Congressman Byron Donalds faces old challengers, newcomer in District 19
Amy Bennett WilliamsWith a popular incumbent firmly in the saddle, the Aug. 23 primary race for Florida’s 19th congressional district may be more critique than contest, yet it's key to understanding emerging undercurrents.
Republican Congressman Byron Donalds faces fellow GOP challenger Jim Huff in the primary. The winner will take on second-time Democratic contender Cindy Banyai in the Nov. 8 general election (as well as write-in candidate Patrick Post).
Despite the opposition Donalds will almost surely keep his seat, says Florida Gulf Coast University political science professor Peter Bergerson.
“It’s just very difficult to beat an incumbent,” he said. “Generally speaking, incumbents who run for office win reelection over 90% of the time.”
In a solidly red (GOP voters outnumber Democrats by 100,000), 834,988-person, Lee and Collier district that’s older, whiter and slightly more female than the rest of the United States, a young Black male candidate might have seemed “almost an oxymoron,” as Bergerson once characterized Donalds. But Donalds’ hardscrabble background plus his hard-core conservatism have made him a GOP rising star. His self description as a “Trump-supporting, liberty-loving, pro-life, pro-Second Amendment Black man" amplified the appeal.
For Donalds to be unseated would take “a political hurricane,” Bergerson said. Such locked-in results are the norm in the Sunshine State:
“I don’t know that there are more than two or three — at the most — competitive congressional district races in Florida. So it’s not like this is something that’s unique,” he said.
In case you missed it:'Almost an oxymoron': Rising star Byron Donalds is a Black conservative aiming for national office
In 2020, the New York-born Naples resident beat a pack of 11 candidates in a high-dollar melee for the seat left open by retiring Congressman Francis Rooney. Donalds, 43, went on to defeat Banyai, 42, in the general election, along with energy-focused write-in candidate Post, 67, who’s giving it another try this cycle.
This time, the sole new face is Donalds’ only GOP competition: Huff, 38, a last-minute-qualifying, first-time candidate who lives just outside the district in Charlotte County. Huff promises to be civil, science-based and straightforward. He also pledges to move to the district if he’s elected.
Banyai, the lone Democrat to qualify, says she’s ready to bring progressivism into the light “because we feel underground here in Southwest Florida.”
Each candidate says their platform has been informed by their profession, and each has different priorities, though the environment — especially water quality — figures prominently for all four.
District 19 stretches from Cape Coral in Lee County to the Ten Thousand Islands in Collier and includes Fort Myers, Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero and the barrier islands along both counties. The region is struggling with the vulnerability of its tourism-focused economy — not just to environmental crises like red tide and blue-green algae that threaten it but to the risks that come with insufficient economic diversification.
Banyai is an adjunct instructor at Florida Gulf Coast University and owns a small nonprofit-focused consulting business. Donalds is a banker, and Huff is an engineer. Post comes from the homebuilding industry and runs a solar energy advocacy group.
'Putting people first'
Michigan native Banyai describes herself first as a mom of two, then a business owner and educator. She earned a doctorate in international public administration while working for a Japanese firm developing impoverished parts of East Timor, the Philippines and Indonesia. At FGCU, she teaches global issues and American government.
An outspoken abortion rights advocate, she was recently arrested at a Washington, D.C., protest of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the ruling in the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade.
As for Banyai's other priorities: “I’m fighting for our water, our health and ... I want to make sure no Southwest Floridian has to face bankruptcy to save the life of their loved one," she said. "We’re putting people first, we’re putting our small businesses first and we’re putting the needs of regular people first and foremost — not big corporations, not political elites and not people who are part-time residents here and tourists — really making sure the people who live here have what they need.”
For the fundraising reporting period that ended March 31, she'd raised $53,787, a figure that’s now grown to nearly $70,000, she says, with more than 1,800 individual donors. “So we're in a better position right now than this time in 2020,” Banyai said.
She said her hope is to build on the momentum she created in 2020. “We were so successful as an outsider, underdog candidate (that) we have a lot more people coming as volunteers (who) see it’s important for their lives and their families," Banyai said.
