Politics
HD 10 candidate has yearslong history with White nationalist secessionist group
Marshall Rawson has spent years appearing at events and promoting messages associated with a White nationalist, Southern secessionist organization classified by multiple anti-bigotry watchdogs as a hate group.
Now he wants your vote.
Rawson, Chair of the Greater Melrose Republican Liberty Caucus, a self-described “5th Generation Floridian,” is running for House District 10, which covers Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Columbia and Union counties. His Republican Primary opponent is real estate professional Chase Brannan.
Both seek the seat Brannan’s father, Chuck Brannan, is vacating due to term limits.
Rawson has been involved with some of Florida politics’ most prominent figures. A Hampton citrus farmer, Rawson served as a legal aide to Secretary of State Cord Byrd, whom he campaigned for during Byrd’s inaugural House campaign in 2016.
More recently, as a Florida State Guard member, Rawson aided Gov. Ron DeSantis’ border fight in Texas. And Rawson’s campaign website lists endorsements from former U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho, a passel of current and former elected officials at every level of government, dozens of local pastors and groups like the Republican Liberty Caucus and Gun Owners of America.
But he has also had an association with the League of the South — flagged as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2000 and the Anti-Defamation League in 2018 — for at least half a decade.
While in existence for 32 years, the League of the South, once part of the neo-Nazi Nationalist Front group, gained additional prominence after its members participated in the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, where violence erupted and a counterprotester was killed. The following year, the League rallied at the Florida Capitol.
In 2017, the group’s then-spokesman, Brad Griffin — a noted White nationalist — wrote on X that “Powerful Jews oppose the assertion of White identity while encouraging the expression of every other identity in order to weaken Whites!”
Michael Hill, who established the League of the South in 1994, lamented in a 2016 post on the organization’s website about the “Browning of America” before avowing, “So, in direct contradiction to the politically correct dictates of the current day, I pledge to be a white supremacist, an anti-Semite, a homophobe, a xenophobe, an Islamophobe, and any other sort of ‘phobe that benefits my people, so help me God! And I encourage you to do the same, for this is what it will take for us to save the South for our dear progeny.”
A 2014 blog post from an antifascist watchdog site placed him at numerous League gatherings while he was a student-athlete at Shorter University in Rome, Georgia, and reported he interned that Summer for then-U.S. Rep. Paul Broun — an internship Rawson’s campaign site confirms.
The blog includes screenshots it identified as posts Rawson made on the League’s Facebook page. In one, an account bearing his name said he was in Broun’s office taking phone calls and urging callers to “demand Secession.”
Other screenshots the blog published appear to show Rawson holding a flyer stating, “Immigration is Bad for Southern Workers” and a sticker reading “Secede From Obamaland.” Another picture shows the “Secede” sticker placed on a public service message poster with the caption, “Last week: Inside the Evil Empire’s Capital (sic) building,” and Rawson wearing a polo shirt with the League of the South’s emblem and name on it.
Seven years later, Rawson appeared as a featured speaker at the League’s “Florida Freedom Conference” in Lake City on Aug. 7, 2021, alongside Hill, the League president, and Executive Officer Mark Thomey.
Just weeks before the 2021 League conference, the Columbia County Republican Party publicly distanced itself from the group, saying it had tried to rent a venue under “Republican Conference” branding. “In NO WAY are they affiliated with the Republican Party of Columbia County or the Republican Party in general,” the post read. “This behavior is unacceptable.”
A firsthand account by journalist Tracey Eaton, who attended the event, quotes Rawson as saying that Southerners are “ridiculed, scorned and defamed at every turn” and that their enemies are trying to “water down” and destroy their identities.
“Yes, it is OK to be White and of Caucasian origin,” he added.
Hill and Thomey also spoke, Eaton reported. Thomey called for Southerners to “have our own place, our own country”; described Southerners as a “blood and soil nation,” echoing a slogan associated with Nazi ideology and chanted during the Charlottesville rally; discouraged Southerners from joining the military; and described Joe Biden’s 2020 election as a “selection.”
Notably, Eaton’s account describes Rawson as not a formal League member.
Also on stage that day was Pastor John Weaver, founder of Freedom Ministries. Weaver isn’t a passing acquaintance: He appears today as a formal “Out of District” endorser on Rawson’s campaign site.
The same endorsement list includes Matt Trewhella, a Wisconsin pastor who signed a 1993 document describing the murder of abortion providers as “justifiable,” according to contemporaneous news accounts and a 2024 ProPublica investigation.
A March 10, 2023, Facebook photo shows Rawson holding the Kentucky Orphan Brigade flag, a Confederate Civil War battle flag, with signs reading “Support Christian Marriage” and “God Sanctions Marriage SPLC Should Not” — both bearing League of the South branding and a now-defunct link to the group’s website, according to an archived capture of the URL.
A Jan. 25, 2026, post on the blog Clay News & Views catalogued some of Rawson’s more recent online activity.
Screenshots the outlet said it captured or received from his private X account show him agreeing with a call for a “national divorce” between the North and South, downplaying criticism of slavery because “God did many ‘racisms’ too” and rebuking DeSantis’ wish for followers to have a “Happy MLK Day!” by writing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Taking old dead communist heroes of the past and dressing them up as Christian Conservatives isn’t conservatism, it’s defeatism.”
Rawson has also weighed in on gender roles. In a July 15, 2024, post, he blamed “widespread gender dysphoria” on society encouraging “the Melissa McCarthy’s (sic) of the world to do a man’s job,” referring to the female Secret Service agent subjected to online body-shaming after the July 2024 assassination attempt on Trump.
“There is nothing decent, conservative or wholesome about encouraging women to do men’s work,” Rawson wrote.
Public records show Rawson recently went delinquent on property taxes, according to the Riverbend News — the paper of record for Suwannee, Lafayette and Hamilton counties — which listed him on Lafayette’s 2025 delinquent tax roll across two parcels, with $802 combined in advertised unpaid taxes, penalties and costs.
The Baker County Press also found Rawson has, at times, felt a need for speed.
Records the outlet reviewed showed he received three speeding citations between 2016 and 2022, one for going 87 mph in a 45-mph zone and another for clocking in at 74 mph in a 45-mph zone.
Asked for comment by the paper, Rawson admitted, “I once had a lead foot.”
Rawson has reported raising more than $145,000 through his campaign account, including $10,000 in self-loans. He had $82,600 remaining heading into the end of July, by which time he had reported receiving about $12,000 in in-kind aid.
Brannan, meanwhile, reported raising $195,400 through his campaign account, plus $99,000 through his political committee, Friends of Brannan, while receiving about $10,000 in in-kind assistance.
After active spending, Brannan had $51,500 left by July 24.
As Florida Politics previously reported, Rawson’s campaign has received three audit letters from the Department of State warning him of erroneous reports, with potentially more coming due to late filings over the past couple of weeks.
Democrat Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson, who also received three audit letters, and write-in candidate James Batley are also in the race.
Florida Politics contacted Rawson by phone and text Friday, but did not receive a response.
The Primary is Aug. 18, followed by the General Election on Nov. 3.
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