GOP congressional candidate Erick Aguilar has history of party switching

Erick Aguilar loves pretending to be someone he’s not. It’s lucrative for him.

As reported by Matt Dixon of POLITICO Florida, Aguilar has been funding his campaign for the Republican nomination in Florida’s 4th Congressional District by bilking seniors.

His strategy is simple: Pretend to be Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis. Ask for money. Profit.

It’s basically identity theft.

But Aguilar is also going through an identity crisis.

According to voter registration records obtained by Florida Politics, Aguilar has flipped parties twice in the past decade.

Until the mid-2010s, he had been a Republican registered to vote in Duval. However, in April 2014, records show he switched his affiliation to Democrat.

It’s unclear what lured him away from the GOP — maybe he was inspired by Barack Obama’s second term, or he might have felt compelled to vote for Charlie Crist in the Democratic Primary for Governor.

Either way, he didn’t switch his affiliation back to Republican until April 2018. For those keeping track, that means Aguilar — a candidate who professes to love Trump and even masquerades as him — wasn’t even eligible to vote for the former President in the 2016 Republican Primary.

It’s not clear why he switched back, but perhaps it was because he decided it would be easier to impersonate Republicans if he was registered as one.

What comes next for Aguilar? A likely beatdown in the Aug. 23 Primary and, if the schemes he’s perpetrated are half as bad as they look, criminal charges.

But the more important question is how the Republican Party of Florida will respond. There’s a brand at stake, and it’s up to Joe Gruters, Christian Ziegler, Helen Ferre and the RPOF Executive Board and Committee members to make a choice: Do they protect their Star or not?

There are already murmurs among the committee members and electeds that there is no way they will attend an event where Aguilar has a platform. As the story makes the rounds, they are looking for leadership.

This isn’t about an issue debate, or record comparison, or vision. This is about honor, and the Star.

In 2000, Terrell Owens scored in Dallas at Cowboys Stadium, ran to the Star at the 50 and downed the ball, taunting the home crowd and disrespecting the symbol of what was then “America’s Team.”

Then old Gator Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith responded, and Owens did it again. But the Cowboys wouldn’t let it stand.

Is the Republican Party of Florida to reward Aguilar for impersonating the Governor and the former President with an invitation to speak and debate at the Sunshine Summitt?

Is stealing from seniors by stealing an elected person’s identity something RPOF wants to encourage?

Of course not.

They’d better protect the Star, which in this case means rescinding Aguilar’s debate invitation and telling him to prepare for a criminal investigation.