As new allegations emerged with the release of the House Ethics Committee’s findings on Matt Gaetz, some of his supporters in his former district echoed Mr. Gaetz’s criticisms of the investigation as partisan and unfounded.
“Your past makes you who you are today, and Matt is a darn good congressman,” said Sandra L. Atkinson, the former chair of the Republican Party in Okaloosa County, part of the Florida panhandle region that Mr. Gaetz represented until his resignation last month. She added that Mr. Gaetz, the Republican member of Congress from the state’s First District since 2017, never “got sidetracked by the lies, and the people that are the jealous — the haters.”
Democrats and some Republicans have long criticized Mr. Gaetz and his penchant for attention-grabbing stunts, and the release of the report drew more critiques.
At a bar in downtown Pensacola, Fla., Patti Gallion Bergstrom, 69, a retired broadcast journalist who said she supports Democrats, said of Mr. Gaetz, “He shouldn’t even be on the streets, let alone be in office.” And Gay Valimont, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran against Mr. Gaetz in November, said on Monday that Mr. Gaetz “has always been a fraud.” But Mr. Gaetz has retained notable support from some Republicans in Florida, some of whom questioned why Mr. Gaetz faced such scrutiny from the committee, given that a Justice Department investigation did not result in any charges.
“I stand with him and hope to see him continue his public service in the near future,” said Juan C. Porras, a Miami-based state representative, in a post on social media.
Dogged by the committee investigation and allegations of illicit drug use and sexual misconduct, Mr. Gaetz still handily won re-election last month. He denied wrongdoing and accused his opponents of a personal vendetta.
In Mr. Gaetz’s district, the campaign for his replacement in Congress is well underway. Mr. Gaetz abruptly resigned from his seat after Mr. Trump announced his nomination to be attorney general, but then withdrew from consideration amid bipartisan resistance. He is now slated to become an anchor on the conservative One America News Network next year.
At least a dozen candidates have filed to run for the vacant seat, with a primary scheduled for Jan. 28 and a general election on April 1. Candidate forums are already happening.
John Roberts, chairman of the Escambia County Republican Party, credited Mr. Gaetz’s ability to speak “very forcefully and effectively” in favor of Mr. Trump and against President Biden’s immigration and spending policies as the reason he was repeatedly re-elected in the district.
“We’re going to elect a good conservative to this district,” Mr. Roberts said, adding that it would likely be someone who aligned with Mr. Gaetz on policy but “who won’t have some of those other issues that we don’t like.”
The seat is expected to remain in Republican control, and a majority of the candidates seeking the post are Republicans. More than 803,000 people live in the district, which caps off the western end of the Florida Panhandle and includes Escambia, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa Counties.
Mr. Trump has endorsed Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer, as his preferred candidate for the seat. Several candidates dropped out following the endorsement, in which Mr. Trump declared Mr. Patronis “a wonderful friend to me, and to MAGA.”
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