What to Watch in Florida, Alaska, and Wyoming Aug. 20 Primaries

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) speaks to media in the spin room after President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump's presidential debate in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The primary slates in Florida, Alaska, and Wyoming don’t offer many competitive contests on Aug. 20, but they do feature some drama—notably in the Sunshine State, where House Freedom Caucus firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) bid for a fifth term is being challenged by a moderate backed by former Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

While Gaetz is heavily favored to defeat former naval aviator and business consultant Aaron Dimmock—an early July survey of 400 likely voters conducted by Lee, Fabrizio & Associates had him up 67 percent to 20 percent—McCarthy’s Freedom Patriots PAC is making his reelection in one of the nation’s most Republican-dominated House districts an expensive, bruising affair.

According to OpenSecrets, the PAC spent more than $3.1 million orchestrating an aggressive campaign against Gaetz, who led the “group of eight” in ousting McCarthy from his speaker post in October 2023 and, ultimately, from Congress in 2024.

The negative ad blitz highlights unproven sexual misconduct and drug use allegations against Gaetz in a House Ethics Committee investigation and claims he has spent little time in his Panhandle district, Florida’s Congressional District 1 (CD 1), while campaigning for and against fellow Republicans in primaries nationwide.

Gaetz has countered with a spate of “Patriot Rally Tours” that include stump endorsements from conservative luminaries such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). He was endorsed in May by former president and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Since his first congressional election in 2016, Gaetz has easily won primaries, notching between 65 and 80 percent of CD 1 GOP tallies. He is expected in November to easily roll past Democrat Gay Valimont, who has no primary opponent.

But McCarthy’s “revenge” against the “group of eight” incumbents is causing their campaigns to spend money and, earlier this summer, contributed to Rep. Bob Good’s (R-Va.) primary defeat.

According to their campaign’s July 31 Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filings, Gaetz has raised nearly $5.69 million but has been forced to spend $5.1 million to drown out Freedom Patriots PAC’s messaging. Dimmock’s campaign has raised less than $350,000 and spent nearly $190,000, its July 31 FEC filing reports.

Florida Politics and other analyses speculate the negative campaign is not geared to defeat Gaetz in his district but to preemptively blunt his broader ambitions, including a rumored interest in running for governor when term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis leaves office in 2026.

With 77 days to go before the Nov. 5 general election, the Gaetz–McCarthy feud has added bitter spice to an otherwise relatively tame Aug. 20 primary slate across three states that all voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

They are also among the last 2024 primaries. Only four states haven’t staged preliminary ballot-setters—Massachusetts on Sept. 3 and New Hampshire, Delaware, and Rhode Island on Sept. 10.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and members of the House Freedom Caucus address the press outside the Manhattan Criminal Court in support of former President Donald Trump, in New York on May 16, 2024. Juliette Fairley/The Epoch Times

Florida Incumbents to Breeze Through

Incumbents are running for 27 of Florida’s 28 House seats. All eight sitting Democrats and 19 of 20 House Republicans are expected to secure general election berths, as is former two-term governor Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) in his bid for a second term in the senior chamber, where he’s also vying to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as Senate Republican Leader.

Scott’s campaign has raised more than $27 million, about half of it self-funded, and faces nominal primary challenges from actor and small business owner John S. Columbus and attorney Keith Gross.

In November, he’ll likely face former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Fla.), ousted after one term in 2020 by former Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez (R).

Mucarsel-Powell is favored to sweep past businessman and former naval aviator Stanley Campbell, former state House candidate Rod Joseph, and former state House Majority Whip Brian Rush in the Democrat Senate primary.

Scott has been campaigning against Mucarsel-Powell and surveys indicate she could give him a competitive race. An early August McLaughlin & Associates’ survey of 800 likely voters put Scott up 52 percent to 42 percent.

The only primary race not featuring a favored incumbent is Florida’s deep red CD 8, where retiring Rep. Bill Posey’s (R-Fla.) open seat is not expected to generate a competitive race.

Former Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos, endorsed by Trump and DeSantis, is favored to defeat two GOP primary challengers and roll past the Democrat primary winner in November.

Any remaining intrigue on Florida’s primary ballot is in lining up challengers to run against incumbents in districts deemed winnable by rival parties.

Of 37 Democrat-held seats targeted by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), one—Rep. Darren Soto’s (D-Fla.) Orlando-area CD 9—is in Florida.

Four-term Soto doesn’t face a primary challenger but could be tested in the fall by the winner of the GOP preliminary between real estate developer and retired U.S. Army colonel Thomas Chalifoux and former state House Rep. John Quiñones, who has been endorsed by Posey, Gimenez, Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.), and Disney World Resort Manager Jose Castillo.

Two Florida Republican incumbents, meanwhile, are on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) “Districts In Play” list—Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.).

Five Democrats are vying in Democrats’ Clearwater-area CD 13 primary to take on Luna. Whitney Fox is the frontrunner with endorsements from Blue Dog PAC, Planned Parenthood, and Florida Democrat U.S. Reps. Lois Frankel, Kathy Castor, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

In South Florida’s CD 27, Democrats Lucia Baez-Geller, a Miami-Dade school board member, and former Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey, seek their party’s nod to challenge Salazar in November.

Luna and Salazar are favored to win in districts where Republicans have recently come to control—a trend across Florida where registered Republicans, as of Aug. 14, outnumber Democrats 5.3 million to 4.3 million. The wild card is the state’s 3.5 million independent voters.

Alaska’s Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola stand before a contingent of Alaskans who traveled more than 4,000 miles to Washington to call on President Joe Biden to approve the proposed $8 billion, 556-acre Willow Project on the western reaches of the North Slope, on March 1, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Alaska and Wyoming

While Florida has turned red in the last decade, thinly populated Alaska and Wyoming—two of seven states with just one House seat—have been GOP-dominant for decades.

Alaska’s ranked-choice voting and Wyoming’s newly closed primary make the Aug. 20 preliminaries functionary non-events.

There are 12 candidates running in Alaska’s non-partisan primary. The top four will be on November’s ballot. Incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) and Republicans Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom and Nick Begich are expected to advance.

Peltola became the first Democrat in five decades to win Alaska’s House seat following Rep. Don Young’s (R-Alaska) death in 2022. She won a special election that featured 47 candidates and then, the 2022 midterms, defeating a gaggle of Republicans, including Begich and former governor and 2012 vice president candidate Sarah Palin.

The Alaska seat is on RNCC’s target list. Dahlgren and Begich vow not to attack each other to avoid party infighting that Republicans say contributed to Peltola’s 2022 win.

Begich’s grandfather, U.S. Rep. Nick Begich (D-Alaska), was the last Democrat to win the state’s House seat. He was in office when his plane disappeared in 1972. Young won a 1973 special election to succeed Begich and served nearly 50 years until his death in March 2022.

In Wyoming, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) face nominal primary and general election challenges.

Rancher and businessman Reid Rasner is seeking to derail Barrasso’s bid for a fourth Senate term. Democrat educator Scott Morrow, with no primary challenge, awaits in November.

First-term incumbent Hageman, who defeated Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in 2022’s midterms, is expected to brush past attorney Steve Helling, a “pro-Trump Democrat,” in the GOP primary.

Progressive Kyle Cameron, also unchallenged in the Democrat primary, will take on Hageman in November.