First, Matt Gaetz took down Kevin McCarthy. Now he's eyeing an even bigger win.

PENSACOLA, Florida — Matt Gaetz isn’t just counting on winning next week’s Republican primary. The four-term member of Congress and firebrand extraordinaire is counting on winning big — the kind of victory that would likely enrage his detractors and maintain the constant whispers about a run for statewide office.

There are lots of reasons that Gaetz, who helped topple House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year, should be considered vulnerable.

He’s still under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. He earned the everlasting enmity of McCarthy and many other Republicans — not just for his maneuvering to boot McCarthy, but for stunts that regularly threaten to derail the razor-thin House majority. And he’s been bombarded by television ads and mailers over his conduct, including allegations of illegal drug use and that he paid to have sex with a 17-year-old girl, a charge he steadfastly denies. (The Department of Justice closed a sex trafficking investigation into Gaetz in February 2023.)

Yet Gaetz, who has been endorsed by and is a close ally of former President Donald Trump, is thoroughly convinced that none of this will derail him in his bid to keep his ruby-red northwest Florida seat — and many Florida Republicans agree with his assessment.

“I’ve never been outspent before in my political career, and in this race I’ll be outspent more than 3-to-1,” Gaetz said. “But I’m going to win it better than 2-to-1 because the folks in Washington and California and Missouri don’t quite understand the connection that I have with the people of northwest Florida and how durable it is.”

Gaetz is leaning into this us-against-the-world mentality (even if he is bringing in outside GOP names such as Sen. Rand Paul to help him campaign) as he seems likely to cruise to a primary win and then reelection in November. He has branded his primary opponent — Navy veteran Aaron Dimmock — as a carpetbagger whose goal is to help McCarthy “trash” him ahead of a potential run for governor in two years, when Gov. Ron DeSantis is term-limited.

Not that he’s planning on doing that — at least right now.

“I’ve said many times I’m not making any plans to run for governor. I like the job I have,” Gaetz said. “I like the bosses I have. We’ve got to get President Trump elected. After that, we’ll see.”

But first Gaetz and his supporters want to secure a dominant victory here.

“The world is watching. … We’ve got to win this thing by 90 percent,” state Rep. Michelle Salzman said at a Gaetz campaign rally. “I want a mandate like they have never seen before.”

Dimmock, a first-time candidate, is trying to persuade voters in this military-heavy district to swap out the flamboyant and brash Gaetz for a military veteran with less drama who will be able to work with fellow Republicans and help bring back resources to the bases located in the region. He knocks Gaetz over votes such as opposing aid to Ukraine or even the annual defense appropriations bill.

He maintains that he’s never met or even talked to McCarthy and that he didn’t even know that McCarthy had endorsed him until he read about it in a POLITICO article . Dimmock’s campaign committee has the same campaign treasurer as a committee that was tied to McCarthy, who has called Gaetz “the Hunter Biden of the Republican Party.”

Dimmock doesn’t go that far, but he calls Gaetz an “embarrassment” and said that some of the allegations against him were credible.

Dimmock said his main goal in getting into the race was to make sure that Gaetz didn’t get a “free pass,” since the primary winner will be a heavy favorite to hold onto the seat in November.

“I thought a person of character and integrity needed to enter the race,” Dimmock said. “No local or state current office holder was willing to do that.”

The race has turned into the most expensive congressional primary in Florida so far this cycle, according to an analysis from the ad tracking company AdImpact, with over $5.1 million already spent between Gaetz and his opponents. Most of the television ads have come from Florida Patriots PAC, a super PAC supporting Dimmock with ties to McCarthy’s orbit. One of the ads focused squarely on the allegations against Gaetz, stating “your daughters are never safe with the real Matt Gaetz.”

But notably, the TV ads from Florida Patriots PAC went off the air in early August, according to AdImpact — a sign that Gaetz was likely not vulnerable to lose on Tuesday.

The campaign is another chapter in a long-running feud between McCarthy and Gaetz that included an incident at last month’s Republican convention, where Gaetz taunted McCarthy while the California Republican was doing a live interview with CNN where he was criticizing Gaetz.

A person familiar with the McCarthy-backed efforts said days before the primary that the plans in the race were focused on dissuading Gaetz from running for governor. The coalition felt that unseating Gaetz in the primary would be an impossible feat, but the initiative forced the Florida member of Congress to spend some of his resources, added the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss the revenge operation. It also provided some ad testing for messaging, like the allegations against Gaetz, the person said.

The spending stopped the day that a recount confirmed the primary defeat of another anti-McCarthy ringleader, Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, the person noted — another goal of the so-called McCarthy revenge tour.

In the weeks ahead of the primary, Gaetz and his allies have fired back at Dimmock, including challenging his connections to the area. Dimmock did his flight training in Pensacola and says he has long-running ties to the region, and pointed out several members of his family live there. He took a job with the University of West Florida last year, but he is also on the payroll of the state of Missouri working for a leadership academy there.

Dimmock said he gave up his UWF job to run for Congress but kept his position in Missouri.

“I’m not independently wealthy,” Dimmock said.

There’s not been a lot of polling made publicly available in the primary, although one done by a pollster who works for Trump back in July found Gaetz with a commanding 47-percent lead in the district according to Florida Politics .

Gaetz, who was a state legislator before Congress and is the son of Don Gaetz, a powerful former state Senate president, has not had a tough fight for his congressional seat since he was first elected back in 2016. That year Gaetz won a crowded GOP primary with just 36 percent of the vote. But since then — as his national profile and exposure have risen with countless appearances on conservative media — he has gotten at least 64 percent or higher, even against candidates who have spent money against him.

Dimmock acknowledges that he and his family “were under no illusion of the hill we were getting ready to climb when I entered” the race.

“I think folks need to be held accountable,” he said.

Gaetz, however, contends Dimmock’s run against him is more about McCarthy’s desire for revenge after he played a central role in ousting the speaker from his leadership post.

“The reason I’m facing this barrage of negative advertising is because I removed Kevin McCarthy,” Gaetz said. “If I had not removed Kevin McCarthy, you would not be seeing this contest play out as it is.”

Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.