Florida has long played an outsize role in national politics. But this midterm cycle, the state also holds another unique distinction: It’s where multiple Republican congressional candidates — who are running for Senate in other states — own property.
Mike Rogers, Roger Marshall, Michele Tafoya and Ken Paxton — all GOP nominees in some of the most hotly contested Senate races across the country — own real estate in the Sunshine State.
Democrats are eagerly trying to exploit those holdings to cast their opponents as out of touch with the needs of the states where these Republicans are running. The attacks have been so potent that one of those GOP candidates — Marshall — told MS NOW that he just sold his Florida home.
The Kansas Reflector reported last month that Marshall owned a vacation home in Sarasota valued at around $1.2 million. He has hosted fundraiser retreats in Florida. His wife held a real estate license in the state from 2021 to 2023. And The Kansas City Star reported Marshall took several official trips from the nation’s capital to the Sarasota area.
At a debate in Kansas last month, Marshall said his home “is a short hour’s ride down a gravel road here.” He said he used the Florida property when visiting his grandchildren.
On Thursday evening, Marshall’s campaign told MS NOW that the senator no longer owned a home in Florida because he had sold it. Local press reported the property had been listed for sale as of August.
In Michigan, Rogers continues to face lingering questions about whether he is in fact a “Florida man.” He faced similar scrutiny when he ran for Senate last cycle as well.
Michigan’s NPR station reported that Rogers and his wife bought a home in Cape Coral for $1.6 million in 2022 — and claimed the Florida home as their permanent residence in 2023. While they listed the home for sale in 2025, the couple reportedly took the home off the market last month.
Rogers was registered to vote in Florida at one point — but his registration in Michigan is once again active. In the lead up to the 2024 election, Rogers dismissed questions about his residency as “absolutely nuts.”
In a statement to MS NOW, a Rogers campaign spokesperson touted the former congressman’s Michigan roots, saying he was “raised in Michigan and went on to raise his family here.”
“He ‘summered’ right here in Michigan, completed his Army ROTC training through the University of Michigan, and is looking forward to continuing to serve Michigan in the U.S. Senate,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that, after Rogers’ Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, loses in November, “he’ll probably return to his luxury property in the UAE since he hates Mackinac Island and everything Michiganders stand for so much” — a reference to El-Sayed’s financial disclosure from July showing his wife owned a rental property in the United Arab Emirates.
Tafoya, who is making a bid to be the next senator from Minnesota, owns a home in Miromar Lakes, Florida, according to local property records.
Tafoya has a history of saying disparaging things about Minnesota — while touting Florida. In 2023, she posted that she was “embarrassed” to say she lives in Minnesota. In 2024, she posted she’d be “fleeing soon.”
Meanwhile, in 2023, she described herself as “sort of a Florida woman” in a video podcast, reasoning that she lives there “part time” and owns a house there. Later that year, she called herself a “Florida resident” in a social media post.
Paxton, who is running for Senate in Texas, has a real estate portfolio that includes properties in Florida.
Public records reviewed by The New York Times show Paxton — along with his blind trust and a family trust — owns a litany of properties in different states, including three homes in Florida.
In several of these races, the Democratic candidates have latched onto their opponent’s Florida ties.
El-Sayed invoked the former congressman’s Florida property multiple times during a recent town hall in bellwether Macomb County.
“He knows he’s going back to Florida,” El-Sayed told the crowd of hundreds, sparking jeers and boos. “He has a house in Florida. He had had it on the market for like $200,000 more than it’s worth.”
In a statement to MS NOW, El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Cole Wozniak said, “As a multi-millionaire accustomed to his Florida mansion and two yachts, Rogers is wholly out of touch with the needs of working Michiganders.”
“That’s why he’s backed Trump’s Iran War and trade war from the start, even though both are sending costs sky-rocketing,” Wozniak wrote.
In Kansas, Democrat Adam Hamilton mocked Marshall’s Florida ties during last month’s debate, saying he “will live here after I’m elected senator.”
“I’m not going to sell my house and move to Florida,” Hamilton said.
In a statement, Tyson Brody, a spokesperson for the Hamilton campaign, accused Marshall of abandoning Kansas and “failing our state,” saying “Kansans need a senator that will actually be here for us — literally and figuratively.”
A spokesperson for Democrat Peggy Flanigan — who is running against Tafoya — told MS NOW in a statement that the Republican nominee “has made it very clear where her loyalties lie: in Florida, right next to Donald Trump.”
“Minnesotans don’t want someone who is ‘embarrassed’ to call our state home. Tafoya is welcome to leave for Mar-a-Lago any time she likes,” the spokesperson added.
And in Texas, Paxton’s Democratic opponent James Talarico recently released a video mocking Paxton’s broader real estate portfolio outside of Texas — though it does not invoke the Florida holdings explicitly.
The Tafoya and Paxton campaigns did not respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee wrote, “These Republican Senate candidates will be able to spend plenty of their time at their million-dollar Florida homes after they lose in November.”
But are these real estate questions — and the Democratic messaging around them — cutting through to voters?
In a recent focus group conducted in Michigan, MS NOW found some Macomb County voters dismissing Rogers as a “carpetbagger.”
In Kansas, a Wichita voter, Kelly Gentry, told MS NOW she “definitely” doesn’t like “the Florida connection.”
“He wants to say that he spends more time here than he actually does, so that’s my concern,” Gentry said. “How are you in touch with your constituents when you’re hundreds of miles away from them?”
Nnamdi Egwuonwu contributed to this report.
The post ‘Florida resident’: How owning property in Florida has become a political liability for GOP Senate candidates appeared first on MS NOW.
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