FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Three Republican candidates and the state Republican Party are seeking a court order to remove a Libertarian candidate from the November ballot in one of the nation’s most important midterm congressional elections, in South Florida’s 25th Congressional District.

The contest in the newly created Broward/Miami-Dade/Palm Beach county district is seen as so close that it could help determine which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives. National Democratic and Republican campaign operations are already involved in the 25th District race.

Republicans are concerned about the presence of Libertarian Peter Jassenoff on the ballot — and the prospect he could siphon off enough votes from the Republican nominee to tip the November election to the Democrat.

That won’t happen if Dan Franzese, George Moraitis and Scott Singer have their way. The three candidates, who are competing for the Republican nomination in the Aug. 18 primary, want a Leon County circuit judge to eliminate Jassenoff as a competitor in November.

Franzese, Moraitis and Singer, along with the Republican Party of Florida, have filed suit in Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee seeking to have Jassenoff removed from the ballot. The lawsuit was first reported by the news site State Affairs Florida.

Jassenoff, in a brief telephone interview Thursday, said he was reluctant to say much about the case before conferring with an attorney.

“To be quite frank, it’s BS,” Jassenoff said. “They don’t want me running because it hurts them.” He said he would “absolutely” fight the Republicans’ lawsuit.

The Republicans’ lawsuit claims Jassenoff should be tossed because they believe he used a personal check, not a campaign check, to pay the $10,440 qualifying fee to become a candidate.

The lawsuit cites state law that requires that the check for the qualifying fee come from a candidate’s campaign account, and failure to pay the fee “shall disqualify the candidate.” Because, they said, Jassenoff paid the qualifying fee from his personal account, he “must be disqualified as a candidate.”

To back up their claims, the Republicans attached a copy of Jassenoff’s check. “PETER JASSENOFF” is written on the top left corner of the check, with “Campaign Account of Peter Jassenoff for Congress” handwritten on the front. The Republicans also said that “the check number — 138 — confirms that the check is not associated with a newly opened campaign account.”

Jassenoff said his qualifying “was all done by textbook.” He said he went to the bank Thursday morning to get proof the bank account in question is, in fact, his campaign account. “Everything they’re claiming I did, did not happen,” he said.

The lawsuit also names Secretary of State Cord Byrd as a defendant because he is the state’s chief election officer.

The lead lawyer for the Republican candidates and the party, Benjamin Gibson, is a prominent Tallahassee lawyer. He has served as general counsel to the Republican Party, was a top lawyer for then-Gov. Rick Scott, is a former chair of the State Board of Education, and is managing partner of the law firm Shutts & Bowen’s Tallahassee office.

The new 25th Congressional District was created this year as part of an unusual mid-decade revamping of the state’s congressional districts. An aide to Gov. Ron DeSantis crafted the new map, which was ratified by Republicans who control the state Legislature.

President Donald Trump sparked a wave of mid-decade redistricting efforts when he demanded that Republican-controlled states redraw district boundaries in ways that would get more Republicans and fewer Democrats elected in November.

The new 25th District, which runs from Delray Beach to Miami Beach, has a slight Republican tilt.

The partisan voting index from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the district as R plus 3, which means it performed 3 points more Republican than the nation during the last two presidential contests.

Data from multiple analysts showed that Trump won the district by about 9 percentage points in 2024, but Democrat Joe Biden won it by about 5 points in 2020.

Outside analysts suggest the 25th District isn’t a guaranteed win for whoever emerges from the Republican primary. All three nonpartisan ratings, Cook, Inside Elections and Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, rate it as a toss-up.

On the Democratic side, U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz is seeking a third term, running in the new 25th District. He faces Oliver Larkin, a Democratic Socialist in the Democratic primary.

Besides a widely expected competitive race in the fall, the Republicans are engaged in a high-stakes primary, which has become sharply negative with attacks and counter attacks involving Franzese and Singer.

Moraitis is a former state representative from Fort Lauderdale, Singer is a former mayor of Boca Raton, and Franzese was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for Congress in Palm Beach County in 2022 and 2024.

The plaintiffs asked for an expedited review, hoping that they can get Jassenoff thrown off the general election ballot before supervisors of elections begin preparing ballots for the November election. They have to mail ballots to overseas and military voters by Sept. 19.

Jassenoff, 33, said he became a registered Libertarian a few years ago, after years as a Republican. “I stopped agreeing with a lot of stuff the Republicans are doing, especially now. I’m farthest from a Republican that I can ever imagine,” he said.

Not included in the lawsuit are two other Republicans competing in the primary — Joe Kaufman, the party’s unsuccessful nominee against Moskowitz in a different district in 2024, and Raven Harrison, who lost a Texas congressional primary in 2022.

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