Todd Wilcox

Todd M. Wilcox (born 1966) is a U.S. businessman, and candidate for the nomination of the Republican Party for the United States Senate being vacated in 2016 by incumbent Marco Rubio in Florida.
A native of Hutchinson, Kansas, Wilcox moved to south Tampa in 1971, graduating from Robinson High School in 1985 and going on to attend the University of Tampa on an ROTC scholarship. After earning his B.A. in Finance in 1989, Wilcox was commissioned into the U.S. Army, and was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, serving as the leader of a rifle platoon during Operation Desert Storm. He later volunteered for Special Forces and earned his Green Beret running counter-terrorism missions in East Asia. Wilcox left the Army in 1997 to accept a post with the CIA, serving as a case officer in the Middle East, and ending up in Orlando, serving on the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
After leaving government in 2006, he founded Patriot Capital, to provide defense contracting services, corporate risk management, security services and global logistics in hostile environments and post-conflict areas such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and parts of Africa. Under that umbrella, he also founded Patriot Defense Group, Strategic Risk Management, Innovative Logistics and Riz-Q Capital Partners. His firms reportedly had 270 employees globally, as of September 2014.
In his campaign announcement, Wilcox touted his outsider status and lack of political experience as a plus. "It’s not just time for a new generation of leaders, it’s time for new leadership altogether. If we expect to change the direction of our country, Florida’s next U.S. senator cannot come from the same political class who are already running Washington, D.C. We need leadership with real-world experience, whose sole priority is restoring America’s prominence, not getting re-elected or running for the next political office."
In a November 2015 speech to the Florida Republican Party's Sunshine Summit, Wilcox stressed his service in the Army, but also stressed what he wasn’t. “I’m not a politician, I’ve never run for public office,” Wilcox said. “I’m not a lawyer,” contrasting himself with the elected officeholders he is battling in the primary. “The choice you have is which candidate has real world experience.” Calling out “Islamic extremists,” Wilcox claimed his Army and national-security background would help him in the Senate. “Our adversaries are playing chess while our president is playing checkers."
On domestic issues, Wilcox vowed to fight for fiscal conservatism and a “common sense tax code.” On education, Wilcox criticized Common Core. He ripped President Barack Obama for ignoring the Constitution and insisted America was headed toward a “post-constitutional” era. Insisting the executive branch was gaining too much power, Wilcox repeated his call to rein it in. “We can change course, we have to change course,” Wilcox said. “Impossible has never been part of our vocabulary.” <ref name="auto2"/>
His campaign team initially included veteran Republican consultant John Dowless of Orlando. In July 2015, Wilcox claimed he had already put $100,000 of his own money into the campaign and was prepared to spend up to $500,000, but will mainly rely on donations and aims to raise at least $13 million for the primary.<ref name="auto1"/>
In October 2015, Marc Caputo of POLITICO dubbed Wilcox "the most interesting man in Florida's Senate race." <ref name="auto"/>

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