This focus on the common person is in sharp contrast with Donalds, she says. “He’s positioned himself as a celebrity politician rather than somebody that's really truly working for the people. He's spent the vast majority of his time on networks (like) Fox News … punching at Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi,” Banyai said. “It's very clear that his intention is not to support us but for himself to reach the next rung on the ladder of his power climb.”
Perhaps worst of all, she says, he was part of the so-called Sedition Caucus, the term some use to describe congressional Republicans who voted not to certify the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona or Pennsylvania.
"He is perpetuating the Big Lie (what some call claims of widespread fraud in that election), and I think that people need to know that and they'll hopefully hold him accountable at the ballot box for the continuous damage that he's done to our country,” Banyai said.
'Major wins for our area'
For his part, Donalds says it’s true he didn’t vote to certify those states’ results. “This whole talking point from the left about the Sedition Caucus, I'm not even going to acknowledge that with a response because it's just cheap politics as a way to get your name up there.”
Donalds disdains the Jan. 6 hearings and has said he'll push to have the select committee looking into the attack investigated during the next Congress.
National politics aside, Donalds emphasizes what he’s done for the district. His first bill made good on campaign promises to keep water quality issues front and center.
Still in committee, the bipartisan Harmful Algal Bloom Essential Forecasting Act, would keep scientists on the lookout for potentially dangerous blooms even during government shutdowns. A year later came the Protecting Communities from Harmful Algal Blooms Act, another bipartisan effort to support research on airborne algae toxins and make it easier for bloom-affected communities to get government help.
He’s also worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is redoing the way it releases often polluted water from Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee River, “making sure that Southwest Florida's interests are recognized in the new release schedule,” Donalds said. “We've just scored some major wins for our area, which is going to help with water quality.”
On Donalds’ to-do list is energy independence, he says. “We've grown accustomed to basically being able to flip on a light switch and power being there," he said. "But we also want our power to be cheap, to be readily available (and) good for the environment.” The solution? Nuclear energy, Donalds says.
As someone whose Brooklyn childhood included a sometimes painful relationship with government — his single mom lost her job with the city of New York when he was in middle school — Donalds remains skeptical about giant bureaucracies. But he’s proud of the services he’s provided district residents regardless of political party, he says.
“I’ve got to give full credit to my staff. They've done a tremendous job … there's always somebody coming up to me, and they’re so thankful for the work we were able to do,” Donalds said. “If they're having an issue with the federal government, we're going to do everything we can to get it resolved as quickly as possible.”
At the end of the last reporting period, his campaign had raised $3.78 million, which Donalds says reflects his job performance.
“I think that people are very happy with how I've represented Southwest Florida (and) not just the job itself in Congress, but also whatever my mantle is in national politics,” he said.
Donalds, married with three sons, recently was named Florida’s Most Conservative Florida GOP lawmaker by the Conservative Review, a product of Glenn Beck’s Blaze Media. His 100% score is a distinction he shares with Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Green, Texas’ Chip Roy, and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert.
'Good leaders go silently'
That kind of out-front punditry rubs New Jersey-born Eagle Scout Jim Huff the wrong way. In fact, most politicians do, he says.
“Politicians of today, it’s common that we all call them crooks and thieves,” he said. “That’s not how I want to live my life, and it’s not how I would like our future children to live their lives.”
As for Donalds, Huff said: “I don’t want to say he’s crooked or a thief … but I do believe he is part of the larger political problem in that he has an agenda that may not be best for his constituents, but it may be best for political aspirations, a celebrity or career politician.
“Good leaders go silently, and things go smoothly,” Huff added.
But how to contrast with a celebrity? “Well, you can be a bigger celebrity, which is clearly not my path, or you can be the most honest and transparent that you can and really get your message to the people personally,” Huff said.
For Huff, that’s meant daily door-to-door rounds assuring people he’s more interested in progress than politics.
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After graduating from FGCU with a degree in civil engineering, he returned as a civil engineer to the Army Corps, where he’d worked college summers. At the Jacksonville District, which oversees Southwest Florida, he was involved in water quality and Everglades restoration projects. Because federal rules prohibit him from seeking elected office, he resigned to run.
