Screenshot via YouTube/James Fishback
Audio By Carbonatix
Gianna Tagliarini had returned home after a day of campaigning for far-right Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback at the Hillsborough County Fair when her phone started dinging with texts from him. “Come here,” Fishback wrote in a message that arrived at 10:34 p.m., a screenshot of which was shared with New Times.
Tagliarini, a 30-year-old single mom who held an unpaid volunteer position as the campaign’s Hillsborough County chair, asked where, then began calling other members of the campaign.
“Gianna,” the candidate wrote to her that night, on February 6. “Stop asking questions.”
“Come here now,” he added after she said she didn’t know where he and the others were and that no one was answering the phone. “Just you and me.”
Tagliarini was confused — and suspicious about Fishback’s intentions. She suggested they go out to a bar, wanting to be in a public place. Then she sent him her home address and asked if he could pay for her Uber.
Immediately after, Tagliarini says, a friend who was also working for the campaign called to tell her Fishback had been reading the texts to a group of male volunteers in a hotel lobby — including a minor. Bryant Fulgham, who served in an unpaid role as a liaison between the county chairs and Fishback’s leadership team, told Tagliarini that Fishback had also called her a “foid,” a term originating from Internet forums like 4chan, meaning “female humanoid.”
Fulgham, 22, confirms to New Times that Fishback was reading the conversation out loud, adding that the candidate “was mocking her and disrespecting her.”
Tagliarini quit the campaign that night.
“I was sick to my stomach. I sat there, and I cried all night because of it,” she tells New Times. “These kids looked up to me; all that hard work that I put in, he absolutely just threw it in the fucking trash. He discredited everything that I did.”
Tagliarini is one of four former Fishback volunteers who quit the campaign in recent months and is now speaking out against the candidate. Fulgham, 22, is another. After getting what he viewed as a demotion, he leaked senior group chat messages to the Bulwark, a center-right political site.
But Tagliarini’s resignation — and those of Orange County event coordinator Brayden Verner, 20, and volunteer William Gunn, 23, who say they quit after the candidate told a Black critic he should be lynched — have not previously been reported. Fishback disputed the allegations in this story, first in an April 30 phone interview and then in a May 12 response to emailed follow-up questions.
“This is a silly attempt to discredit our surging campaign with fake news,” the candidate said in a text message, declining further comment.
“Just James Being Stupid”
Gianna Tagliarini photo
According to most polls, Fishback is leagues behind the GOP front-runner, Trump-endorsed Congressman Byron Donalds. A Tarrance Group poll from April puts Fishback at 9 percent support among likely Republican primary voters, compared to Donalds’ 50 percent.
But the Broward County native is wildly popular with college-aged men and draws crowds of hundreds. He has a prominent online presence and regularly gets national attention for his controversial statements. While on the campaign trail, he has called Donalds, who is Black, a “slave” to donors and referred to him as “B’yrone.” Fishback’s campaign has also been dogged by personal financial issues stemming from a lawsuit filed by his former hedge fund employer and by questions over a relationship he allegedly began with a 17-year-old girl he met through his debate nonprofit.
The underdog campaign for the so-called groyper candidate is powered by scores of unpaid volunteers. Fulgham, who joined in December, was once so enthusiastic that when Fishback was told by Disney security to move during a meet and greet, he responded in a moment caught on camera, “he needs to move into the governor’s mansion.” In a sign of the candidate’s appeal to some voters, he says there were around 1,000 members in a volunteer sign-up group chat before he left in February.
Tagliarini also joined the campaign in December. As a third-generation Floridian, she was drawn in by Fishback’s Florida-first and anti-AI data center messaging. She worked closely with Fishback and his then-campaign manager, Emma Stanley Wright, on creating the teams for content creation, graphics, and points of contact.
In her first couple of months, she says she went from overseeing ten volunteers to 100, most of them young. Her responsibilities included leading weekly in-person meetings to bring other county chairs up to speed on events, content, and graphics.
