Maxwell: Cory Mills' many messes shouldn't surprise GOP voters

Yahoo

2 hours ago

After George Santos left Washington, it was hard to imagine any member of Congress generating more cringe-inducing controversies.
Enter Cory Mills, who apparently viewed this opening as a hold-my-beer challenge.
Considering the following headlines:
'Rep. Cory Mills hit with revenge-porn accusation after breakup with beauty queen'
'Ethics report details allegations Cory Mills held contracts with federal agencies after election to Congress'
'Central Florida Rep. Cory Mills under investigation by DC police over alleged assault'
'Landlord seeks to evict Republican congressman over unpaid rent at D.C. apartment'
'Stolen valor? Veterans dispute Cory Mills' record: 'He fooled a lot of us''
Those stories are all from just the last six months, some trumpeted by hard-right, conservative media outlets.
Rep. Mills disputes ex-girlfriend's sex video extortion allegations
Mills, a former Army sergeant and military contractor who is in his second term as the Republican rep for Seminole and Volusia counties, says virtually all of the accusations are bogus.
Still, Republicans are nervous — as evidenced by yet another headline last week from Politico: 'Republicans quietly fret about 'disturbing' Cory Mills allegations.'
Well, here's the reality: Nobody should've expected much different.
When Mills first ran for Congress in 2022, there were several respected Republicans in the field — serious policy-minded conservatives who would've just gone about the business of doing their jobs.
But Republican voters in Florida didn't want serious policy makers. They wanted a bomb-throwing extremist. And that's exactly what they got.
While thoughtful GOP candidates — like Ted Edwards, a former Orange County commissioner, and Rusty Roberts, a former chief of staff to former Congressman John Mica — talked about issues like transportation, gun violence and the economy, Mills was threatening to tear gas the media.
And GOP voters ate it up. The entire race was modern MAGA personified — sound, fury and division beating thoughtful discourse to a bloody pulp.
It didn't always used to be this way in this district. For years, this Seminole County-centered district was purple, meaning it elected more moderate members like Republican John Mica and Democrat Stephanie Murphy.
But then GOP legislators redrew it to be heavily Republican, meaning the candidate who ran the furthest to the right would probably win.
So guys like Edwards and Roberts — Republicans with proven track records of service — never stood a chance.
Instead, they were overshadowed by guys like Mills, who ran ads gaslighting Black Lives Matters and the journalists, and Anthony Sabatini, who fumed about DEI and drag queens.
Edwards and Roberts talked policy and showed up at candidate forums. Mills and Sabatini threw bombs, sowed division and couldn't even bring themselves to attend a candidate Q&A sponsored by the AARP.
Two months before that GOP primary was held in 2022, I was pretty sure I knew which approach would prevail, writing a column that said the following:
'So while Edwards is talking about trying to protect the lives of children, Sabatini is ranting about drag queens and Mills is airing an ad where he offers to tear-gas the media. We'll see which approach resonates with more Florida Republicans. I've covered Florida politics long enough to think I know. I'd love to be wrong.'
I was not wrong. Mills and Sabatini finished in first and second place in the primary. Neither Edwards nor Roberts even fetched 6%.
Can a gun-toting Republican who supports gun-safety laws win a Florida primary? | Commentary
Mills then went on to win the general election and has been embarrassing himself and the state ever since.
It started his first week in office when Mills made national headlines for joking about the bloody hammer attack of Nancy Pelosi's husband, saying: 'Finally, one less gavel in the Pelosi house for Paul to fight with in his underwear.'
That's precisely the kind of maturity and humanity voters supported.
The accusations against Mills have gotten more serious ever since, some of them coming from fellow veterans and Republicans.
Mills and his reps have said it's all bunk — that the veterans who dispute his life-saving stories may have been confused by the fog of war, that he settled the issues with his $20,000-a-month unpaid rent, that the woman who originally reported he assaulted her recanted her statement and that the recent accusations of video extortion from a former Miss United State and current Republican state committeewoman are the result of a bad breakup and political targeting.
Maybe he's right. Maybe Mills is the most wrongfully accused guy in Washington. Still, it's pretty remarkable that Mills has generated more ugly headlines in the past six months than most politicians do in a career.
Politico reported that 'Some of his GOP colleagues are wondering if they should start looking for another candidate to back in the district' while others are hoping 'Mills' various messes will sort themselves out without blowing back on the party more broadly.'
They can hope all you want. But Mills let the party and its voters know what kind of politician he was from day one.