Republicans in some of the country’s most hotly contested Senate races have something in common that might drag them down.
Four GOP candidates – former Rep. Mike Rogers in Michigan, Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas, Michele Tafoya in Minnesota and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – own real estate in Florida, according to MS NOW, and Democrats are using it to paint them as out of touch.
The attacks have stung badly enough that Marshall’s campaign told MS NOW on Thursday he had sold his Florida home. The Kansas Reflector reported last month that he owned a Sarasota vacation home valued at about $1.2 million, and he has hosted fundraising retreats in the state.
At a debate, Marshall insisted his home “is a short hour’s ride down a gravel road here” and said he used the Florida house to visit his grandchildren. His Democratic opponent, Adam Hamilton, needled him, saying, “I’m not going to sell my house and move to Florida.”
In Michigan, Rogers can’t seem to shake the “Florida man” label. Michigan Public Radio reported that he and his wife bought a $1.6 million home in Cape Coral in 2022 and claimed it as their permanent residence in 2023. They listed it for sale in 2025 but reportedly took it off the market last month, and Rogers was also registered to vote in Florida at one point.
His campaign highlighted his Michigan roots and took a shot at Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, whose wife owns a rental property in the United Arab Emirates.
El-Sayed hasn’t let up. “He knows he’s going back to Florida,” he told a Macomb County town hall crowd, which booed. “He has a house in Florida. He had had it on the market for like $200,000 more than it’s worth.”
Tafoya may have the hardest record to explain. The Minnesota nominee owns a home in Miromar Lakes, Florida, and in 2023 she posted that she was “embarrassed” to say she lived in Minnesota, and that same year she called herself “sort of a Florida woman” and a “Florida resident.” In 2024 she wrote that she’d be “fleeing soon.”
“Tafoya is welcome to leave for Mar-a-Lago any time she likes,” a spokesperson for Democrat Peggy Flanigan said.
Paxton, his blind trust and a family trust together own three Florida homes as part of a larger property portfolio, according to public records reviewed by The New York Times.
The Tafoya and Paxton campaigns did not respond to MS NOW’s requests for comment.
There are signs the message is breaking through. In an MS NOW focus group, some Macomb County voters called Rogers a “carpetbagger.” Kelly Gentry, a voter in Wichita, said she “definitely” doesn’t like Marshall’s “Florida connection.”
“How are you in touch with your constituents when you’re hundreds of miles away from them?” she said.
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