When she found out that Fishback had been reading her texts and mocking her, Tagliarini says, “I felt so disrespected as a leader and a woman.” Believing the candidate was trying to humiliate her, she quit on the phone with Fulgham after he told her. She also confided in Wright, who told her in a text message, “He honestly makes me the butt of the joke sometimes, so I just hit back with another insult, so I’ve def been there.”
“It was just James being stupid,” the former campaign manager added.
Wright did not respond to a request for comment.
Asked during an April 30 phone interview whether he read messages from a female volunteer to a group of men from the campaign, Fishback quibbled over the wording of the question, at times raising his voice. Ultimately, he responded, “I don’t know what the allegation is, but yeah, I guess I deny it.”
Tagliarini says Fishback called her a day after she quit — not to apologize, but to blame Fulgham for causing drama. She had a friend with her and had the conversation on speaker phone, who confirmed her account to New Times.
“I said, ‘You get me in a room with every single man that you disrespected me in front of, and you apologize.’ He said, ‘I can’t do that,’” she says. “I said, ‘Well, I can’t do business with men that disrespect women.’”
She alleges that Fishback threatened to put the messages on X, formerly Twitter, “just to clear the air,” before backtracking and apologizing. Both agreed to part on good terms.
Fishback continued reaching out to Tagliarini and asking others about her. On February 9, the day after Fishback’s front yard caught fire, Tagliarini called Fulgham to apologize for leaving him in a stressful situation by quitting. He wasn’t the one who picked up.
“It was Fishback on the phone,” Tagliarini says. “I said, ‘Where’s Bryant?’ He goes, ‘You know, you’re so cute when you’re mad. You’re so pretty when you’re mad, and when you’re angry, and you’re yelling.’”
Later that day, she received a phone call from Fulgham’s number, but it was Fishback again, this time asking her where she was at the time of the fire. She says she told him she found it “interesting that you would accuse me of something like this.”
“And he goes, ‘Well, you are Sicilian, isn’t that what you guys do?’” she recalls.
She says she asked if he needed anything else, and he responded, “No, I just wanted to tell you I missed you.”
Photos taken by the campaign and viewed by New Times show Fulgham and Fishback on the date and at the location where he claimed his phone was used.
Communication waned, despite a handful of back-and-forth messages. Tagliarini says she intentionally kept her personal life separate from the campaign.
“I kept it business. I never, ever crossed that line, because he was going to use it against me if he could get me to slip up,” Tagliarini says.
Since leaving the campaign, she has complained about Fishback on social media. On April 22, she was called into HR at her full-time job.
“In the HR interview, they said James Fishback screen-recorded my Instagram story and said he’s in danger of his life because of me,” Tagliarini says. “He went after my job.”
Fishback denied reaching out to Tagliarini’s place of employment.
“Let the Monster Do Its Thing”
Fulgham says what happened with Tagliarini was part of Fishback’s pattern of speaking inappropriately about women.
The candidate made headlines in February for a campaign stunt in which he claimed to go on Tinder to get prospective female voters’ opinions. But Fulgham tells New Times that Fishback made comments about the women’s appearances while swiping through the app during a February 2 Texas Roadhouse dinner that followed a campaign event in Palm Bay. Like when he read Tagliarini’s texts, at least one underage teenager was present.
“He was passing around the phone saying, ‘Look at this, forget everything I said about Latinas’ and, like, gooning over these girls the whole time, swiping right,” Fulgham says, using a slang word for prolonged sexual arousal. “He just keeps swiping and texting these girls and, like, messing around with them, like making jokes and stuff.”
Fishback said he is not familiar with an incident like that occurring.
Fulgham says this inappropriate culture persisted throughout the campaign and among its volunteers, pointing to a “Fishback Unofficial GC” (group chat) with up to 70 staffers and volunteers who sometimes posted offensive content. Fishback was not in it, but Fulgham says he “is well aware of the kind of behavior that goes on.”
