The Pentagon veteran and Trump appointee jumps into a GOP field chasing a seat the new map flipped from blue to a national target.
Dan Green, a Navy reserve officer and Pentagon appointee under President Donald Trump, announced a campaign for Florida’s 9th Congressional District as the state’s congressional qualifying week opened, entering a Republican field that redistricting turned from an afterthought into a real contest.
The Vero Beach Republican said he is putting $1 million of his own money into the race and arrives with the backing of the War Veterans Fund, the group he co-founded in 2018 to elect veterans to Congress.
CD 9 changed more than almost any seat in this round. Under the old lines it was an Osceola-anchored, Hispanic-majority district that Darren Soto had held comfortably since 2017, and one Kamala Harris carried with about 51% in 2024. Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ new map stretched it south through the middle of the peninsula and east to absorb all of Indian River County — Green’s home turf — and the politics flipped with the cartography. Florida Politics’ analysis found Trump would have won the redrawn seat with more than 58%.
That math made CD 9 a national GOP target, and the Republican field is taking shape fast. Soto is running again and is the only incumbent in the contest. On the GOP side, Green joins a primary that already includes retired Marine and former F-18 pilot Justin Story, who has qualified by petition, and 2024 nominee Thomas Chalifoux, among others. The most prominent local Republican, state Rep. Robert Brackett of Vero Beach, took a pass on the seat last month to defend his House district — leaving Green, also of Vero Beach, as the field’s most notable Treasure Coast entrant against a roster rooted in Osceola County.
Green’s pitch leans on his résumé. He spent 23 years in the Navy, mobilized for tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development in 2019, a role on the team that writes the National Defense Strategy. His campaign says he also carries endorsements from more than half a dozen congressional war veterans.
Green framed the run in combat terms. “I didn’t fight radical extremists overseas just to stand by and watch left-wing extremists attack our freedoms here at home,” he said, adding that he is running to “make America affordable again” for “Florida’s families, farmers and small business owners.”
More on his campaign is at DanGreenFL.com. Florida’s primary is Aug. 18.