Former New York Rep. Chris Collins on Friday launched a comeback bid for another seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, this time in Florida.
The former Niagara-area representative who served in Congress from 2013 to 2019 was the first congressman to endorse President Donald Trump‘s 2016 campaign. If elected in Florida’s 19th Congressional District, Collins would be coming back to the lower chamber after pleading guilty to an insider trading indictment in 2019, resigning his New York seat, and serving two months in prison.
“We need to take our country back. We need to make America great again. We need to be a country where our children and grandchildren can live the American dream, like many of us did. I’m Chris Collins, the original Trump conservative,” Collins said in his video announcement.
Trump pardoned Collins in December 2020, in the final weeks of his first term, allowing Collins to walk free after serving two of 26 months of his prison sentence. Collins, who moved to Florida after leaving Congress in 2019, is running for the Gulf Coast seat, which is currently held but being vacated by Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who is running to be Florida’s next governor in 2026.
“I helped President Trump start the fight in 2016. I’m running for Congress to help him finish it,” Collins wrote on X.
CAWTHORN ANNOUNCES RUN FOR FLORIDA HOUSE SEAT TO BE VACATED BY DONALDS
The 19th district, encompassing cities like Naples and Cape Coral, has been a Republican stronghold since 2012 after the state’s redistricting. Donalds has held the seat since 2020, winning in 2024 by over 32 percentage points.
Collins’s bid puts him in a crowded Republican primary, where he faces another controversy-ridden former congressman who relocated to the Sunshine State, former Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC). There are over half a dozen other Republicans who have declared they are running for the seat, as well.