So who is Fishback exactly? Here is what you should know about the unlikely gubernatorial candidate ahead of the Aug. 18 primary election:

Where did he come from?

Fishback, 31, grew up in a working-class family in South Florida, where his father worked as a bus driver, and his mother was an immigrant from Colombia. A fourth-generation resident of Florida, he continues to live in the state with his wife. The newly married couple is expecting their first child.

Fishback worked as a research analyst for hedge fund management firm Greenlight Capital from 2021 until his resignation in 2023, after which he founded his own investment firm called Azoria Partners. He founded Incubate Debate, a nonprofit high school debate league, in 2019 after serving as a volunteer debate coach in Miami-Dade County.

The investor started to gain prominence last year when he associated himself with tech billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency. Fishback claimed to be an adviser to the new initiative, which Musk’s camp disputed. He later lobbied the Trump administration to secure a short-term appointment on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The effort was unsuccessful.

Now, Fishback is seeking the governor’s office. But with his bid comes much baggage.

What are the controversies facing him?

The businessman-turned-candidate made headlines earlier this month when he claimed Donalds, his primary rival, paid for sex on two different occasions in 2024 at the MGM National Harbor Hotel and Casino outside Washington, D.C., and that he was under federal investigation for sex trafficking. The Department of Justice denied there was any investigation into Donalds, whose campaign dismissed the allegations as a “baseless and defamatory sideshow.”

Fishback made the strategic announcement 12 days before the primary, but he insisted it was about transparency and not politics. Nonetheless, his campaign stunt reflects a broader pattern of misleading claims.

After surviving a lawsuit from Collins that questioned his eligibility in the race, Fishback claimed Donalds backed the legal challenge without providing evidence. Fishback later doubled down on the accusation, saying the suit was “clearly an orchestration” of Donalds.

“If Jay Collins did it, he would not have to just take out me. He’d have to take out Byron to win. If Byron did it, he could take out me and win easily,” Fishback told the Washington Examiner. “And so I think just basic logic with what’s publicly available suggests that this was a machination of both Jay and Byron to take out the only anti-establishment candidate.”

The campaigns of Donalds and Collins both confirmed the congressman was not involved in the lieutenant governor’s lawsuit.

Collins sought to kick Fishback off the primary ballot over Florida’s seven-year residency requirement prior to an election.

The lawsuit cast doubts on Fishback’s eligibility in the race over his ties to Washington, D.C., where he voted in the 2020 presidential election and received a homestead deduction for a condominium he bought in 2021. At the time, he signed mortgage documents stating the property would be his primary residence.

Under oath, Fishback admitted to voting in Washington, D.C., but testified he always intended to keep his Florida residency.

Despite his court victory, Fishback lost a different case recently. He was accused by Greenlight Capital of misrepresenting his role there by claiming he served as the “head of macro.” Greenlight maintained the role never existed and that he only served as a research analyst for the firm. Additionally, he allegedly used Greenlight’s confidential portfolio information to help kickstart Azoria Partners.

His shenanigans resulted in a final $1.3 million judgment he owes his former employer.

Separately, Fishback faced allegations of grooming and having an inappropriate relationship with a teenage girl when he was 27 years old. The two knew each other from Incubate Debate. As a result, Broward County Schools cut ties with Fishback and his debate league in 2022.

Details of the sexual misconduct allegations, which included physical harassment, were extensively reported by NBC News last December. Fishback denies any wrongdoing.

He is not the only one in his camp facing scrutiny. His running mate, former police officer Sean Lozano, is reportedly under investigation in Broward County for an alleged March 2025 incident in which he forcefully pushed an elderly woman to the ground and detained her. Surveillance footage of the event contradicted what Lozano reported to his supervisors. He was later terminated from his job at the police department, but that was apparently due to a medical reason.

Fishback and Lozano are running on a pro-law enforcement platform that targets teen takeovers and progressive prosecutors in the state.

How is he attacking Donalds?

