Dark MAGA Police Reporting
Rep. Cory Mills is Dark MAGA personified
News is insane these days, but this caused a double-take:
Cory Mills is Dark MAGA personified. The second-term congressman represents Florida’s 7th congressional district,1 but is rumored to be considering a Senate campaign to fill the seat vacated by Marco Rubio, who is now Secretary of State.
NBC Washington has the police report:
“(Her significant other for over a year) grabbed her, shoved her, and pushed her out of the door.” The report says she showed the officer “bruises on her arm which appeared fresh.”
The first report goes on to note that during a phone call between the significant other and alleged victim, she “let officers hear Subject 1 [now identified by MPD as Mills] instruct her to lie about the origin of her bruises … Eventually, Subject 1 made contact with police and admitted that the situation escalated from verbal to physical, but it was severe enough to create bruising.”
We have been watching Mills, who looks like the type of dangerous extremist oddball who has underperformed in recent years - when challenged with significant resources.
Mills is married with two children. And he is hardcore MAGA in a district that is not (Trump won 52.2% of voters in FL-7 in 2020). And he is not just MAGA - there is something deeply weird about his path to Congress.
In late January 2021, Mills was making local news in Virginia as a consultant in Falls Church, VA where he lived in a $4.2m, 11,000 square foot house. The business, as Business Insider later reported, “sells arms to foreign governments. He won't say which ones … Mills has refused to publicly disclose his foreign dealings or even confirm who owns the company.”
A few weeks later, on March 23, 2021, Mills registered to vote in what rival Republicans called “a wee bitty house” owned by a Democratic work connection. Two weeks later, in April, Mills launched a congressional campaign saying he “recently moved to a house in Winter Park from a family home outside the district. He also maintains a residence in the Washington area, where one of his companies is headquartered.”
That company has some issues.
Pacem is also loaded with debt: It owes $48 million to a Canadian lender, nearly five times the company's highest potential valuation. Mills said the loan was funding research and development.
There are additional issues that have dogged the company. In the past two years, the munitions plant has been forced to shut down twice for failing to pay workers' compensation insurance premiums, according to Florida's Department of Workers Compensation.
According to financial disclosures from Mills, two of his companies are worth “anywhere from $10 million down to just $2 million.”
Speaking of $2 million, that is how much Mills owes his campaign committee2 - a campaign that ended 2023 with less than $70,000 in the bank.
Ok, so besides all the company debt, and campaign debt, and arms dealings with undisclosed foreign companies, and having just moved to the district, Mills also has some basic MAGA baggage. Here is how an analysis of last cycle’s freshman Representatives summed up Mills:
Mills does not view Biden as the “legitimate” president because of what he calls a “multitude of fraud that has been found throughout multiple states.” In the days after the 2020 election, he called on Republicans in Congress to support and fight for President Trump and the “America First agenda” and spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Dallas, Texas. He also believes the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection is biased and politically motivated, arguing it should instead focus on auditing the 2020 election … Mills would support returning to a system where US senators are chosen by state legislatures.
He joked about Nancy Pelosi’s husband being violently attacked. He filed a bill to imprison book publishers for five years and wants to cut off aid to Ukraine and “redefine birthright citizenship.”
Here’s a headline and pic just to round it out:
The Challenger
Jennifer Adams is, well, the opposite of Cory Mills. A hometown candidate with a compelling story and track record of getting things done - things like helping pass a bipartisan law protecting victims of domestic violence.
Last cycle, the Democratic funding marketplace did not support Adams3, a first-time candidate, at the level required to inform voters.
Here are the basics from her website:
A Florida native, raised in Central Florida, Jennifer is giving back to the community that helped her grow and persevere, first as a small business owner, an advocate for domestic violence survivors and a community leader, and now as a candidate for Florida’s 7th Congressional District where she will fight to ensure everyone can attain the American Dream.
Having survived domestic abuse and the devastation it wreaks on victims and their families, Jennifer knows what it is to overcome adversity and not only survive, but thrive.
Her tenacity is not only learned, it’s inherited. Both of Jennifer’s grandfathers proudly served in the military; her mom is a former elementary school teacher; and her dad was the first scholarship-receiving football player to graduate with an architectural degree from the University of Florida.
As a neighbor, she wants us all to work together to identify better solutions, regardless of ideology or party affiliation.
Right now we are hurting, and it needs to stop. We feel the impacts of soaring home prices and rent. Groceries and basic goods and services are more expensive than ever. We’re unsure whether we’ll all have access to the same basic freedoms and rights that should be guaranteed to all Americans.
In 2022, the Democratic challenger in FL-7 raised less than $70,000. Without a credibly funded challenger, Cory Mills blew away his Democratic opponent in a district similar to those won by Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and nearly won by Adam Frisch. Both of those campaigns narrowly emerged from the vicious cycle that is predictably bonkers: center-right districts are not rated as competitive by the political ratings agencies, so candidates don’t get resources, and then because candidates don’t have resources the ratings agencies keep them rated as “Safe Republican”.
Breaking The Cycle
As we noted recently, WelcomePAC has put proverbial boots on the ground in four districts over the last two years. In all four, Cook Political Report has moved the race rating towards Democrats. This is a credit to our partners, from longtime center-left leaders to ex-Republicans to renegade operatives who think differently along with us to identify undervalued opportunities to challenge MAGA incumbents.
Most of all, it is a credit to the Democratic candidates - some of whom only recently became Democrats - throwing their careers into the fray to put democracy on offense.
And gotta say, it is a bit damning of the system. An upstart group scattered throughout the country should not be able to spot districts where Democrats are “Conceding Democracy” by not funding challengers (see: Beware The Ratings Agencies). But it is no one’s fault: there is no such thing as “The Democrats,” just an interconnected network of groups responding rationally to political incentives (see: But Don’t “The Democrats” Do That?).
MAGA extremists may not all be vulnerable, but some who are still don’t get challenged. Once you see it you cannot un-see it. There are winnable races all over the country. Not hundreds of them, but dozens of them.
Plenty to have the Speaker’s gavel in the hands of a Democrat.
So follow Jennifer Adams on X and Facebook to amplify as she holds Mills accountable. Contribute to Blue Dog PAC, one of the few Democratic organizations to support Adams last cycle. And stay ready to find more beatable extremists.
FL-7 stretches from suburban Orlando to the coast south of Daytona Beach. It looks like many that Democrats flipped from Red to Blue in recent years, with more college-educated voters than the national average.
Mills loaned his campaign more than $2 million
Democratic committees and individual donors contributed less than $210,000 to the Adams campaign
Typical GOP male 🙄