As Republicans battle in a 5-way Primary for CD 11, Nizam Razack says he’ll ‘put results ahead of rhetoric’

The Republican Primary for Florida’s 11th Congressional District features Nizam Razack and four other candidates hoping to succeed Republican U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster, who is retiring after 16 years in Congress and 28 years in the Legislature.

The district includes Sumter County and parts of Lake, Orange and Polk counties. Webster most recently won re-election in 2024 with 60.4% of the vote.

In the recent redistricting, the district lost its southernmost portion and pushed further into the Orlando suburbs, but the seat’s Cook Partisan Voter Index only shifted from an “R+8” to an “R+7.”

Razack is competing against fellow Republicans Carey Baker, Ivette Palomo, Joe Strada and Tim Wilkins. Razack has been the second-biggest spender in the race to date behind only Strada.

Democrats James Pericola, Royal Webster and Dan Williams are competing for the Democratic nomination, and Libertarian Ralph Groves has also qualified.

Florida Politics asked candidates to answer a few questions. We are publishing their responses unedited so voters can hear directly from candidates. Here’s what Razack told us:

— Profession: Board-certified neurosurgeon, law professor, educator, and healthcare entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience caring for patients and leading medical organizations.

— Education: Earned a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, completed neurosurgical residency training at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, advanced fellowship training at the Mayo Clinic, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, and later earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.).

— Years in the district: More than 26 years.

— Community involvement: For more than three decades, I have served Central Florida as a neurosurgeon, caring for thousands of patients and their families. I have mentored medical students and residents, taught healthcare law, and supported numerous charitable, educational, and community organizations. I have participated in healthcare outreach, civic events, and public policy discussions focused on improving patient care, lowering healthcare costs, supporting veterans, strengthening families, and expanding educational opportunities. My wife and I are proud to have raised our family in this community, where we remain actively engaged in serving our neighbors.

— Why are you running? What are your top priorities? I am running because Washington has too many career politicians who understand politics but have little experience solving real-world problems.

For more than 30 years, I have served patients as a neurosurgeon, built businesses, taught healthcare law, and worked with families during some of the most difficult moments of their lives. I have seen firsthand how government regulations, rising costs, and bureaucratic interference affect patients, physicians, small businesses, veterans, and working families.

My top priorities are making healthcare affordable, securing our border, lowering the cost of living, protecting Social Security and Medicare, strengthening our military, supporting veterans, restoring fiscal discipline, defending parental rights, and protecting the constitutional freedoms that make America exceptional.

Congress does not need another political celebrity. It needs experienced problem-solvers who will put results ahead of rhetoric.

— What are the biggest issues facing residents of this district? What’s one bill you’d like to introduce in Congress? The biggest issues facing our district are the rising cost of housing, groceries, insurance, energy, and healthcare. Residents are also concerned about protecting Social Security and Medicare, managing growth, strengthening public safety, securing the border, supporting veterans, and ensuring that younger families can still afford to buy a home.

My signature legislation would be the Healthcare Freedom and Affordability Act. It would require meaningful price transparency, expand competition, reduce unnecessary federal mandates, strengthen health savings accounts, protect patients with preexisting conditions, lower prescription-drug costs, and allow physicians and patients not insurance companies or Washington bureaucrats to make medical decisions.

Healthcare reform should not be about placing the federal government in charge of another massive system. It should be about giving patients more choices, lowering costs, and restoring the doctor-patient relationship.

I would also introduce the Congressional Integrity and Accountability Act, prohibiting members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children from buying or selling individual stocks while the member serves in office.

Members of Congress frequently receive classified briefings, participate in regulatory decisions, and vote on legislation that can significantly affect private companies and entire industries. Public service should never become a personal investment strategy.

Members could invest in diversified mutual funds, broad-market index funds, government bonds, or qualified blind trusts, but they should not be permitted to use privileged access to outperform the citizens they represent.

Congress should live under the same rules it imposes on everyone else. Public office is a public trust not a stock-market advantage.

