Infighting engulfs Florida GOP as candidate sues over election fliers linking him to China

An internal fight is brewing in the Florida Republican Party as a GOP state Senate candidate is suing a party political committee over "defamatory" attacks linking him to the Chinese Communist Party.

According to ClickOrlando, businessman Bowen Kou, who is challenging the state party's preferred candidate of outgoing state House Rep. Keith Truenow for the open Senate District 13, has been targeted in mailers from the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which say, “Why are Chinese donors (from all over the country) flooding Bowen Kou (Lake County State Senate Race) with cash?”

It's accompanied by a list of known Kou donors, which include several people with Asian names.

Kou is a U.S. citizen who emigrated from China to escape religious persecution. In addition to the lawsuit, he has reportedly announced a 24-hour hunger strike in protest of the mailers.

“I’ve publicly denounced the [Chinese Communist Party] numerous times, and I’m sharing my story,” Kou told reporters. “My family was facing persecution in China due to our Christian beliefs. And I came to America for the freedom, and the most harmful moments in my life now, the persecution I’ve faced, is the moment people call me ‘not American.’”

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Truenow, who also approved the mailers sent by the Senate committee, is unapologetic, telling reporters, “If someone were to look into some of those [donors] they might find out where the money came from. Look, I’m just trying to put out there that people need to look into their candidate.”

Florida has become a hotbed of drama in recent years over elections to the state legislature.

In one of the most highly-publicized cases in 2020, Republican operatives managed to knock off Democratic incumbents by recruiting "ghost candidates" who shared the same last name as the Democratic lawmakers, splitting the vote. This has led to federal election complaints, as well as criminal investigations and prosecutions of various consultants and strategists.