5 May 21-27, 2026 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | G ianna Tagliarini had returned home after a day of campaigning for far-right Florida gubernatorial can- didate James Fishback at the Hill- sborough County Fair when her phone started dinging with texts from him. “Come here,” Fishback wrote in a message that arrived at 10:34 p.m., a screenshot of which was shared with New Times. Tagliarini, a 30-year-old single mom who held an unpaid volunteer position as the cam- paign’s Hillsborough County chair, asked where, then began calling other members of the campaign. “Gianna,” the candidate wrote to her that night, on February 6. “Stop asking questions.” “Come here now,” he added after she said she didn’t know where he and the others were and that no one was answering the phone. “Just you and me.” Tagliarini was confused — and suspicious about Fishback’s intentions. She suggested they go out to a bar, wanting to be in a public place. Then she sent him her home address and asked if he could pay for her Uber. Immediately after, Tagliarini says, a friend who was also working for the campaign called to tell her Fishback had been reading the texts to a group of male volunteers in a hotel lobby — including a minor. Bryant Fulgham, who served in an unpaid role as a li- aison between the county chairs and Fish- back’s leadership team, told Tagliarini that Fishback had also called her a “foid,” a term originating from Internet forums like 4chan, meaning “female humanoid.” Fulgham, 22, confirms to New Times that Fishback was reading the conversation out loud, adding that the candidate “was mocking her and disrespecting her.” Tagliarini quit the campaign that night. “I was sick to my stomach. I sat there, and I cried all night because of it,” she tells New Times. “These kids looked up to me; all that hard work that I put in, he absolutely just threw it in the fucking trash. He discredited everything that I did.” Tagliarini is one of four former Fishback volunteers who quit the campaign in recent monthsand is now speaking out against the candidate. Fulgham, 22, is another. After get- ting what he viewed as a demotion, he leaked senior group chat messages to the Bulwark, a center-right political site. But Tagliarini’s resignation — and those of Orange County event coordinator Brayden Verner, 20, and volunteer William Gunn, 23, who say they quit after the candidate told a Black critic he should be lynched — have not previously been reported. Fishback disputed the allegations in this story, first in an April 30 phone interview and then in a May 12 re- sponse to emailed follow-up questions. “This is a silly attempt to discredit our surging campaign with fake news,” the candi- date said in a text message, declining further comment. According to most polls, Fishback is leagues behind the GOP front-runner, Trump-endorsed Congressman Byron Donalds. A Tarrance Group poll from April puts Fishback at 9 percent support among likely Republican primary voters, compared to Donalds’ 50 percent. But the Broward County native is wildly popular with college-aged men and draws crowds of hundreds. He has a prominent on- line presence and regularly gets national at- tention for his controversial statements. While on the campaign trail, he has called Donalds, who is Black, a “slave” to donors and referred to him as “B’yrone.” Fishback’s cam- paign has also been dogged by personal finan- cial issues stemming from a lawsuit filed by his former hedge fund employer and by ques- tions over a relationship he allegedly began with a 17-year-old girl he met through his de- bate nonprofit. The underdog campaign for the so-called groyper candidate is powered by scores of unpaid volunteers. Fulgham, who joined in December, was once so enthusiastic that, when Fishback was told by Disney security to move during a meet-and-greet, he responded, in a moment caught on camera, “he >> p6 RACE TO THE BOTTOM Ex-Fishback volunteers describe the toxic culture inside the gubernatorial campaign. By Jessica Bowlby James Fishback source photo by MakoMitch via Wikimedia Commons