— Democrats blame Donald Trump for inflation, Republicans blame the lingering effects of the Joe Biden administration, while Americans just want their prices to go down. What can Congress do to ease the cost of living for working families? Families are tired of political finger-pointing. They want groceries, gasoline, electricity, insurance, housing, and healthcare to become affordable again. Congress should reduce reckless deficit spending, unleash American energy production, eliminate unnecessary regulations, make tax relief for working families and small businesses permanent, strengthen domestic manufacturing, and stop federal policies that increase the costs of housing and transportation.

We must also restore competition in healthcare, address abusive insurance practices, expand price transparency, and protect the value of the dollar through responsible budgeting.

Inflation is ultimately too much money chasing too few goods. Washington cannot spend, borrow, regulate, and tax its way into lower prices. We need fiscal discipline, greater American production, reliable energy, competitive markets, and policies that reward work, savings, investment, and entrepreneurship.

The latest federal data show that prices were still 3.5 percent higher in June 2026 than one year earlier, even though prices declined during the month. That is progress, but families still feel the accumulated damage from years of rising costs.

— Do you believe AI will ultimately create more jobs than it eliminates, or should government slow its adoption to protect existing workers? What AI regulations or guardrails, if any, do you support? Artificial intelligence can create new industries, improve medical care, strengthen national security, increase productivity, and help American workers compete. However, technological progress must serve humanity not replace human responsibility or undermine individual liberty.

Government should not attempt to freeze innovation or place Washington bureaucrats in charge of every algorithm. That would drive investment and talent to China. However, clear guardrails are necessary to protect our children from online predators. 

I support protecting children from exploitation, requiring parental consent when schools use AI involving minors, prohibiting unauthorized use of personal medical or biometric information, protecting intellectual property, requiring disclosure when AI generates deceptive political communications, and holding companies accountable when their systems knowingly facilitate fraud, discrimination, trafficking, or criminal activity.

We must also invest in workforce education, apprenticeships, technical training, and retraining programs so American workers benefit from technological advancement. America must lead the AI revolution with innovation, transparency, accountability, and respect for constitutional rights.

— Americans frequently complain about the cost and complexity of our healthcare system. What realistic solutions do you propose? As a physician who has practiced medicine for more than 30 years, I know the problem is not a lack of hardworking doctors, nurses, and medical professionals. The problem is a system buried under bureaucracy, hidden prices, insurance barriers, mandates, administrative waste and fraud.

First, patients should know the true price of treatment before receiving nonemergency care. Second, we must require hospitals, insurers, pharmacies, and pharmacy-benefit managers to provide honest and understandable pricing.

We should expand health savings accounts, permit greater insurance competition, strengthen direct primary care, reform medical liability laws, increase access to generic and biosimilar medications, and remove regulations that prevent qualified professionals from providing care.

We must protect people with preexisting conditions, strengthen Medicare, improve veterans’ access to community care, and preserve rural and independent medical practices.

The answer is not government-run medicine. The answer is patient-centered reform that restores competition, transparency, choice, accountability, and the doctor-patient relationship.

— How should we counter China’s growing influence and power, and what can we do to ensure America retains its technological, military and economic advantages? China is not merely an economic competitor. The Chinese Communist Party is pursuing long-term technological, military, diplomatic, and economic dominance.

America must respond with strength and strategy. We should rebuild domestic manufacturing, secure critical supply chains, produce essential medicines and medical equipment in the United States, protect intellectual property, and prevent hostile foreign interests from acquiring sensitive technology, infrastructure, farmland, or property near military installations.

We must maintain the world’s strongest military, expand our Navy, modernize missile defense, strengthen cybersecurity, secure access to critical minerals, and accelerate American leadership in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, energy, biotechnology, semiconductors, and space.

We should deepen relationships with allies while insisting they contribute fairly to collective defense. We must also confront Chinese espionage, cyberattacks, fentanyl trafficking, unfair trade practices, and coercion against Taiwan and other regional partners.

Peace is best preserved through overwhelming American strength, economic independence, technological superiority, and clear consequences for aggression.

— With regard to ending the ongoing conflicts in Iran and Ukraine, what should America’s goals and approach be? America’s goal should be peace through strength not endless war, weakness, or open-ended commitments without a strategy.

