EXCLUSIVE: America first candidate Catalina Lauf launches campaign for Florida congressional seat

Catalina Lauf has launched a bid to replace Byron Donalds in the House, telling The Post Millennial in a recent interview that she hopes to continue the America-first values brought to the 19th District in Florida under Donalds, as well as the country under Trump. 

Lauf said that it has been "my complete honor to be out here every single day talking to people, talking to the constituency about what matters to them and what the type of representative they want," adding that the constituents have been "so grateful for a lion in Congress like Byron Donald. He's not only been a voice for the people of the 19th district here in Florida, but a national voice helping President Trump deliver on the America first agenda." She said she was "proud" to be a part of that agenda as an alum of the Trump 45 administration in the Department of Commerce.

Donalds is running for Florida governor, as incumbent Ron DeSantis is term-limited. He launched his bid after receiving an endorsement from Trump, who wrote, "Byron Donalds would be a truly Great and Powerful Governor for Florida and, should he decide to run, will have my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, BYRON, RUN!"

"I'm really proud to be sort of this next generation of America first and really embodying the values of not only our founding but also providing solutions on a legislative agenda that is going to help the constituents of all backgrounds," she said.

"We have so many people here from so many walks of life. You have young families to retirees, you have veterans, you have blue state refugees like myself, and at the end of the day, so many of us just want to be able to provide for our families. Have safe and secure communities, have a strong border crackdown on illegal immigration, and from an economic standpoint, a lot of us just really want, again, to be able to provide for our families and live freely."

Speaking on the idea of "servent leadership," Lauf said that Congressional representatives should be there to "serve the people, full stop. And what we have seen and what we have found for so long" is that there have been "people who go to office yo fill their own pocketbooks. You know, you have so many accusations of insider trading, or people who are using their positions," like Jasmine Crockett or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, "as these reality TV celebrities whithout actually providing anything for the people that we’re elected to serve." 

She said that the country needs to bring back "the virtue and value to our representative democracy the way our founders wanted, the way our founders intended. They were the first servant leaders. They quite literally gave up their lives or fortunes and their sacred honor to build what we have, and so many of them went on to represent people, and again, it wasn't, there wasn't a selfish bone in their body. So I'm really proud to carry on the torch of so many servant leaders that we do have in this country; we stand on the shoulders of giants. We have so many of them in our past. We need to start bringing that back to our politics."

Lauf said that the current Democratic Party "has made it very clear that their base is not the American people, it’s illegal immigrants. It’s people who are breaking out laws." She noted that she is the daughter of "somebody who came here legally, came here the right way. My family did not expect handouts, they didn’t. They wanted to work hard."

In the district she’s running for, Lauf said there are a lot of Hispanic families who "like mine, came here with nothing in their pockets. They sacrificed a lot, but yet they were able to do it the right way, and they are a part of the community." She said these constituents "overwhelmingly agree with what Republicans stand for, which is stopping the border crisis that was happening under the Biden administration, that the Trump administration has done an incredible job" at fixing. 

In regard to ensuring prosperity for Americans, Lauf said, "what it means is making sure that businesses in particular are—we’re fostering a legislative environment that allows businesses to thrive. That means enacting pro-growth policies."