“You had a lot of degeneracy, a lot of sexism, a lot of people saying off-the-wall things, ‘go kill yourself,’ the N-word frequently,” Fulgham says. “If you did a search in the chat, the word ‘foid’ would appear more than the word ‘woman.’”
He repeatedly told staff members how bad its optics were and that it needed to be shut down. Fishback said he didn’t know about the group chat: “That’s got nothing to do with me.”
Fulgham says he grew tired of the inappropriate behavior and pulled back from his responsibilities. After a conversation between Fulgham and a representative for a group of veterans who served aboard the USS Liberty — a ship that Israel mistakenly hit during the Six-Day War in 1967 — ended in an argument, the Fishback campaign demoted him and removed him from multiple group chats. Fulgham, disillusioned, decided to quit on February 18 and later spoke with the Bulwark.
“So the minute I wasn’t there, it was like, ‘There’s nothing good on this campaign anymore, and so I may as well come out and say everything,’” says Fulgham.
After his departure, he was vocal online about his criticism of Fishback and the campaign. He says he heard from multiple sources inside the campaign that they wanted to avoid another “Bryant situation.” NDAs were handed out to people in leadership positions, and the “Fishback Unofficial GC” was disbanded.
Fishback did not respond to a question about why Fulgham left the campaign. He confirmed that NDAs were handed out in February, but said the reasoning was professional.
“Any and all political campaigns who have people in positions of senior leadership are required to sign non-disclosure agreements,” he said.
Bryant Fulgham photo
Fulgham says that after he left the campaign, he posted a screenshot to X of a conversation Fishback had in a senior group chat making fun of the TPUSA Super Bowl halftime show. That same day, in the late evening, he received a phone call from a self-proclaimed Fishback benefactor.
“They said they had enough to lock me up for life,” says Fulgham, who believes it was a bluff but isn’t sure. “He’s like, ‘So my lawyer is ready to send something out first thing, and we’ll take you to court immediately, so you can end this now and walk away quietly and go on with your life, or else.’”
The last time Fulgham spoke with Fishback in person, it was at a memorial ceremony for a service member killed in Iran. Fulgham says they had a cordial and honest conversation. He regrets standing behind Fishback through his indiscretions and participating in the “boys’ club” culture.
“I even said to his face, ‘I really have created Frankenstein’s monster,’ and he said, ‘Well, just stand back and let the monster do its thing,’” Fulgham says.
“This Giant Albatross”
On March 30, Fishback drew widespread criticism for telling Black social media influencer TajyTV he should be “lynched” for questioning him about the allegations that he dated a minor. Verner, the acting Orange County co-chair, and Gunn, the volunteer, were there when it happened during a campaign rally at a downtown Orlando Taco Bell.
Two days earlier, Gunn says, TajyTV approached him and one other volunteer while filming a video at a sign-waving event in the area and asked if he knew that Fishback was “a pedophile.”
The question referred to an amended petition for a protection order request filed against Fishback by Keinah Fort in April 2025 on allegations of stalking and cyberstalking. Fort claimed Fishback “initiated a romantic relationship” with her in Spring 2022, when she was 17 and attending high school in Broward County, and Fishback was the 27-year-old founder of Incubate Debate, a nonprofit that organized high school debate tournaments. The petition was later rejected by the court, and Fishback has denied wrongdoing.
Gunn tells New Times he was aware of the allegations and horrified by them, but did not know how to handle them internally. The volunteer argued with TajyTV, and Gunn watched in dismay.
“How do I communicate to people with this giant albatross flying over the campaign? And all I can say is that there wasn’t protocol; there wasn’t clear messaging about it,” Gunn says. “I think that goes to show how disorganized and sensitive and touchy Fishback was about this issue.”
