\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;ShamWow&#8217; guy running for Congress in Texas as a Republican"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/gettyimages-464276884.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-v-7d0efd03=\"\"\/> article <\/p>\n<p data-v-7d0efd03=\"\">WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA &#8211; FEBRUARY 19: Vince Offer attends the Hollywood Domino annual pre-Oscar charity soiree at Sunset Tower Hotel on February 19, 2015 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jason LaVeris\/FilmMagic) <\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">AUSTIN &#8211; Offer Vince Shlomi, the entrepreneur widely known to television viewers as the high-energy &#8220;ShamWow guy,&#8221; has filed to run for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican in Texas\u2019 31st Congressional District, <a href=\"https:\/\/texasgop.org\/primary-filing-information\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">according to state election records<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>   &#8220;ShamWow&#8221; guy running for Congress <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KTBC\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">The filing, received Friday, Nov. 21, was submitted under the name Offer Vince &#8220;ShamWow&#8221; Shlomi, according to an article published by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/shamwow-guy-files-run-congress-texas-republican-candidate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Fox News Digital<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">Shlomi, 61, is aiming to unseat eight-term incumbent Republican Rep. John Carter, 84, who is seeking re-election in the district, a reliably red stronghold that encompasses northern Austin suburbs, Temple and Fort Hood. Shlomi is reportedly one of at least 12 candidates seeking the Republican nomination in the primary.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">The Israeli-American entrepreneur stated his decision to seek office was fueled by a desire to &#8220;destroy wokeism&#8221; and &#8220;make America happy.&#8221; Shlomi told Fox News Digital that his run is also a tribute to the late Charlie Kirk, whom he called the original &#8220;woke buster.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox7austin.com\/news\/how-texas-us-house-representatives-voted-releasing-epstein-files\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">How every Texas House member voted on releasing Epstein files<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">Shlomi became a pop-culture fixture in the 2000s for his ubiquitous, fast-paced infomercials advertising the super-absorbent &#8220;ShamWow&#8221; towel.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KTBC\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">Dig deeper:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">His public profile, however, has also been accompanied by high-profile controversies. His background includes a 2009 arrest in Miami Beach following an alleged violent physical altercation with a sex worker, an incident that resulted in widely circulated police photos, the Fox News article noted. Shlomi also faced earlier legal issues related to his 1999 film, &#8220;The Underground Comedy Movie.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/gettyimages-1158018370.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-v-0dea8073=\"\"\/> <\/p>\n<p data-v-0dea8073=\"\">In this handout, Israeli-American infomercial pitchman, director, writer, and comedian Vince Offer in a mug shot following his arrest in Miami Beach, Florida, US, 18th April 2009. (Photo by Kypros\/Getty Images) <\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">Shlomi has since maintained a lower profile, focusing on marketing and entrepreneurship as president and CEO of his TV marketing company, Square One Entertainment.<\/p>\n<p> Who else is running in the 31st Congressional District Race? <\/p>\n<p data-v-6fc2855c=\"\">As of Nov. 24, here are the people who have<\/p>\n<p> John Carter &#8211; IncumbentWilliam AbelDavid BerrySteven DowellAbhiram GarapatiValentina Gomez NoriegaRaymond HamdenJack McConnellMike WilliamsRyan GuillenKevin SparksEd Ewald \u2014 pending applicationOffer Vince &#8220;ShamWow&#8221; Shlomi \u2014 pending application When is the District 31 election? Primary Election: Tuesday, March 3, 2026 (This is when the multiple Republican candidates will face off.)Primary Runoff (if needed): Tuesday, May 26, 2026 (If no candidate receives over 50% of the vote in the Primary.)General Election: Tuesday, November 3, 2026 (The winner of the Republican Primary will face the winner of the Democratic Primary in the general election.) <\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Information in this article is from Fox News Digital, the Texas GOP website, OpenCampaign.com, and previous FOX Local coverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox7austin.com\/tag\/us\/tx\/bell-county\/killeen\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Killeen<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox7austin.com\/tag\/us\/tx\/travis-county\/austin\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Austin<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox7austin.com\/tag\/us\/tx\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox7austin.com\/tag\/politics\/tx-politics\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6fc2855c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas Politics<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA &#8211; FEBRUARY 19: Vince Offer attends the Hollywood Domino annual pre-Oscar charity soiree at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,30675,12294,223,287,394,216,395,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-62871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-bell-county","12":"tag-killeen","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-travis-county","16":"tag-tx","17":"tag-tx-politics","18":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}