Veteran, defense consultant Cory Mills files to run in CD 7

Can Cory Mills flip another blue seat?

Cory Mills, a defense, diplomatic, and law enforcement consultant and contractor with a significant presence as a commentator in national conservative media, has filed to run as a Republican against Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy in Florida’s 7th Congressional District in the 2022 election.

Mills is a U.S. Army veteran of Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq who has spent much of the past 16 years as a consultant there and in the United States, turning his focus some to assisting law enforcement. Along the way he has developed a significant presence as a commentator through conservative media, first on foreign policy, and lately more broadly on politics.

“I see a shift in our nation. I see where we’re starting to have some of what I vision as an ‘America last’ agenda. And we really need, our government needs to start thinking about putting our American communities to heart first. I’m tired of partisanship. I’m tired of people in politics not being transparent,” Mills said.

“When I look at all these things, I just felt that rather than just sit here, and while I enjoy serving our law enforcement community, while I enjoy serving our military, I just felt it was time to restore America’s voice,” Mills said. “It is time to restore transparency, accountability, and to be what you are, a representative of the people, not a representative of your party.”

Mills is the third Republican to file either federal or state paperwork to run in the CD 7 election.

There is no way to know at this point whether any of them or Murphy still will be in CD 7 come 2022. Congressional redistricting is expected to redraw that and other districts so Florida can make room for one or two more congressional seats for the 2022 elections.

Murphy, a three-term moderate Democrat from Winter Park, might not run for reelection regardless. In recent months she has begun posturing for a possible U.S. Senate run, seeking to take on Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. Murphy has not announced any intention to run for the Senate, and the only campaign paperwork she has on file with the Federal Election Commission is for a reelection campaign in her current CD 7.

Already, Casselberry City Commissioner Mark Busch and Jeremy Liggett of Longwood have filed to run for the Republican nomination in CD 7. The district currently covers Seminole County and parts of Orange County.

Mills said he recently moved to a house in Winter Park from a family home outside the district. He also maintains a residence in the Washington area, where one of his companies is headquartered, but he said he has been spending at least 70% of his time in Florida.

As shown by links on his campaign website, Mills has frequently appeared as a guest commentator on OAN, NewsmaxTV, Fox News and other networks and local TV programs. He began as a frequent contributor of written commentaries for Newsmax.com and other conservative politics websites and newspapers, and then began being invited onto national TV shows, particularly on issues of national security, but began to expand that.

Those include an article last fall on AmGreatness.com headlined, “Building a New, Less Cowardly Republican Party.” In it, he claimed there had been widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election and that too many leaders in the Republican Party knew it was coming, but didn’t do anything about it. Most claims of widespread voter fraud have been disproven.

“In the next congressional races, patriots will rise. We will be like the young prophet in Isaiah 6:8, each hearing “the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send?’” All of us should be ready to say, ‘Here I am, send me!'” Mills wrote.

Pictures on his campaign website show him as a speaker at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Dallas for former President Donald Trump.

Mills is a a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran who, after his discharge, got involved in defense and diplomatic consulting work in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2006, as a contractor for the U.S. State Department, he was injured in two separate explosions in Iraq.

He is founder and CEO of PACEM Solutions International in Falls Church, Virginia, and PACEM Defense LLC, which was listed with a location in Perry, Florida, after it acquired AMTEC Less Lethal Systems of Perry, in 2018.

A Winter Haven native, Mills has an associate’s degree from Florida State College at Jacksonville, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from American Military University, a private, for-profit school based in West Virginia, according to his LinkedIn account.