The Fishback Agenda
James Fishback lost Florida's Republican primary for governor, but his ideas on surveillance cameras, H-1B jobs and data centers won him nearly 178,000 votes. Now he wants the nominee to adopt them.
By Claire Hollister, Politics and Policy
Published · 6 min read
The Overview
The facts, straight
James Fishback (@jamesfishback) did not win Florida's Republican primary for governor. But his platform did something many losing campaigns never do: it built a following. A self-described fourth-generation Floridian and the founder of Azoria Capital, he won 177,809 votes in the Aug. 18 primary, 10.5%, according to official results from the Florida Division of Elections. Many of those voters were young conservatives, Florida Today reported.
His pitch, laid out on his campaign website, is concrete. Stop new hyperscale data centers, which he says "raise electric bills, jeopardize our water supply, and crater property values." End what he calls the "H-1B scam" with a recurring fine on any company that replaces a qualified Florida worker with a visa worker, because "jobs in Florida should go to Floridians first." And rein in Flock license-plate cameras on Fourth Amendment grounds.
Now he is using that following as leverage. In an Oct. 14 statement, Fishback said he would endorse the Republican nominee, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, if Donalds pledged to end the use of Flock cameras, eliminate the use of H-1B foreign workers by state agencies and contractors, and sign a statewide pause on hyperscale data centers.
"I want to be clear: I want good conservatives to win on November 3rd," Fishback said. He noted he has already endorsed nine Republicans, assembled hundreds of volunteers for Republican campaigns and is knocking doors for conservative candidates.
The Donalds Rivalry
Rep. Byron Donalds. Photo: United States Congress, official portrait (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Donalds (@ByronDonalds) entered the race with President Trump's endorsement, NBC News noted, and won the primary easily: 811,131 votes, or 47.8%, to 25.2% for Lt. Gov. Jay Collins (@JayCollinsFL), 10.5% for Fishback and 8.5% for former House Speaker Paul Renner, per the official state results. The two men never shared a debate stage, Florida Politics reported, but they clashed throughout the primary.
The standoff since then is about respect as much as policy. Fishback says the nominee dismissed his voters in the Politico interview. Donalds pushed back on social media before Fishback announced he was withholding his endorsement, Florida Politics reported. Collins and Renner endorsed Donalds soon after the primary. Fishback has not, and he says the price is the three pledges.
Fishback, for his part, now aims some of his fire elsewhere. In an Oct. 16 post he wrote that during the race an AI ad by a super PAC tied to Sen. Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) portrayed him "as a Democrat dining with Muslims," and added: "My opponent was not Byron Donalds. It was Ted Cruz, AIPAC, and Fox News." That is his account of the ad; we have not independently confirmed it.
In His Own Words
Fishback does not soften his message. A few examples from his X posts this week:
- On the Republican Party: "Our country is being stolen before our eyes, and all DC Republicans can seem to do is go on Fox News and complain about Kamala Harris."
- On the Federal Reserve: "For every $1 that Federal Reserve employees donate, 97 cents goes to Democrats." His conclusion: "End the Fed." We have not verified his donation figure.
- On foreign aid, recounting a CNN exchange: "Big Bird and Elmo clearly aren't helping. How about this? Bomb the terrorists instead."
- On young voters, after speaking at Texas Tech: "I could not find a single young person who will be voting Republican in the midterms. This should be a wake-up call for The Trump administration."
What the Left Says
The progressive and Democratic case
Democrats see some of their own themes in his agenda. The Miami Herald noted that his focus on affordability for young people, data centers and Flock cameras overlaps with ideas Sanders and Nixon champion. Nixon said he is welcome at her rally but "just can't be bigoted."
That condition reflects the main criticism of his campaign. Florida Politics reported that during the primary Fishback attacked Donalds, who is Black, as a "slave" to his donors and a "DEI Republican," and accused him of being part of a "federal sex trafficking" conspiracy. Critics, including many Republicans, say those attacks undercut his message. Donalds won nearly half the primary vote, and rivals Collins and Renner endorsed him quickly.
Where Reality Likely Sits
Radio Purple's analysis
Fishback's ideas are bigger than his vote share. Concerns about surveillance, jobs and data centers cut across party lines, which is why both Donalds and Democrats are paying attention to his voters. Florida Politics reports that some polls suggest a significant number of Republicans may cross over to Democrat David Jolly (@davidjollyfl), and Fishback says "Fishback for Jolly is real."
The common ground is in the policies. Donalds can take up the issues Fishback ran on without endorsing how the primary was fought. Fishback can keep pressing those ideas on the merits. Either way, the voters who backed him have made clear what they care about.
What the Right Says
The conservative and Republican case
To Fishback's supporters, his three demands are kitchen-table conservatism. Privacy from cameras that log where you drive. Florida jobs for Florida workers. Power bills and farmland protected from server farms. None of it, they argue, is fringe; it is what young voters priced out of the state say they want.
They also say the party should court his voters, not brush them off. Fishback objected to a Politico clip that, he said, showed Donalds saying "I don't care" after being told one in ten primary voters backed Fishback. "His choice to attack the nearly 200,000 Floridians who supported our campaign does not help Republicans win on November 3rd," Fishback said. Florida Politics reported that the clip was framed to make Donalds look indifferent, and that Donalds did damage control on social media.
Fishback is also willing to go where the voters are. He plans to attend a Saturday rally in Melbourne with Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon (@AngieNixon) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders). "I may disagree with them, but they've tapped into something, and I want to see it for myself," he posted. He has carried the same jobs message to college campuses, including a Turning Point USA event at the University of Alabama, The Crimson White reported.
Is the GOP Electorate Moving His Way?
It is tempting to see a wave. The record is more mixed. Kentucky's Rep. Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie), another Republican who bucked party leaders on populist and transparency issues, including his push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, lost his May 19 primary to retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein (@EdGallrein), whom President Trump handpicked and endorsed, AP reported. Gallrein won 54.9% to 45.1%, according to certified results compiled by Ballotpedia.
Massie's race was mostly a test of loyalty to Trump, not of the data-center or H-1B questions Fishback runs on, and his libertarian record overlaps with Fishback's only in places. So it does not show voters trending toward Fishback's agenda. What it shows is that in 2026 Republican primaries, Trump's endorsement has outweighed anti-establishment appeal. Fishback's own 10% points the same way: a real, energized bloc, but not yet a majority.
