Congressional candidate Aaron Baker, an ally of controversial Florida gubernatorial hopeful James Fishback, bills himself as "the only Republican candidate living & working in" the Florida district he's running to represent in a primary challenge to freshman congressman Randy Fine. But records show Baker established ties to the district just two years ago, when he registered to vote at a property purchased by his convicted murderer and opioid trafficker father.
Baker, a general contractor, lived in Maryland with his partner, James Buete, before registering to vote in Florida's deep-red Sixth Congressional District in June 2023. He is stressing his rock-solid conservative credentials and has endorsed Fishback, 31, the steward of a troubled asset management firm who is taking on frontrunner Byron Donalds in the contest for Florida's GOP gubernatorial nomination.
Baker's voter registration—as well as his Florida candidate filing—lists his legal residence as a home in Sorrento, Fla. It's the same property his father, Edwin Blackwelder, purchased in May 2023, just one month before Baker registered to vote in the Sunshine State.
The Baker campaign's association with Blackwelder could prove to be a controversial one. Blackwelder has a lengthy criminal history—including murder, grand theft, and drug trafficking—going back decades. Perhaps even more troubling is what appears to be a friendship or other close relationship in Maryland with a convicted sex offender named Matthew Lucas, who pleaded guilty to abusing a minor.
Blackwelder was sentenced in 1980 to 75 years in prison for second-degree murder in the stabbing death of a man in a Polk County, Fla., citrus grove. After serving more than 20 years, Blackwelder was released early in 2002 following a controversial plea agreement that was met with disapproval from the victim's family. Before his murder conviction, he had been convicted of multiple felonies, including forgery and grand theft.
Following his release, Blackwelder was arrested again in 2019 and charged with importing and distributing more than 30,000 Chinese opioid pills. Investigators said he routed international shipments through California and distributed the drugs to dozens of customers across the United States. Prosecutors estimated the operation generated between $300,000 and $450,000 in revenue. He was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance, according to the Orange County clerk.
Weeks after his probation expired in 2023, Blackwelder purchased the Sorrento, Fla., property Baker lists as his residence. The year prior, he posted a photo to Facebook that shows him smiling alongside Baker and Baker’s partner, Buete. "I had the pleasure of visiting with my son, his partner, and my sons [sic] in-laws over the 4th of July weekend," he wrote. "My son, Aaron, is the tallest one."
Baker’s financial and professional ties to his murderer father, meanwhile, extend beyond his place of residence. In March 2025, while Baker was running for a special election in the sixth district, his campaign committee paid $1,800 for "digital marketing" services to a firm called Greenstone Digital. It shares an address with a similarly named firm, Greenstone Global, that lists Blackwelder as its president, state corporate records show.
Blackwelder also played a formal role in Baker's business ventures. Corporate filings show that Blackwelder served as the registered agent for Sunshine State Construction and Design, a company that listed Baker as its managing partner as recently as 2024.
Baker's recent arrival in the district and his professional ties to Blackwelder present potential liabilities in his bid to unseat Fine.
Fine, who is backed by President Donald Trump, bested Baker in the Republican primary by nearly 70 points before defeating Democrat Josh Weil by 14 points in the 2025 special election. In 2024, Trump carried the district by nearly 30 percentage points. Trump praised Fine as "an incredible voice for MAGA, and the Great People of Florida," who "has my Complete and Total Endorsement."
Baker appears to have a history of hanging around questionable characters.
Photos and videos posted by Blackwelder to Facebook show birthday and Memorial Day celebrations at Baker's Maryland home in 2023. Included in both rounds of festivities, a Washington Free Beacon analysis found, was Matthew Lucas, a Maryland man who pleaded guilty in 2016 to felony sexual abuse of a 13-year-old boy. While he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the sentence was suspended and he received just 5 years of probation. He remains a registered sex offender in Maryland.
Lucas is Facebook friends with Baker and has interacted with Blackwelder on the social media site.
Baker confirmed in a statement sent to the Free Beacon that Blackwelder is his father. Baker said both he and Lucas worked for companies with the same ownership in Maryland, and that he didn't know about Lucas's sexual abuse of a minor. He told the Free Beacon that he found the information "beyond horrifying."
Baker is running as an insurgent candidate. He has received an endorsement from another self-described insurgent, Fishback, who had called Donalds—who is black and backed by Trump—a "slave."
"I’m proud to support my friend Aaron Baker, who's now running against Randy Fine, primarying him," Fishback told Tucker Carlson last week, arguing that Fine is not from the district.
Baker endorsed Fishback last week as well, describing him as a "sincere" candidate who "is like one of us," and the pair have since planned joint events.
Fishback has been a controversial presence in Trump and MAGA circles, campaigning unsuccessfully with Trump for a Federal Reserve Board seat and claiming in multiple cable TV interviews that he was an adviser to Elon Musk's DOGE project when, according to DOGE's spokeswoman, he was not.
Fishback has also faced accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior toward a minor. A parent involved in a debate program that Fishback founded for middle and high school students sent emails to Florida school districts in 2022, alleging he had an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old student in the program. The parent, Aebony Moore, told NBC News that she witnessed Fishback and the minor acting "more like a couple than student and mentor" during a program trip to a Fishback family home in central Florida.
The student in question, Keinah Fort, went to court earlier this year to seek an order of protection against Fishback, saying he "initiated a romantic relationship" with her in 2022, when he was 27 and she was 17 and working for his debate program. Fort said she and Fishback were engaged after she turned 18 but split after Fishback threw things at her "on multiple occasions." The allegations, which Fishback has denied, prompted some school districts to refuse to work with Fishback's program. One of its board members resigned over Fishback's "alarming" behavior.
"Regardless of the veracity of these allegations, the underlying Incubate-sanctioned practices should raise alarms," wrote the board member, Nicole Castillo. "Leading an organization that serves minor children requires a level of caution, care, and maturity that is woefully absent from how this organization currently operates. There is no excuse for blurring the lines of appropriate conduct."
