Matt Gaetz, Roger Stone back far-right activist Laura Loomer in congressional bid

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and former Trump adviser Roger Stone have endorsed Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who has been the subject of controversy in the past for making a string of anti-Muslim remarks online, in her 2020 congressional bid to unseat Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.).

Stone and Gaetz endorsed Loomer, who has been booted from multiple social media platforms in recent years, at an event hosted by the Palm Beach Republican Party in Florida over the weekend.

Gaetz is one of President Trump’s most vocal supporters in the House, and Stone is the president’s longtime confidant who was convicted of charges connected to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe and saw his prison sentence commuted by the president last month.

In a statement to The Hill on Monday, Loomer, who The Palm Beach Post reports is one of six candidates expected to face off in a Republican primary in Florida’s 21st District later this month, expressed confidence about her campaign’s chances.

“I’m going to win,” she said, claiming her victory will mark the “first time a deplatformed candidate will get a party nomination.”

If Loomer does make it past the coming primary, she is expected to face a tough path to defeating Frankel in the left-leaning district.

Frankel won reelection in 2016 with more than 60 percent of the vote. In 2018, she ran unopposed.

Loomer has been booted from a number of social media and other technology platforms in recent years after making online anti-Muslim comments. In 2017, she was banned from Uber after she tweeted that “someone needs to create a non Islamic form of @uber or @lyft” and she has also been banned from platforms such as Twitter, PayPal and GoFundMe.

“Isn’t it ironic how the twitter moment used to celebrate ‘women, LGBTQ, and minorities’ is a picture of Ilhan Omar?” Loomer tweeted in 2018 before being banned from Twitter, referring to the Democratic Minnesota congresswoman. “Ilhan is pro Sharia Ilhan is pro-FGM Under Sharia, homosexuals are oppressed & killed. Women are abused & forced to wear the hijab. Ilhan is anti Jewish.”

—Updated at 7:34 p.m.