WASHINGTON – Laura Loomer is a self-proclaimed proud Islamophobe. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, PayPal, Venmo, GoFundMe, Airbnb, Uber and Lyft have banned her. That didn’t dissuade voters from choosing the 27-year-old Republican to represent the party in the race for Florida’s 21st Congressional District.
Loomer, who has President Donald Trump’s support, will be running against the incumbent, Rep. Lois Frankel, a 72-year-old Democrat who assumed office in 2013. Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott also represent the district’s area, which includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.
“Great going Laura. You have a great chance against a Pelosi puppet,” Trump wrote on Twitter referring to Frankel as the “puppet.”
LAURA LOOMER THANKS PRESIDENT TRUMP FOR TWEET! @realDonaldTrump #FL21 https://t.co/vkShZfRqg6 pic.twitter.com/S6zHfrAymr
— Ali Alexander 🟧 (@ali) August 19, 2020
Loomer first gained notoriety among some Republicans over her work with Project Veritas, a right-wing group that uses hidden cameras to expose “liberal bias and corruption.” In 2015, she was suspended from Barry University, a private Catholic university in Miami Shores, over her undercover work.
Project Veritas Exposed created a profile of her reporting she is from Arizona, lived in New York and her aliases included Laura Lewis and Jess Jones. Her Loomered website lists a P.O. Box in Lake Worth and advertises her account on Telegram, a free app that offers end-to-end encryption.
The Palm Beach Post listed Roger Stone, Gavin McInnes and Milo Yiannopoulos among the guests at her victory party. Rep. Matt Gaetz and Marc Zell, of Republicans Abroad Israel, endorsed her. She campaigned as a far-right Jewish millennial.
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) August 19, 2020
Yiannopoulos is a British commentator who resigned from Breitbart News over pedophilia remarks. He has too been banned from Twitter and Facebook, so he shares his content with thousands of Telegram users.
McInnes, who is Canadian, is a co-founder of Vice Media. He is also the founder of the Proud Boys movement, which the FBI has investigated and has attracted the interest of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League and the Marshall Project.
They all celebrated her. And according to the Palm Beach Post, Stone referred to Loomer as the “Joan of Arc of the conservative movement.”
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The Associated Press and ABC News contributed to this report.