Throughout the race, Fishback has employed what his critics would call inflammatory rhetoric or racist remarks in his political campaign against Donalds.

For instance, Fishback branded the black representative as a “slave” to his corporate donors in addition to other edgy nicknames for his Republican opponent.

The long-shot candidate also labeled the congressman a “DEI Republican” for missing 165 votes in the House since January 2021, about 5.7% of his total roll call votes. Donalds’s absence from Congress for certain votes concerns his challenger.

“He didn’t show up to work,” Fishback said. “He didn’t earn it, and now he wants a job promotion. That’s what DEI is at its core.”

Apart from those attacks, Fishback gave Donalds the derogatory nickname “By’rone” seemingly to mock Donalds’s race.

He remains unapologetic for the derisive comments and believes Republican voters are not bothered by them.

“I have never had a voter ever tell me they had an issue with those statements,” Fishback said. “In fact, I think they appreciate my honesty and my bluntness. I’m not politically correct. I’ve never intended to be.”

“I don’t run my comments through a press team or a consultant,” he added. “I just speak the truth, and I think Floridians appreciate my candor.”

Does he have a chance in the race?

Fishback is confident he can beat Donalds this week, despite recent polls showing otherwise.

In the latest RealClearPolitics polling average, Fishback trails Donalds by 40 points and Collins by 2 points. The average shifted since the Washington Examiner interviewed Fishback, who was previously in second place. He is now in third place.

Donalds is the clear frontrunner in the latest polls, consistently outpacing the others by double digits. The congressman benefits from having President Donald Trump’s “complete and total” endorsement and countless Florida Republicans in his corner, with the exception of DeSantis.

In fact, DeSantis has refused to endorse Donalds or his own lieutenant governor. The outgoing governor praised Renner for his “great record of policy” but implied that he hasn’t been effectively reaching voters in the state.

As the primary approaches, Fishback hopes DeSantis and his wife, Casey, will vote for him. But even if they don’t, he says their lack of public support for the other gubernatorial hopefuls is telling.

If DeSantis was allowed to run for a third consecutive term under the Florida Constitution, Fishback says he wouldn’t be in the race as he finds that DeSantis is the “greatest governor” in the state’s history.

Fishback believes he can defeat Donalds partly because the latter refused to debate his fellow primary contenders. The House Republican was the only candidate absent from the live July 2 debate hosted by Patrick Bet-David on YouTube. Donalds likely saw no benefit to debate in a race that he’s leading by a significant margin, but Fishback argued Florida voters should have gotten the opportunity to hear from him.

“A lot of voters have come to me and said, ‘You know, I wasn’t too sure about you. I was leaning toward Byron, but when he refused to debate you, that’s not a Republican that I could ever get behind,’” he said. “It’s rather hypocritical to call yourself a Republican in 2026 and to refuse to show up and answer questions in front of the voters and have your vision for Florida, your platform, your policies challenged.”

Donalds, however, is open to debating likely Democratic nominee David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida, ahead of the general election. Last month, Donalds challenged Jolly to three fall debates. Jolly responded, “Get through your primary and we’ll talk.”

In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup as seen in a survey from the University of North Florida, Donalds is leading Jolly by 5 points.

Meanwhile, Fishback continues to campaign online and offline. On social media, he posts videos of himself interacting with voters. He also boasted of his ability to hold a town hall in each of Florida’s 67 counties, a first in state history, in order to build grassroots momentum.

“Byron Donalds can’t put 20 people in a room to save his life,” Fishback claimed. “We pull 300 people into a room at 11:30 at night. We were there till 2 a.m. answering every last person’s question, and so I’m pretty confident that we are going to pull off a very, very big surprise on Aug. 18.”

AS DATA CENTERS SPROUT ACROSS THE US, GUBERNATORIAL HOPEFULS LOOK TO EASE VOTER FEARS

It remains to be seen if Fishback can fulfill his ambition to become the dark horse candidate of the race.

Following the 10-day early voting period, polling locations will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday.