Ed Danko Out as Randy Fine’s District Director

Ed Danko is no longer serving as the district director for three counties within Congressman Randy Fine’s constituency, sources with proximity to the decision confirmed on Saturday. Danko had been a senior staffer for Fine in Flagler, St. Johns, and Volusia counties.

“We reached a mutual agreement that the position was not a good fit for me, nor was I a good fit for them,” Danko said of his departure. “It involved administrative duties in the district. And in the end it’s their candy store and they get to run it any way they wish. It was not the way I would run it. No hard feelings between me and the congressman. If anything, more misunderstanding–my role and their expectations.”

Fine’s First Flagler Hire

Following his victory in the special election for Florida’s 6th congressional district in April, Danko was one of Fine’s earliest hires to broker relations with his ground-level constituents. Danko is a former Palm Coast City Council member who served as vice mayor for part of his one term in office.

In 2024 Danko opted to run for the Flagler County Commission instead of seeking a second term on the City Council. He lost narrowly to Pam Richardson in the Republican primary election, bringing his career in local office to an apparent end. Along with Danko, none of the three sitting Palm Coast City Council members won election last year – David Alfin lost his mayoral re-election bid while Nick Klufas also lost his GOP County Commission primary.

“Ed Danko is a lifelong fiscal conservative, America First Republican, and former Vice Mayor of Palm Coast, Florida,” Fine said when he announced Danko’s hiring on May 12th. Like Fine, Danko has leaned heavily on his support for President Donald Trump in his political campaigns. When he was first elected in 2020, Danko advanced from an open primary in August to ride the wave of Flagler’s strong Trump support to win in November. This most recent cycle, his Republican-exclusive race didn’t have Trump on the ballot to help drive up turnout.

Randy Fine’s Recent Allusion to Nuclear War

Throughout his congressional campaign and tenure in office, Fine’s signature issue has seemed to be his advocacy for Israel in their military campaign against Hamas and the larger Palestinian population. Fine has consistently advocated for increased bombing in the Gaza Strip, where leading humanitarian groups are increasingly alarmed by the number of civilian deaths. Fine’s stance has been that the only way to end the killing must be the unconditional surrender of Hamas militants to Israeli forces. He has also spoken out against Palestinian statehood.

“In World War II, we did not negotiate a surrender with the Nazis,” Fine said this past week on Fox News. “We did not negotiate a surrender with the Japanese. We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender. That needs to be the same here.” According to Reuters, the Gaza Strip has a population of 2.1 million, down six percent due to casualties from the Gaza war.

Fine’s rhetoric surrounding both the Israel-Hamas conflict and those raising concerns about humanitarian crises has grown increasingly bold in recent weeks. He endorsed Israel’s usage of starvation tactics against Gaza residents, a war crime, by tweeting ‘#StarveAway’ in response to Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s objections. Fine has repeatedly called Tlaib, a Muslim woman, a Muslim terrorist.

““Fine’s deranged rhetoric is not only morally reprehensible but also deeply damaging to the Trump administration’s stated efforts to establish a ceasefire and pursue peace in the region,” said Robert McCaw, the Government Affairs Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “He’s not a so-called Make America Great Again Republican, he’s a Make Israel Great Republican, no matter how many civilians have to be murdered to prove it.”