Far-right activist Laura Loomer wins Florida GOP primary

Far-right activist Laura Loomer won the GOP House primary in Florida’s 21st Congressional District, handing the Republican Party a controversial nominee in a safe blue district.

Loomer pulled in front of a crowded field of Republicans to win the nomination in the heavily blue southeast Florida district, according to The Associated Press. She will face off against Rep. Lois Frankel (D), who ran unopposed in 2018 and won with more than 60 percent of the vote in 2016.

Loomer becomes the Republican nominee in a district that includes President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. The president and first lady Melania Trump are registered voters in Palm Beach Country, and both submitted vote-by-mail ballots for Tuesday’s primary.

Trump congratulated Loomer in a tweet late Tuesday, asserting she has “a great chance” in November’s general election.

Great going Laura. You have a great chance against a Pelosi puppet! https://t.co/pKZp35dUYr

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 19, 2020

The controversial candidate has the endorsements of right-wing figures such as Roger Stone and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). She has been banned from several social media and other technology platforms in recent years after making anti-Muslim comments. In 2017, she was banned from Uber after she tweeted that “someone needs to create a non Islamic form of @uber or @lyft,” and she has also been banned from platforms such as Twitter, PayPal and GoFundMe.

Loomer drew outrage for tweeting that she couldn’t find a “non-Muslim” cab or Uber driver and handcuffing herself to Twitter’s office in New York to protest what she said was discrimination against conservatives online. 

“I’m going to win,” she told The Hill earlier this month, claiming her victory will mark the “first time a deplatformed candidate will get a party nomination.”

While Loomer faces an uphill climb to unseat Frankel, she still hands Democrats another line of attack against the GOP as Republicans face questions over some of their more controversial House candidates.

Earlier this month, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory who has made a litany of Islamophobic and anti-Semitic comments, won her Republican primary in Georgia, putting her on track to win a congressional seat in November.

Updated on Aug. 19 at 12:02 a.m.