Far-right extremist Laura Loomer loses GOP congressional primary in Florida

Loomer, who was banned from Twitter, has a history of making Islamophobic remarks

Laura Loomer, a vocal supporter of Donald Trump who was previously banned from Twitter for Islamophobic remarks, lost her primary challenge to a Republican congressman in Florida on Tuesday evening.

Republican incumbent Representative Dan Webster beat Ms Loomer in Florida’s 11th Congressional District. In 2018, Twitter banned Ms Loomer for making Islamophobic remarks about Representative Ilhan Omar, saying she 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.”

Shortly afterward, Ms Loomer famously handcuffed herself outside Twitter’s headquarters in New York City but quit after two hours. Along with Twitter, Lyft and Uber banned her in 2017 after a terrorist attack in New York, when she called for a new ridesharing service that banned Muslims from working for it after the perpetrator was revealed to be a former Uber driver.

Ms Loomer won the Republican nomination for Congress in the 21st District in 2020 but incumbent Representative Lois Frankel, a Democrat, easily defeated her.

The right-wing provacateur was known for multiple stunts going back to interrupting a version of Shakespeare in the Park in New York City where a version of former president Donald Trump as Julus Caesar was killed.

Initially it looked like Ms Loomer had outraised Mr Webster by $100,000, HuffPost reported. She had also campaigned heavily in the Villages, where plenty of senior citizens live.

She had also criticised Mr Webster for his voting record--since Mr Webster did not vote on mr Trump’s second impeachment or whether to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Mr Webster is all but guaranteed to win the general election.