Regarding Iran, we must prevent the regime from obtaining nuclear weapons, protect American troops and citizens, defend freedom of navigation, support our allies, and impose severe consequences for attacks against the United States. Diplomacy should remain available, but negotiations must be backed by credible military and economic pressure. Iran cannot be rewarded for terrorism, hostage-taking, attacks on American forces, or attempts to dominate the region.

Regarding Ukraine, Russia must understand that aggression cannot become an acceptable method of redrawing international borders. At the same time, Europe must assume a much greater share of its own defense burden. Any American assistance should serve clearly defined national interests, include strong oversight, and support a realistic path toward a negotiated and enforceable peace.

Our objective should be to deter further aggression, prevent a wider war, protect American interests, and bring these conflicts to responsible conclusions not write blank checks or place American troops into another generation of war. NATO continues to call for Russia to end its aggression and withdraw its forces, while Ukraine is seeking additional defenses against intensified Russian missile attacks.

— Would you vote to continue funding Israel’s defense? Are there any conditions you want to impose on that funding? Yes. Israel is a critical American ally and has the right to defend its citizens against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and other terrorist organizations committed to its destruction.

I would support defensive cooperation, including missile-defense systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow. Preventing hostile missiles and drones from killing civilians is both strategically responsible and morally justified.

However, every expenditure of American taxpayer money deserves accountability. Assistance should serve a clearly defined American security interest, be subject to oversight, and be used consistently with its authorized purpose. We should also encourage Israel and other capable allies to assume increasing responsibility for their long-term defense needs.

Supporting Israel does not require America to endorse every decision made by every Israeli government. Allies may disagree honestly. But there should be no confusion about our commitment to Israel’s survival, the defeat of terrorist organizations, the release of hostages, and preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

— The House recently voted to adopt year-round daylight saving time. How would you have voted?

I would have voted yes.

Florida residents should not have to reset their clocks twice a year simply because Washington has continued an outdated and disruptive system. Permanent daylight-saving time would provide more usable evening daylight for families, outdoor activities, tourism, small businesses, and community events.

However, implementation should be coordinated carefully with transportation, schools, healthcare institutions, and neighboring states. Congress should also review objective medical and public-safety evidence rather than pretending that moving the hands on a clock somehow creates additional daylight. Washington has performed stranger tricks, but it has not yet learned to control the sun.

— What letter grade would you assign Trump’s second term so far? Do you have any critiques of his job performance, and what direction do you think Republicans should take in 2028? I would give President Trump an A-minus. He has provided strong leadership on border security, American energy, deregulation, military strength, trade, and confronting the political establishment. He has also reminded Washington that government should put American workers, families, businesses, and national interests first.

No administration is beyond constructive criticism. Republicans must continue working to reduce federal spending and debt, bring greater discipline to the budget process, lower healthcare and insurance costs, and ensure that policy announcements are followed by effective and consistent implementation. Results matter more than headlines.

In 2028, Republicans should continue the America First agenda while building a durable governing coalition around secure borders, affordable living, strong families, constitutional liberty, military strength, educational excellence, and economic opportunity.

The Republican Party must welcome every American who shares those principles, regardless of race, religion, or background. We win by delivering results, defending freedom, and treating voters with respect not by demanding that every Republican agree on every issue.

— Why are you the best nominee to win this seat in November? I offer voters something Washington desperately needs: real-world experience, a record of solving difficult problems, and the ability to unite people around practical conservative solutions.

I am a physician, attorney, educator, employer, husband, father, and longtime resident of this district. I have performed more than 15,000 surgeries and spent more than 30 years making serious decisions in which preparation, judgment, accountability, and results mattered.

Healthcare and the cost of living are among the most important issues facing American families. I am uniquely qualified to lead the national debate on replacing bureaucracy-driven healthcare with a patient-centered, affordable system. I can speak to physicians, veterans, seniors, small-business owners, working families, and voters who may not always support Republicans but recognize competence, integrity, and common sense.

I will strongly defend President Trump’s America First agenda while maintaining the independence necessary to represent the people of this district. This election will be won by expanding the conservative coalition. I am prepared to unite Republicans, reach independent voters, defend our record, and win in November.