FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Conservative Republican activist Joe Budd is running for Congress, hoping to pick up a Broward-Palm Beach county district held for decades by Democrats.
Budd hasn’t yet made a splashy public announcement, but his intentions are clear.
“I’m Joe Budd. I’m going to be your next congressman in District 23,” Budd said Saturday in a video posted to his Joe Budd for Congress Facebook page. (The sleeve of his shirt proclaimed, “This Budd’s For You.”)
His Facebook posts have been teasing a candidacy in recent days. He’s used hashtags #comingsoon and #gearingup, and wrote Thursday night that he was “tying up loose ends.”
In May, Budd filed forms with the Federal Election Commission and state Division of Elections indicating he plans to run.
Budd, 59, who lives west of Boca Raton, is the state Republican committeeman for Palm Beach County, which makes him part of the leadership structure of the Republican Party of Florida. He was first elected to that position in the 2016 Republican primary, defeating the longtime state committeeman Peter Feaman. Budd was reelected overwhelmingly in the 2020 primary election.
Though he has a party role, he has often bucked the desires of the establishment Republicans who used to dominate the party.
He was one of the earliest supporters of Ron DeSantis for the 2018 Republican nomination for governor at a time when most party leaders were supporting Adam Putnam, who ultimately lost the primary to DeSantis.
And he was an early supporter of former President Donald Trump candidacy at a time when many other Florida Republicans favored former Gov. Jeb Bush or U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for the 2016 presidential nomination.
Early in 2021, Budd said he hoped a more conservative Republican would challenge Sen. Rubio, who is running for the party nomination for a third term this year. Budd said Rubio hasn’t been as pro-Trump as he should have been, but the former president later endorsed the senator’s reelection.
Budd was a founder and is president of Club 45 USA, a group inspired by Trump, who was the 45th president. When it began in early 2018, it was called the Trump 45 Club.
Budd, a financial adviser, ran years ago for Congress when the district had somewhat different boundaries. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Congress in a February 2010 special election but won another primary later that year to become the 2010 general election challenger to U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Democrat.
Deutch announced earlier this year that he wouldn’t seek reelection, which leaves an open seat with no incumbent. On Oct. 1, Deutch becomes CEO of the American Jewish Committee.
Republicans are widely expected to do well in the 2022 midterms, but the 23rd Congressional District leans Democratic — so much so that several current or former elected Republican officials passed on running for the seat.
The district’s boundaries change this year to reflect population changes uncovered in the 2020 census.
The new district is similar to the territory currently represented by Deutch. It takes in northern Broward and much of the coast extending south through most of Fort Lauderdale. It takes in a larger share of southern Palm Beach County than currently.
It leans Democratic. In 2020, 56% of the new District 23 voters went for President Joe Biden, according to an analysis of voting data by Matt Isbell of the data mapping firm MCI Maps.
Several other lesser-known Republicans — Steven Chess, Jeffrey Olson, Jim Pruden, Saad Suleman, Darlene Swaffar and Ira Weinstein — have filed paperwork indicating they plan to seek the Republican nomination in the district, but the lineup isn’t yet final. Candidates face a Friday deadline to formally qualify as candidates for the August primary ballot.
———
