Of all the votes Dan Bongino needs on Aug. 30 to win the GOP primary for Southwest Florida’s congressional district, there’s a very important one he won’t receive: his own.
The former Secret Service agent, who has never held elected office, has eyed seven different political races in two states and campaigned for three since leaving his federal job in 2011. He set his political sights on the Southwest Florida congressional race after buying a house in Palm City on the east coast, about 100 miles away from the district he wants to represent but where he can’t vote.
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Bongino, 41, moved to Florida from Maryland, where he campaigned unsuccessfully in 2012 for the U.S. Senate and in 2014 for the U.S. House. Martin County property records show he bought his house in Palm City on July 13, 2015.
That’s about the time local media on the east coast began reporting Bongino was considering running for Rep. Patrick Murphy’s former House seat in District 18, which includes Martin County. That race became crowded quickly, and as soon as Southwest Florida’s Rep. Curt Clawson announced he wasn’t seeking re-election, Bongino shifted gears.
“It was a conservative representative who surprised the entire political world that announced he wasn’t going to run. No conservative jumped in the race. Dan Bongino is a conservative. Dan Bongino ran for the office,” Bongino said, laying out his logic for jumping in.
Bongino said the reason he didn’t run in Murphy’s district is because he supports veteran Brian Mast, one of six Republicans competing in that Republican primary.
“I didn’t run in Patrick Murphy’s district because there’s a guy who lost both his legs overseas in a combat zone who’s a good guy,” Bongino said. “I was asked to look at the seat by a number of people. I’m not going to give you anybody’s name, but again these were prominent people who knew I was moving to Florida, who said, ‘Hey, give it a look.’ I wasn’t interested.”
Bongino and Mast’s campaigns are both being supported by several of the same political committees, such as American Principles, Citizens United and HSP Direct LLC PAC.
When Bongino was campaigning for Senate in Maryland in 2012, he used a slogan, which then turned into a PAC called “Cede No Ground.”
A YouTube clip, published on Aug. 6, 2012, shows Bongiono at a fundraiser in Maryland during that bid, criticizing Republican politicians for doing precisely what he’s done three years later: leaving their district to campaign somewhere where it’s easier to win.
“This is where the fight is. The fight against the ideology that other men and women should take more of your money, more of your healthcare decisions, and all of your educational system away is happening here. This is ground zero for it. Why would you leave? Relish this fight. Take it in. Fight in your home. Don’t leave,” he said.
“Never cede ground. Ever.”
Immigration stance
Bogino said he’s now renting in Naples while campaigning.
He cited, among other things, his stance on immigration as evidence he’s more conservative than his rivals.The Naples Daily News has previously reported how both Bongino and one of his opponents, Naples businessman Francis Rooney, have more hard-line stances on immigration today than they’ve previously held. Bongino also is running against Sanibel Councilman Chauncey Goss in the three-way GOP primary.
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Bongino said his kids still go to school in Martin County and that he and his wife try to split the time between both places.
If Bongino is struggling as a new name in Southwest Florida, he has created quite a brand online, where he calls himself “The Renegade Republican.”
“We just passed a million downloads on iTunes,” said Bongino, whose two books, 2013’s “Life Inside the Bubble,” a tell-all about life in the Secret Service, and this year’s “The Fight,” both made The New York Times best-seller list.
Recent podcasts include “Debunking Liberal Spin About Democrats and Inner Cities,” “How The Media Fooled America,” “The Truth About Trade Wars” and “I’m Disgusted by Republicans for Hillary.”
Those topics are top-of-mind for Cape Coral teacher and campaign volunteer Sharon Field, who joined Bongino in front of a Walgreens one recent afternoon with a handful of signs, her small-businessman husband, Steve, and their sons, Austin, 7, and Jacob, 2.
Sharon Field doesn’t just share a political philosophy with Bongino; there’s shared history, too — they went to St. Pancras Catholic school together in New York, but then lost track of each other until they reconnected a few months ago.
“Thank goodness he’s here. We need him,” she says, as Steve Field nods. “He’s not your typical politician.”
Inspired to do police work
Bongino isn’t originally from Maryland. He’s from Long Island, New York. He grew up poor, in a chaotic household.