“In District 19, water will always be our lifeblood. It’s the reason people come down here, and if we have water quality issues, which we do, we need to address them in a preventative, proactive manner,” he says — emphasis on proactive.
He said Donalds missed a beat with his Protecting Communities from Harmful Algal Blooms bill.
“The title is excellent,” Huff said, “but to me, protecting our communities means preventing something from happening."
Donalds should have had a plan already in place and should have gone to FGCU's Water School to work on strategy, Huff says. If Huff gets the chance, he said, that‘s what he’ll do, focusing on nutrient pollution and blooms in places like Cape Coral.
Even more important to Huff is accountability, he said.
“If I am elected, I will fight tooth and nail every single day in order to establish term limits,” he said. “A lot of the disconnect we have between our politicians and our people is that they have been there so long they cannot be connected.”
Next is infrastructure, which Huff said is “connected with everything in our economy. If we have roads in disrepair, we cannot get our goods out. Same with our ports and our airports. We also need to protect lives.”
On some questions, he differs sharply from Donalds. Huff can’t go along with the so-called Big Lie, he says.
“I trust in the system, and all those accusations turned out to be incorrect or not supported, so why would I support a theory?” he said. “As an engineer and a science-driven professional, I cannot go off of pure speculation in order to uproot the entire foundation of our country.”
Should abortion be legal? “How can we expect to be able to argue against vaccine mandates by saying, 'My body, my choice,' and not still respect the rights of women. I’m not saying it’s a firm position one way or another, but I do believe we need to debate and discuss this one way past the point of whether it’s legal or illegal. We need to get to the point of understanding all perspectives, including the health and potential impacts of what we’re legislating and also the moral implications,” he said.
So what does he think his chances are? “Good, pending I get my message to the people,” he said. “With a grassroots campaign, where you’re not coming from political backing or from money, you are a nobody, and I’m OK with that.”
Though his fundraising balance was zero at the end of the last reporting period, Huff says he now has raised some $15,000.
He calls Banyai’s platform “pipedream policies” full of government overreach. “Though she has the right intentions to better America, I do believe it’s just not based in proven fact. I don’t hold it against her, because she truly believes in the message, but I believe it’s misguided.”
'Going after big targets'
For the past two decades, Post, a Democrat, has devoted himself to one big idea: renewable energy.
"After 9-11 I thought, ‘We better have a better way of connecting to the sun,’ (so) I really have dedicated my life to figuring out how to achieve that. And I believe I have created the plan to make it happen,” he said. "If you have new construction, you put solar on it, It's much cheaper than retrofitting.”
While coordinating building permits for Ashton Woods Homes at Naples Reserve, he was frustrated to learn that “even ... million-dollar homes are not built super energy efficient, like they can be." With built-in solar features, Huff said, “They can use the half or one-third, the amount of electricity … You can have a home that actually can produce more electricity than it consumes.”
His plans go beyond solar. “I'm promoting a light rail transportation system (between) Marco island to the airport at Southwest or to international airport with bike paths on either side,” he said.
Raised in Oregon, Post, who’s divorced with no kids, created (and still runs) the American Literacy Association in 2000, which advocates for captioning cartoons. He came to Florida in 2005 to work for jewelry and watch companies on the east coast and in Orlando before coming to Naples in 2015.
Toward the end of the 2020 campaign, he decided to tap the brakes and give Banyai the spotlight, but not this time, he vows. “I'm going to be much more aggressive,” he said.
That doesn’t mean he’s not evangelizing other candidates. He says Huff reached out recently to introduce himself.
“I said I would love to work with him to promote the concept of renewable energy to get the message out ... I'm looking for any and all opportunity to connect with other candidates,” he said.
As for Donalds’ enthusiasm for nuclear energy, Post said, “He's completely wrong.”
Instead of spending $10 billion to build a nuclear power plant, that money should go toward putting solar panels on homes, he says.
“The difference is they charge for nuclear power and they wouldn't be able to charge for the solar (because) you can get free energy from the sun," Post said. "This is the future of the world.”
Post admits there’s nothing small about his ambitions, but aiming high makes sense, he says.
“I am going after big targets because that’s what causes the greatest amount of change," he said. "It's easier to stick with your local community, but I think globally.”