James Fishback claimed his DC condo as a primary residence through 2025 and voted there in 2020, records show. Florida’s constitution requires gubernatorial candidates to have lived in the state for seven consecutive years.
James Fishback, the 31-year-old alleged groomer and head of a troubled asset management firm who is running an insurgent campaign to succeed Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R.), claimed a Washington, D.C., condo as his primary residence through 2025 and voted in the district in 2020, records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show. The documents raise questions about Fishback’s eligibility to serve as governor, given that Florida’s constitution requires gubernatorial candidates to have lived in the state for the preceding seven years.
Fishback purchased a $400,000 condo in Northwest D.C. in September 2021, property records show. The deed identifies Fishback as a “single man” who previously lived at a D.C. property owned by his mother. It also includes a signed affidavit in which Fishback certifies “subject to criminal penalties” that the condo is a residential property “that is occupied and is used exclusively for nontransient residential dwelling purposes”—in other words, as his primary residence.
Such residences are eligible for property tax deductions, and Fishback took advantage of them. He saved roughly $1,500 a year in “homestead deductions” on his property taxes between 2023 and 2025, D.C. tax records show. The most recent deduction came on Aug. 4, 2025, indicating that Fishback claimed the homestead deduction in D.C. through tax year 2025.
The revelation may spell trouble for Fishback as he runs for office in a crowded GOP primary that includes Trump-endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds and Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins. The Florida constitution states that, when elected, the governor “must be an elector not less than thirty years of age who has resided in the state for the preceding seven years.”
Fishback did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fishback is a Florida native but does not appear to have lived in the state for the past seven years. He registered to vote in D.C. in 2020 using the same phone number now listed on his campaign’s registration with the Florida Department of State, voting records reviewed by the Free Beacon show. Fishback voted in the general election in D.C. that year, and his registration in the district remains active.
It’s the latest setback for Fishback, a chronic X poster who regularly calls Donalds—who is black—a “slave.”
Three months ago, in October, the board of trustees overseeing Fishback’s Azoria Capital LLC voted to liquidate and terminate two of the firm’s exchange-traded funds, citing “recent litigation involving a principal of” Azoria. Weeks later, in November, Fishback’s former employer, the hedge fund Greenlight Capital, repossessed Fishback’s 2022 Tesla Model Y to help pay for the firm’s legal fees after Fishback admitted to improperly sharing the fund’s confidential information. Fishback had sued the fund over a job title dispute. He claimed to have been the fund’s “head of macro,” a position Greenlight said did not exist. He also claimed to have served as an adviser to Elon Musk’s DOGE, though the department’s senior officials said he did not.
An NBC News report revealed in December that Fishback was accused of initiating an inappropriate relationship with a student involved in a middle and high school debate program he founded. The student, who was 17 years old at the time, wrote in a court filing that Fishback “explicitly directed” her to keep their relationship secret, “an isolation tactic commonly employed in grooming scenarios.” The allegations, which Fishback has denied, prompted some school districts to refuse to work with Fishback and led to the resignation of a board member.
Fishback released his campaign’s first fundraising report earlier this month, indicating that he had raised just $950 since he entered the race in November, $50 of which came from his campaign treasurer. He criticized news outlets that reported the number, calling it “yet another lie by the fake news media to hurt our surging campaign.” He submitted an amended report a day later, putting the number at $19,000. Donalds has raised $45 million.
Fishback purchased a home in Florida in October 2022, a year after purchasing his D.C. condo. The mortgage for the property, reviewed by the Free Beacon, requires Fishback to use the home as his “principal residence” within 60 days and reside in it “for at least one year.” Four months later, in February 2023, Fishback saved $714 in property taxes on his D.C. condo by claiming it as his primary residence, records show.
Fishback claimed no such exemptions on his Florida home between 2022 and 2025, suggesting that he did not maintain a primary residence in the state during that time. He could have used the tax breaks: Local records show Fishback was delinquent on his property taxes in 2023, when he failed to pay a $431 bill and accrued $58 in penalties. Fishback declared in an August deposition that he did not have the means to pay the more than $200,000 in legal fees that he owes his former employer, Greenlight.
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