“My family broke up early,” he said. After his parents divorced, his mother married a Golden Gloves boxer — “6’5″, about 300 pounds … a monster (with) hands like ham hocks,” Bongino said.
He also was a mean drunk who used to beat up Bongino’s 5-years-younger brother, Joe, he said. “He choked me out one time too. … Child Welfare used to come to our house all the time.”
Bongino said he only saw one thing ever scare his stepfather: the police.
“I’ll never forget this: This small female cop, she’s like 5’1″ and this tall Italian guy with a mustache show up, and this female cop … just tells him to leave. And I remember going, ‘I have to do this job. This is the coolest job ever. You get to change people’s lives just like that.’ And that’s why I became a cop. I’d wanted to be a doctor — I took the MCATS — but that’s why I became a cop.”
When Bongino was 15, he took his little brother and moved out.
“I got an apartment in Middle Village by myself. I’m the oldest. My father helped us pay. I was going to school in New York City,” he says. “My grandmother always says to me, ‘You’re the only self-made man — legitimately self-made man — I ever met.’”
Later, while working as a Secret Service agent, he met the woman who became his wife: Paula, a web developer and Colombian immigrant. They have two daughters, and he admits it hasn’t all been a picnic.
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“I had a broken family. My marriage has been tough,” he says. “What I really hate is politicians who don’t talk honestly to rank-and-file, down-to-earth people. Listen, there’s nothing wrong with once in a while, when people go, ‘So how’s your marriage?’ saying, ‘You know, it’s tough. Marriage is hard work. We have kids and sometimes my kids come home in a really pissy mood and it’s really hard on my wife. And we yell at each other. And we shouldn’t.’ ”
Wasn’t looking for politics
Bongino said he came to Florida for family reasons, not political. He said in a recent forum that his wife has lupus. He said in an interview they moved to Florida so she could be near her mom who, he said, has houses in Sarasota and Vero.
A different Youtube clip, published on Oct. 12, 2014, shows Bongino after his House bid saying he was done with campaigning for office for a while.
“This may be the last election for me for awhile. My family’s kind of… their fun meter’s kind of pegged right now. And they come first,” Bongino said.
In an interview, he said regardless of what had been reported previously, he wasn’t looking to run for office at all in Florida.
“As a matter of fact, I wasn’t interested in running at all. I have a great life, I enjoy it,” Bongino said. “Life is really good to me. My book sold well. Everything was going terrific. But, this seat opened up unexpectedly.”
Bongino’s personal disclosure filed in June shows he reported making a living in media. He reported $60,000 from CRTV in Las Vegas, $25,000 from MacMillan Publishing, with media hosting jobs accounting for about $7,000 on top of that. The previous year he reported similar income.
In a July questionnaire, Bongino said he was a small-business owner. In 2012 when running in Maryland, Bongino said he and his wife paid corporate taxes at “the highest rate possible,” according to an interview published on YouTube on Sept. 19, 2012.
But Bongino declined to discuss his small business experience in detail and became irritated when asked why the information wasn’t clear on personal disclosure forms from his Maryland races.
“Oh my God. Are you not listening to me? Seriously, this is like beyond. And you wonder why I get angry,” Bongino said in response to questions. “And I can’t tolerate this ignorance. The business was shut down before I ran because I ran for office. So, we didn’t have time to manage it. It was actually doing very well. We still have a list of like 800-900 customers.”
Bongino’s short temper has surfaced a few times during the campaign. In Cape Coral, he became so upset with an audience member at a forum, organizers had to intervene before the exchange went further, according to a July article. On Sunday, he hung up on Politico Florida’s politics reporter Marc Caputo after swearing at him, according to Caputo’s Twitter.
Bongino also had an argument on national television with a cable show host on Aug. 9 when discussing GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s comments about Second Amendment advocates stopping Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“You don’t know crap about this, Don. You’re a TV guy. I was a Secret Service agent,” Bongino said to CNN’s host Don Lemon.
Bongino said he would keep the same temperament if elected to Congress.
“Ha! Yeah, you know what: I don’t take any crap,” he said. “End of story. You want to vote for a representative who sits there while you’re all getting screwed over, go right ahead. Have a good time.”
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