Outside of a Fort Lauderdale hotel ballroom where Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback spoke, two 21-year-old supporters from Miami-Dade effused about the young Republican.
Adam Torres admired how Fishback wants to put the brakes on overdevelopment: “I like his approach that we don't have to be crazy fast.” His buddy, Carlos, who did not wish to provide his last name, said Fishback would “preserve wild Florida.”
Unlike other gubernatorial campaigns, Fishback’s insurgent Republican campaign is breaking through to young Floridians.
Interviews with six young male supporters, volunteers and undecided voters at Fishback events reveal how he’s winning them over with populist positions, like taking on corporations, protecting the environment and helping young people get housing.
Just feet away from where Adam and Carlos lauded Fishback, however, other supporters stood by, wearing t-shirts and hats that said “American Reich” — a reference to the Nazi’s third Reich.
The scene is representative of the two types of support buoying Fishback’s insurgency: young voters who hear a political candidate addressing their reality living in Florida and far-right supporters who hear dog whistles and language used in the darker corners of the internet.
The 31-year-old former investor from Davie has been heavily criticized for using racist and anti-semitic language, like referring to the Black Republican frontrunner as a “slave” to corporate donors and a “DEI hire,” telling a heckler who is Black he deserved to be “lynched,” and using an anti-semitic term called “goyslop” in a speech.
Fishback is still considered a longshot to win. An average of the three most recent statewide polls puts Fishback at around 16% and frontrunner, Congressman Byron Donalds, at around 40%, in the upcoming August 18 primary election.
However, he’s gained significantly on Donalds in the past several months, more than doubling his spot in polling.
Rival Republican candidates and the GOP establishment increasingly see Fishback as a threat.
The Republican Party of Florida uninvited Fishback from its marquee forum in Broward last month, Florida’s attorney general admonished him and the lieutenant governor sued him over his qualifications to run.
In early July, WLRN sat down with Fishback to better understand his growing base of support and to ask him about his use of language considered to be racist and anti-semitic.
“I would say get over it. I would say that there's a bigger fight to be had over my word choice, and that fight is the future of the state of Florida,” he said in the July 8 interview.
“If you're not gonna vote for me because you don't like the words that I use, but you wanna vote for a guy who's gonna build an AI data center, I just respectfully disagree with your decision,” he said.
‘Groypers,’ ‘Goyslop,’ and the GOP
Since announcing his campaign for governor last November, Fishback has received support from online movements associated with far-right views.
Those include “gropyers”, “incels,” and the “manosphere.”
“Groypers” are an internet subculture that centers around support for streamer Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who has endorsed Fishback.
These are explicitly white nationalist, anti-semitic and misogynistic spaces, a top Anti-Defamation League official said in testimony to Congress in 2022.
"Jews are running society, women need to shut the f--k up, blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise. It's that simple," Fuentes, their leader, said in a March 2025 livestream.
WLRN asked Fishback about Fuentes’ endorsement of his candidacy.
Fishback downplayed any ties between them.
“ I've never spoken to Nick Fuentes,” he said. “I see stuff online, but I don't pay any attention to it.”
Online videos and statements show Fishback has talked about Fuentes and his supporters.
In December 2025, Fishback commented on Fuentes’ appearance on the Piers Morgan Show.
“Nick made it very, very clear. We are done with the pearl clutching. We are done with the white guilt,” Fishback said.
Of “groypers,” Fishback has called them "incredibly informed," "insightful," and "very patriotic". He has retweeted accounts that explicitly espouse white nationalism or have “groyper” in their usernames.
Read more: Byron Donalds continues fundraising domination in Florida governor's race
In March he appeared on a live conversation on X, previously known as Twitter, hosted by an account named “Greg the Groyper”.
Fishback has expressed opposition to U.S. aid and arms to Israel, a position that’s common on the left and not anti-semitic. Today, more young Americans are critical of Israel, which has killed 73,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked Israel.
But some Fishback supporters hear his anti-Israel positions as anti-Jewish ones. Especially considering he has used terms criticized by Jewish groups as anti-semitic.
“If you wanted kids to fail, if you wanted to set our kids up for failure, you would feed them the absolute goyslop in our cafeterias,” he told a crowd at the University of Central Florida in April.
According to the ADL, “goyslop” is an allusion to an anti-semitic conspiracy theory that Jewish people control food production and purposely feed “goy” — a Yiddish word for a non-Jewish person — low quality food to keep them unhealthy and compliant.
'Hearing more and more about him'
Young supporters of his might not know about, or even care, about the language he’s used.
The Fishback they know is the one they first heard about on Instagram Reels, railing against the establishment in campaign speeches — clipped for social media and promoted by his motivated online supporters.
Those interviewed by WLRN specifically mentioned Fishback proposals like paying young families to buy a home, cracking down on private equity firms that scoop up housing to rent them, restricting mass surveillance and banning artificial intelligence data centers.
One such supporter is Cade Mason, 21, from Lighthouse Point. He told WLRN at Fishback’s May rally in Tamarac that he’s feeling economic anxiety.
“ I was fired up (by) everything he was saying, especially about being able to buy property in the state of Florida,” Mason said. “'Cause, you know, like my parents did, (and) it's harder than ever now.”
Mason said he learned about Fishback through Reels.
Avi Zieper, 17, lives in Weston and came with his dad to the Tamarac rally because he wanted to be informed on all the candidates before voting for the first time in the fall.
Zieper said he leans left and is undecided, but liked that Fishback is candid about protecting the Everglades and housing for young people.
Fishback, he said, is speaking directly to young people, including his friends from high school.
“A lot of them are not so engaged, but a lot of them are hearing more and more about him on social media,” Zieper said. “While a lot of my friends aren't sure who they're gonna vote for yet, they definitely know who James Fishback is.”
