Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign has almost no money in its coffers after it raised a miniscule amount during the first three months of the year. The incumbent was vastly outraised by a little-known Democratic primary challenger, Elijah Manley.
In the two months after announcing his candidacy in early February, Manley raised $273,389 — more than 18 times the $14,875 Cherfilus-McCormick raised during the entire quarter.
And Manley reported significantly more cash in his campaign bank account as of March 31 than the incumbent. He had $161,394. She reported just $3,937 in cash on hand.
The fundraising numbers contained in reports filed with the Federal Election Commission don’t necessarily mean Cherfilus-McCormick is in danger of losing her seat, but the totals are extraordinary.
Even a Republican candidate — who has virtually no chance of victory in Florida’s most overwhelmingly Democratic district — raised slightly more than Cherfilus-McCormick.
Manley crowed about the results, asserting they show that “the people are saying loud and clear — enough with out-of-touch incumbents.” Cherfilus-McCormick said there was no cause for alarm and that everything was going according to plan.
Sean Foreman, a political scientist at Barry University, said the incumbent’s fundraising was “really unusual.”
“These are not good signs for a sitting congressperson because they are usually very well equipped in their fundraising early on to help them keep their seats,” Foreman said. “If that’s all she’s raised so far, that puts her at a disadvantage compared to other incumbents.”
Cherfilus-McCormick
Cherfilus-McCormick raised just $875 from individuals, plus another $14,000 from political action committees, from Jan. 1 through March 31.
Incumbents running for reelection routinely report exponentially higher fundraising, even when the election is far off, hoping their large campaign bank accounts will dissuade potential challengers. “I would think she’d be raising money to scare off primary challengers,” Foreman said.
The campaign reported spending $16,360. Incumbent members of Congress usually report much higher spending well in advance of elections as they build and maintain their campaign operations.
Other South Florida Democratic incumbents raised and spent much more during the quarter and had significant bank balances on March 31:
— U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel raised $269,000 in the quarter and ended with $494,350 in cash.
— U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz raised $169,000 in the quarter and ended with $392,500 in cash.
— U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz raised $312,300 and had $1.1 million in the bank.
Frankel, Moskowitz and Wasserman Schultz represent districts in which Republicans are much more competitive than Cherfilus-McCormick’s districts, so their financial situations aren’t completely comparable.
Still, it’s a remarkable change for Cherfilus-McCormick, who put seven figures of her own money into her campaign in 2021 and 2022. She won a special congressional primary in 2021 for the nomination to succeed the late U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings by just five votes.
She won a full term in 2022. In 2024, she was the only Florida member of Congress returned to office without facing a primary or general election after no Democrat or Republican came forward to challenge her.
Manley
Manley raised $273,389 during the quarter.
Manley, who has unsuccessfully run for office several times before, announced his candidacy on Feb. 4, which means his money came in over the course of 56 days, which works out to about $4,882 a day.
As is often the case with candidates who aren’t well known, he spent heavily to raise money. Manley’s campaign spent $111,490 during the quarter, with much of the spending going to activities related to fundraising expenses.
The vast majority of his contributions — 89% — came from small, unitemized contributions of less than $200. And as often happens with candidates whose fundraising is powered by online contributions, lots of it comes from a broad national base, not locally. At least 80% of the contributions listed on his finance report came from people with addresses outside Florida.
He ended the quarter with $161,390 cash on hand.
Campaign debt
Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign reports it has $4.3 million in debts.
The vast majority — $3.7 million — is previously reported loans from Cherfilus-McCormick to her earlier campaigns, mainly the 2021 special primary election that led to her first victory, and the 2022 primary that led to her winning her first full term.
Many of those loans were for amounts in five figures; some were six-figure loans.
During the most recent quarter, the report shows three loans from Cherfilus-McCormick to her reelection effort for $700, $200 and $354.
Entries for the 2026 amounts list her occupation as CEO of Trinity Health Care Services even though she has said she left that job at her family-owned company during the course of the 2021 campaign.
It’s unclear if Cherfilus-McCormick has the resources to personally fuel a competitive race the way she did in the 2021 and 2022 primaries.
Her most recent financial disclosure, filed last year with the clerk of the House, reported assets for 2023 worth between $1,001 and $15,000 and assets belonging to her husband between $65,002 and $150,000. A 2022 filing reported that at the end of 2021 she and her husband had combined assets worth from $1.4 million to $5.9 million.
Members of Congress aren’t required to provide complete details about their assets and liabilities, which are reported in broad ranges, making it impossible to figure out a lawmaker’s net worth.
Expensive investigations
The campaign finance report shows the cost of ongoing ethics investigations.
The Office of Congressional Ethics referred its findings of multiple campaign transactions and official government office activities that its investigators said may have violated House rules and federal law to the House Ethics Committee. It’s unknown when the office started its examination; the referral was in September 2023. In December 2023, the Ethics Committee formed an Investigative Subcommittee.
Cherfilus-McCormick has said that the review “does not indicate any violation has occurred” and in January said that she was “continuing to collaborate” with the subcommittee.
That has proven costly.
