Ken Sukhia to join GOP fray in eastern Panhandle CD 2 race

Congressional candidate Ken Sukhia in 2004. Photo courtesy of C-SPAN

Former federal prosecutor Ken Sukhia will throw his hat into the race to replace U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham on Tuesday, according to a report by Sunshine State News.

Sukhia was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida by former President George H.W. Bush, and represented both President George W. Bush during the 2000 Florida recount and later Ralph Nader as the Green Party nominee sought to get on the presidential ballot in Florida in 2004.

Sukhia has also worked alongside former Govs. Charlie Crist and Jeb Bush as well as former Attorney General Bill McCollum as a expert on Florida election law. He reportedly plans to announce his entry into the race Tuesday at an event in Tallahassee.

The incumbent Graham won the 2nd Congressional District seat via a shocking upset win over former Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland in 2014, but appears unlikely to run for re-election after the seat’s boundaries were altered amid the landmark redistricting case. Experts say the seat will now almost certainly elect a Republican, as the Democratic core of the district in Tallahassee will now be part of a redrawn CD-5 seat stretching from Jacksonville to the eastern Panhandle along the Florida-Georgia line.

Sukhia joins Panama City urologist Neal Dunn, Scott administration attorney Mary Thomas, and Tallahassee businessman Jeff Moran in the Republican primary to succeed Graham.

Sukhia stressed his Christian values and conservative bona fides in an interview with SSN.

“I am an evangelical Christian who came to faith in Christ in college,‭ ‬I‭’‬ve lived in North Florida for‭ ‬38‭ ‬years,‭ ‬I was the presidentially appointed United States Attorney for North Florida and I have fought some of the major conservative and moral battles‭ ‬of our day,” said Sukia, who also vowed to help repeal the Affordable Care Act, crack down on immigration, and bolster the war against Islamic terrorism.

Among his other legal work, Sukhia defended the Lobbyist Disclosure Act – better known as the “lobbyist gift ban” – at the behest of Senate Presidents Tom Lee and Ken Pruitt during the mid-2000s. He also intervened in the infamous Terri Schiavo debate saying he joined with Congress in an effort to “save [her] life” and has supported anti-pornography and anti-abortion initiatives at the state and federal level.