Jim Oberweis

Perhaps the old saying should be changed to “If at first you don’t succeed, move to Florida.”

Three former Republican congressional candidates who lost primary or general elections in 2022 have all moved to Florida in the past couple of years. So far, one has declared his candidacy for Congress, the second is a definite maybe, and the third, while silent, has been endorsed by a sitting GOP Florida congresswoman.

Although the 2026 primary election in Florida is still nearly 17 months away, perennial Illinois candidate and former Sugar Grove resident Jim Oberweis has announced his candidacy to fill the vacancy left by the departure of incumbent Republican 19th District Congressman Byron Donalds. The three-term incumbent announced last week that he is leaving Congress to run for governor.

“I don’t plan to do this forever,” Oberweis told veteran politico Patrick Pfingsten of The Illinoize back in 2020.

However, six years later, Oberweis, who will then be 79, will be back on a ballot in August 2026.

Oberweis ran unsuccessfully in Illinois for U.S. Senate in 2002 and 2004, and for Illinois governor in 2006. In 2008, he lost both a special election for the old 14th Congressional District, and later that same year lost the regularly scheduled 14th Congressional District election.

Oberweis lost in his third attempt for U.S. Senate to incumbent Dick Durbin in 2014. In 2020, he edged out now-state Sen. Sue Rezin for the GOP nomination in the 14th Congressional District, and came the closest he has come to winning federal office, falling to incumbent Lauren Underwood by 1.4 percent, a 5,374-vote margin.

Oberweis did manage to win election to the Illinois Senate in 2012, representing the 25th District. He stepped down in 2020 to run for Congress.

Jack Lombardi

DuPage County native Jack Lombardi II, who finished a distant fourth in a five-candidate GOP primary for the 14th Congressional District in 2022, now lives in Naples, Fla. He told Phil Ammann at Florida Politics in January that he sees Florida as “a land of opportunity and freedom,“ one where, he believes, “wokeism has been banned” from the educational system.

Lombardi opined that Illinois is a land of “high taxes, increasing crime, and a ‘woke agenda’ in schools” in naming his reasons for relocating to Florida.

“Should Byron decide not to seek re-election,” Lombardi told Ammann, “it is essential that the 19th District have a proven conservative representing it in Congress and supporting the Trump agenda. I would definitely consider being that person.”

Yet a third former Illinois GOP congressional candidate, Catalina Lauf, has also moved to Florida. She has been mentioned in political circles as a possible 19th District candidate, though Lauf herself has not publicly expressed interest in running.

Lauf, who has stated in social media posts that her “pronouns are: Non-BIDEN-ary” was appointed a “Special Advisor to an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce” in the first Trump administration, according to her LinkedIn profile. She served in that position for eight months.

In 2022, Lauf ran for Congress in the 11th Congressional District, which she said at the time “resembles the heartbeat of America in its culture.”

Catalina Lauf

She lost to incumbent Democrat Bill Foster by a 13-point margin. At the time, Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna called Lauf “incredibly smart” and opined that the Illinois 11th Congressional District “is lucky to have her fighting for them!”

In January, Luna again promoted Lauf as a replacement for Byron Donalds, in the event he decided to run for governor.

Florida’s 19th Congressional District runs from Fort Myers to Marco Island.

So far, Donald’s only GOP opponent for governor appears to be former right-wing U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz.

The good news for Jim Oberweis is that the Florida 19th Congressional District is overwhelmingly Republican. The bad news is, the district is overwhelmingly Republican. So while the GOP nominee is a likely cinch in November 2026, the open primary in August is guaranteed to be highly contested.

The 2026 GOP 19th Congressional District primary field could well resemble the field in 2020, when nine candidates vied for the Republican ballot slot in the general election. Since first winning that crowded primary in 2020 by a few hundred votes, with two others close behind, Donalds has easily won the General Election three times. He crushed Democratic opponent Carrie Lerner in 2024 by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, with 66.3 percent, a more than 135,000-vote margin.

Florida Politics’ Jacob Ogles said that many observers expect Madison Cawthorn, a controversial one-term North Carolina congressman who moved to Florida after losing a 2022 primary, to get into the 19th District race. The far-right Republican has been “politically engaged” in Florida since his arrival in the state, Ogles said.

Other Illinois Republican figures now in Florida include former Gov. Bruce Rauner, who moved to the Key Largo after losing his 2018 re-election to J.B Pritzker, and billionaire candidate supporter Kenneth Griffin.

Rauner has been a registered voter in Florida since 2020. Since moving to Key Largo, Rauner has given contributions to Florida congressional Reps. Laurel Lee ($2,900), Aaron Bean ($2,900) and Carlos Gimenez ($2,800), as well as making a $5,000 donation to the Republican Party of Florida.

Griffin’s support of Illinois Republican candidates included $50 million to gubernatorial hopeful Richard Irvin in 2022. Irvin , mayor of Aurora, in the Republican primary to Darren Bailey.

Staff writer Kevin Beese contributed to this report.