At the end of the quarter, the campaign had outstanding legal bills totaling $550,000 with the Elias Law Group in Washington, D.C., a prominent national election law firm. The campaign incurred $66,000 of those charges in the first quarter of 2025.
The campaign also owes $56,000 to Kaiser PLLC, another Washington, D.C., law firm. One of Kaiser’s main practice areas, according to its website, is congressional investigations.
Another creditor, owed $46,354, is Angerholzer Broz Consulting for “Fundraising and Compliance Consulting Fee.” Outstanding bills to the Washington, D.C., firm as of March 31, including $20,481 incurred in the first three months of the year, the report said.
Firm partner Randall Broz is Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign treasurer.
“These are debts incurred from responding to the ethics filing fueled by the opposition. Complaints aimed at one goal: draining my campaign financially to stop us from doing the work we need to do. But let me be clear: The fight to protect, defend, and stand in the gap for the constituents will continue. It must,” Chefilus-McCormick said in her emailed statement.
New complaint
On April 7, the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit government watchdog organization, said it filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging violations of federal campaign finance law from her first election.
Also named in the complaint are business entities associated with her family, political organizations, and political consultants.
Relying largely on information contained in 2023 Office of Congressional Ethics referral made public in January, the Campaign Legal Center said the congresswoman “appears to have violated federal campaign finance laws by transferring or directing over $250,000 in ‘soft money’ — funds that do not comply with federal contribution limits, source prohibitions, and reporting requirements.”
Cherfilus-McCormick downplayed the group’s complaint: “These are the same set of circumstances, they keep flipping and changing. There’s nothing new here. Every opponent has pushed the same line and narrative, but the district sees through it. There is one goal behind these attacks: Financially drain my campaign to stop the work I’m doing for the people of D-20.”
Political outlook
Cherfilus-McCormick said raising money hasn’t been her focus this year.
“I’ve been spending most of my time fighting in the community, hosting town halls, listening sessions and roundtables, dealing with the crisis in Middle East, dealing with deportations and TPS challenges for Haitians and Venezuelans, dealing with the escalating crisis in Haiti, fighting back the tariffs that are affecting both ports in Palm Beach and Port Everglades” and fighting to preserve veterans’ Social Security and Medicaid benefits, Cherfilus-McCormick said via email.
She said she has always planned to implement an aggressive fundraising strategy in the second quarter.
“Our opposition has been solely focused on filing complaints, trying to ignite investigations, trying to distract us from effectively fighting for our constituents,” she said.
Stephen Gaskill, a political communications consultant and former president of the Florida LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus, said he is “sure (that) when the campaign kicks in to gear” the congresswoman “won’t have trouble raising the money she needs to be reelected, especially in what we are expecting to be a Democratic year.”
Manley’s communications efforts are somewhat biographical as he introduces himself to potential donors, and have criticized what President Donald Trump and Republicans who control Congress have been doing.
He’s also been pummeling Cherfilus-McCormick, and did so again in his response to her campaign finance report.
“While my opponent is mired in campaign debt and scandal, our campaign is earning the support of working-class Democrats across South Florida and the country,” Manley said in a statement. “Voters are ready to replace a corrupt healthcare CEO with a working-class teacher and organizer who will fight for them.”
Manley’s prospects are uncertain.
He’s 26, and has already made several unsuccessful bids for office.
Manley ran for Broward School Board in 2018, receiving 18.6% of the vote. He’s also run three times in Democratic primaries for state representative: in August 2020 (30.1% of the vote), January 2022 (25.1%), and August 2022 (29.2%).
Foreman said a candidate with higher name recognition would likely have a better chance at defeating an incumbent. But, he added, “you never know. Politics is about being in the right place at the right time. If Cherfilus-McCormick has a lot of negative publicity toward her campaign, that could help her opponent no matter who it is.”
Cherfilus-McCormick said she is taking his challenge seriously. “I take every opponent seriously, it could be anybody. Why? Because I take the job I do seriously. Especially during this time when there’s so much to fight for,” she said. “Anyone who is trying to interfere with the fight, disrupt or interrupt the American people, we take them very seriously. This is a moment when we should be unified, not fighting each other.”
The district
The 20th Congressional District takes in most of the African American and Caribbean American communities in Broward and Palm Beach counties.
It includes much of central Broward, including all or parts of Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Lauderdale Lakes, Plantation, Lauderhill, North Lauderdale, Sunrise and Tamarac.
It also takes in a large swath of the Everglades and goes north to the Glades communities near Lake Okeechobee and extends back east to include parts of Royal Palm Beach, West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach.
The partisan voting index from the Cook Political Report rates the district as D plus 22, which means it performed 22 points more Democratic than the nation during the past two presidential contests.
That makes it the most Democratic district in Florida and one of the most heavily Democratic in the nation.
It is so overwhelmingly Democratic that the winner of the August 2026 primary is all-but-guaranteed to win the November election.
Still, Republican Rod Joseph has filed paperwork to run.
Joseph came in fourth in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in 2024. He soon switched parties and endorsed U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., for reelection.
Joseph reported raising $16,847 in the quarter, spending $12,517, and finishing with $4,330 in the bank on March 31.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.
