GOP criticizes own candidate in Florida because of “Chinese donors”

After immigrating to the United States from China as a young adult, becoming an American citizen, and building a successful chain of grocery stores and bakeries, Bowen Kou decided to try his hand at politics. He never imagined it would go so well.

The 35-year-old Republican is currently embroiled in one of the most notable Senate races in Central Florida in many years and is facing attacks from his own party for accepting donations from “Chinese donors,” exploiting the state and profiting off the backs of foreign workers.

Both he and his primary opponent, a veteran Republican in the state House of Representatives, have raised more than $1 million in their campaign coffers and have hundreds of thousands more to spend.

For Kou, this was a refreshing dose of political reality. He had believed he would be running as a centrist Republican for a vacant Senate seat reliably dominated by the Democratic Party. His campaign platform included rolling back regulations, curbing illegal immigration, protecting gun owners’ rights and banishing “woke ideology” from public schools.

“They usually raise money against Democrats, but putting so much support and resources into fighting a Republican is not common,” he said.

Last month, Kou filed a lawsuit against the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, the political committee that funded the ads, claiming that an ad that landed in thousands of mailboxes last month was defamatory. Earlier this month, he even stood outside the Lake County Courthouse and went without food and drink for 24 hours to protest the ads.

The party leadership favors Representative Keith Truenow, who is seeking his first term in the Senate after four years in the state House of Representatives. He will represent the constituency that includes all of Lake County and part of southeastern Orange County.

Truenow – who declined an interview request from the Orlando Sentinel – has the backing of Florida’s GOP bigwigs: Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis and Senate President Ben Albritton of Wauchula. Retiring Sen. Dennis Baxley, who represented Lake County in the legislature for more than 20 years, also endorsed Truenow.

The Republican nominee will face Democrat Stephanie Dukes in the November general election, but the district leans so far to the right — 44% of voters are registered Republicans, while only 27% are Democrats — that the winner of the Aug. 20 primary should have no trouble navigating the rest of the campaign season.

Kou and Truenow are both spending money that dwarfs other state legislative campaigns. While Truenow’s war chest comes largely from wealthy business interests traditionally associated with conservative candidates, Kou is footing the bulk of the bill for his first run for public office. He owns a chain of international grocery stores and bakeries that do $50 million in annual sales, he said, which has allowed him to invest $1.2 million in his own campaign.

A third Republican candidate, Cheryl “CJ” Blancett, has raised just over $7,000.

“No place in our party and in our country”

But what has attracted the most attention so far is the money that the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee in Florida has spent against Kou.

The emails show a picture of Kou superimposed over a Chinese flag and the words: “Why are Chinese donors (from across the country) showering money on Bowen Kou (Lake County Senate race)?”

The back of the mailer lists dozens of Kou’s campaign donors, most of them from out-of-state with Asian surnames. One arrow points to a map of the U.S. with several states highlighted, and a second arrow points to the outline of China. Kou said his donors are all Americans, many second- or third-generation citizens with little or no connection to China.

“Such political attacks should no longer take place today,” said Kou. “The history of racism is already behind us. This attack should have no place in our party and our country.”

The GOP organization denied the allegations made in Kou’s lawsuit that the emails were defamatory.

“The allegations made in Mr. Kou’s lawsuit are not only absurd on their face, they are also patently false, as is irrefutably demonstrated by the FRSCC’s legal response,” Erin Isaac, a spokeswoman for the organization, wrote in an email.

Lawyers for the Republican campaign committee argued that the letters did not identify the donors as Chinese citizens. “Viewed in context, the thrust of the letter is that Mr. Kou’s donors, who have Chinese surnames, are all too often from states outside Florida,” they wrote in a court document.

It’s unclear how much the committee spent on mail ads because state campaign finance reports don’t specify what spending corresponds to a specific mail ad. The group’s biggest donors include large corporations like Duke Energy, insurance companies and banks.

In addition to the letters, the Republican Senate campaign arm has spent more than $100,000 on television ads harshly criticizing Kou, Federal Communications Commission records show. One 30-second ad claims Kou received $6 million from “government-funded bailouts” and “hired foreign workers to boost profits.”

Kou said the ads refer to loans he has received that are backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration and that recipients must repay. He said he sometimes hires employees from other countries because they speak the languages ​​his customers prefer and are knowledgeable about the products his stores sell.

“I am very proud that I have never had to rely on government services since I came to America,” he said.

Kou has also filed suit against Brendon Leslie, CEO of Florida’s Voice, a right-leaning online media outlet, and Steve Crim, executive director of Common Sense America, over an article the website published on June 28.

The article quotes a letter from Crim and Common Sense America to DeSantis, which describes Kou as a “Chinese national running for a seat in the Florida State Senate” and says his candidacy has “raised many questions about whether he has any lingering ties to the communist country.” Crimea It also questioned when and how Kou came to the United States and obtained U.S. citizenship, how Kou was able to donate $1 million to his own campaign, and why he had “raised nationwide donations from other Chinese donors.”

Crim declined to comment on the matter Wednesday. In an email, he said he was traveling and had difficulty making phone calls. Leslie declined to discuss the lawsuit in an email, calling it “frivolous.”

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