Michael Carbonara willing to make sacrifices to beat Debbie Wasserman Schultz, flip Broward red

Republican Michael Carbonara has found plenty of success as an entrepreneur. Now, he feels confident he can unseat the longest-serving Democrat in Florida’s congressional delegation.

As the South Florida businessman challenges U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, he acknowledges that a run for public office requires sacrifices.

“You give up on the ability to make money and different successes and building that business,” he said. “But if we don’t have a country that allows businesses to thrive and people to have a quality of life that we want, a certain standard of living, if we don’t make those sacrifices now, it’s not going to be there tomorrow.”

Carbonara’s LinkedIn page shows he served as CEO of Gattaca Genomics and Ibanera, and as a Board member of BitLine until September. His business background covers fields like genetic research and fintech. He hopes to maximize the value of his own investment in the campaign using his expertise in cryptocurrency.

Of the more than $893,000 in funds his campaign reported through September, $700,000 came from candidate loans. Carbonara has invested in bitcoin and ethereum for periods to increase the worth of that investment.

“The funds that we did that with were only the funds that I put into the campaign myself, because I didn’t want any potential donor to be worried,” Carbonara said.

“We did safeguard from a donor perspective, in that way, but again, hedging against the volatility. This is not a short-term trade. This was a long-term play. And what we did, it also made sure that as we were getting it, we were hedging our costs lower and lower as time went on. That way, when we do liquidate to use those funds for the campaign, we’re going to wait for the right time when we maximize the upside. We’re not in a rush to liquidate it. We’re going to wait till the right time.”

He’s also making a bet on the political trends in South Florida continuing to shift. Broward County, once Florida’s brightest blue bastion, saw a significant increase in Republican voters post-pandemic. Wasserman Schultz in November still won re-election over Republican Chris Eddy by 9 percentage points, but she won in 2022 by more than 10 percentage points under the same congressional lines over the better-funded Republican Carla Spalding.

And that’s before the Republican-dominated Legislature takes a fresh look at political boundaries. The Florida House this week will hold its first redistricting meeting as President Donald Trump pressures red-state lawmakers to maximize GOP-leaning seats ahead of the 2026 election.

But Carbonara said he entered the race before any of that conversation arose, and senses a shift in the Broward-based district already.

“We looked at everything, and we know with our messaging, with our resources, with our team and what the district wants that ultimately we’re going to beat Debbie Wasserman Schultz next year.”

That message is one of economic freedom and a safeguarding of borders, with a particular focus on protecting the U.S. from hostile Islamic forces. He spoke with Florida Politics days before Trump announced the Muslim Brotherhood, a political party that led the Egyptian government for more than a year, would be redesignated as a foreign terrorist organization. Carbonara was already accusing the organization of trying to infiltrate the U.S. Congress.

“If the Muslim Brotherhood is openly talking about putting 50 members in Congress within six years, how is anyone not seeing the danger here?” he posted on Nov. 26. “They’re slowly dismantling a nation from the inside. People need to wake up before it’s too late.”

He told Florida Politics he thinks it’s important to take steps to combat the organization’s influence domestically.

“There’s discussions about whether they’ll be designated as a terrorist organization or not, and the fact that discussion is happening is worthwhile to at least pay attention to what’s going on,” he said. “There’s Sharia law happening in this country right now, and that is the antithesis of our Constitution and our freedom here, and Sharia law does not belong in the United States.”

He said he has already had discussions about the race with the White House, and has been fundraising in Washington, D.C. “They were excited about the idea of Broward turning red, and they wanted to support however they could,” he said.