Brayden Verner photo
Gunn wondered how Fishback would respond when confronted directly — and soon found out. During the March 30 Taco Bell rally, he and Verner attended as representatives for Fishback’s Orange County chapter with the plan to recruit more volunteers. Fishback made their jobs easy, commanding the crowd’s attention.
“There are 200 people, all these dudes from the internet, all crammed into this little bitty Cantina Taco Bell, and the first thing I hear when I walk in, he said, ‘When I’m elected governor, the Florida worker will have a friend in me.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s awesome. Hey, I need a friend,’” Gunn says.
Verner says the energy was palpable: “I was kind of captivated by it, because I saw how he grasped the audience.”
Once Fishback finished his speech, he slipped out the back door with a crowd of people following behind him. In the crowd, Gunn spotted a familiar face headed straight toward the gubernatorial hopeful: TajyTV, who had questioned him about the allegations regarding Fishback days earlier.
“Hilariously, in an example of serendipity that has never been matched in my entire life, that same guy from the sign-waving event has got a camera in James Fishback’s face, and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, he got him,’” Gunn says.
As he asked his question — “So Mr. Fishback, what’s with you smashing a 16- or 17-year-old, can you answer about what’s going on with that?” — Verner leaned in, wanting to hear the answer.
In a response captured on video, Fishback tells TajyTV, “You should be lynched, you should be lynched for lying about me like that.” Verner’s reaction is visible on the viral clip.
“I hear the word ‘lynch,’ he was like, ‘You should be lynched,’” Verner says. “He’s yelling it, and I’m like, what is he talking about? If you watch the video, you can see me, and my mouth was wide open, like my jaw dropped…I didn’t even process it until later.”
Gunn calls it “the most racist thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
The crowd reached a fever pitch.
“You’ve got this, basically, what’s turning into a mob of all these right-wing guys, these sort of frustrated fellas who are out there at a Taco Bell,” Gunn says. “I’m dipping, but these guys are like, ‘Yeah, F you, get out of here, innocent until proven guilty,’ and one of the guys behind me jokingly says, ‘Fight!’”
Verner and Gunn both say the only violence they witnessed was TajyTV being pushed. Gunn says the gravity of the situation hit him instantly.
“I’m done, because I don’t want to be a part of a mob in the middle of Orlando that is incited by this person who I’m trying to put in charge of the third-biggest state in America,” Gunn says.
Verner and Gunn emphasize they are right-wing and agree with some of Fishback’s ideas, but say they were disgusted by his actions. Verner says he was initially willing to look past Fishback’s controversies, saying Fishback has “always been sort of edgy” and that he was excited about the campaign. Not anymore.
“I don’t know what’s in the future for right-wing politics anymore,” Verner says. “I feel like James kind of put a nail in the coffin for what could have been something great, and he just seems like a grifter.”
For her part, Tagliarini now thinks Fishback “does not hold the values of a man needed to represent Florida.”
Since going public about some of her experiences on the campaign, she’s faced harassment from apparent Fishback supporters. In the last few days, an X account by the name of “Gianna is a Whore” began posting on the platform. On May 7, her X account was hacked. She promptly changed her password.
On May 8, somebody reached out to a family member of hers, voicing concern about her mental health and saying that “threatening to ‘come after’ James Fishback” might “end badly for her.” She could find herself in legal trouble and leave “your son without a mother caring for him.” They pointed to a video clipped by an X account where she warned critics that her father will “torture you, and you will end up in the Tampa Bay.” Tagliarini claims the video was deliberately cut to exclude “If anything happens to me or anyone touches me, my father will…”
She says the harassment has left her feeling “helpless most days…I mean, I have everything to lose at this point.”
But she says the scrutiny is a small price for what she feels is right.
“If we don’t call out bad behavior like this, and we don’t stop it, then it’s something that we’re blatantly ignoring, and we’re allowing in society,” Tagliarini says. “Can’t do that.”
