Luther Campbell vs. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick: Rap star-turned-civic activist creates campaign committee
Luther Campbell, the rap artist, coach and civic activist, has filed paperwork setting up a campaign to challenge Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick in the Democratic primary.
He hadn’t made a formal announcement as of Wednesday afternoon. But he filed a document dated Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission establishing the Luther Luke Campbell for Congress campaign organization.
He has until noon Friday to qualify for the Aug. 20 primary ballot. Cherfilus-McCormick qualified for the ballot earlier this week.
The two will compete in the Broward-Palm Beach County 20th Congressional District in what promises to be a contentious, attention-grabbing contest over the next four months.
As he’s made the rounds testing the waters for his candidacy, Campbell has been sharply critical of the incumbent on social media. At one point, he asked, “what the (heck) has this lady done” — using an expletive instead of heck.
Cherfilus-McCormick, who was previously CEO of a home health care agency, has spent heavily from her own pocket when she faced tough campaigns. She was first elected in a January 2022 special election, and is serving in her third year in Congress.
Neither Campbell nor Cherfilus-McCormick immediately responded to a request for comment.
Campbell had promised a decision would come on Wednesday, but as of late afternoon none of his multiple social media accounts said anything about his running.
The website Florida Politics, which first reported Campbell’s federal filing reported that “sources close to Campbell said his mind is still not made up yet about running, largely because of concerns about financial disclosures related to his music career.”
Voter records show neither Campbell nor Cherfilus-McCormick live in Florida’s 20th District. Both are registered to vote in Miramar — in the district represented by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston.
Members of Congress are required to be residents of the state they’re representing or seek to represent, but aren’t required to live in the district.
Campbell, 63, is known as Luke Skyywalker and later Uncle Luke from his career as a rap artist. As the leader of 2 Live Crew, he was acquitted by a Broward County jury of obscenity charges for an appearance in Hollywood decades ago. A federal judge in South Florida declared the lyrics of its platinum-selling album “Nasty As They Wanna Be” were obscene, a ruling eventually overturned by an appeals court.
He has since become a youth and school coach, and a political activist. In 2011, he unsuccessfully ran for Miami-Dade mayor.
Cherfilus-McCormick, 45, is the only Haitian American member of Congress and has been outspoken on policies aimed at resolving the nation’s turmoil. She most recently was strongly critical of the Biden administration’s decision to resume deportation flights to Haiti amid the gang-fueled violence in the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
Campbell’s brother, Stanley, will also be on the ballot in August. He qualified this week as a candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. He’ll face former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and at least two other candidates for the nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.
The 20th Congressional District is one of the most heavily Democratic in the nation, virtually guaranteeing that the primary winner will win the November general election. The district takes in most of the African American and Caribbean American communities in Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Post.news.