Judge Keeps Fishback on Florida Governor Ballot, Rejecting Collins' Residency Challenge

Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback will remain on Florida's August 18 primary ballot after Leon County Circuit Judge David Frank rejected a legal challenge from rival candidate and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, who argued the 31-year-old failed to meet the state's seven-year residency requirement for governor.

Collins' lawsuit, filed in June, centered on Fishback's ties to Washington, D.C., including a 2020 D.C. voter registration, mortgage paperwork on a Washington condo he certified as his primary residence in 2021, and D.C. tax filings from 2019 through 2021. At a hearing last week, a forensic document examiner testified with "high confidence" that Fishback's own signature appeared on his D.C. voter registration form — contradicting Fishback's account that he had simply shown a Florida driver's license and unknowingly been given a district ballot.

Despite that evidence, Judge Frank ruled that the burden fell on Collins to prove Fishback had truly abandoned his Florida domicile, and found the Lt. Governor's team came up short. In a 25-page order, Frank wrote that Fishback never had "actual subjective intent" to permanently relocate, pointing to his Florida upbringing, driver's license, vehicle registration, and nonprofit debate work in the state. "This Court will not be deciding the race between the Lieutenant Governor and Mr. Fishback," Frank wrote. "That will be in the very sound hands of the voters."

Collins' attorney, Mark Meuser, called the ruling "disappointing," arguing the judge had effectively accepted "ignorance of the law" as a legal defense. Fishback, for his part, framed the outcome as vindication, posting that the "disgraceful lawfare" against him had failed.

The ruling leaves Fishback on the ballot alongside Collins, frontrunner U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, and former state House Speaker Paul Renner, with mail ballots already being returned statewide ahead of the August primary. Collins has not yet said whether he will appeal.