8/23 Primary Preview Part I
Florida
Like in 2020, we were assisted in writing our Florida preview by a Floridian expat who’s spent too much time in Florida politics for their own good. They wrote most of our Florida preview, but wish to remain anonymous; we’re incredibly grateful for their help and local insight.
Florida has a unique system of sometimes-closed primaries. When all candidates who file for a given office are seeking the nomination of the same party, that party’s primary becomes open to voters of all parties. If someone outside that party files to run, even just as a write-in candidate, the partisan primary reverts to being closed, with only registered members of the party able to participate. Finding someone to run as a nominal write-in in order to ensure Republicans and independents can’t vote in Democratic primaries should be easy enough, but it’s a step that many politicians don’t bother to take, so some of the primaries we’re previewing below are open to voters of all parties, not just registered Democrats. Open primaries will be marked with an asterisk in the item heading.
FL-10 (Orlando)
Jack Achenbach vs. Jeffrey Boone vs Randolph Bracy III vs. Corrine Brown vs. Maxwell Alejandro Frost vs. Terence Gray vs. Alan Grayson vs. Natalie Jackson vs. Khalid Muneer vs. Teresa Tachon
The 10th congressional district is flagrantly illegal under the state constitution, and if the Florida Supreme Court—now sponsored by the Federalist Society—were even a little bit interested in upholding the law, it would’ve thrown it, along with the rest of the congressional map, out. But here we are. Congresswoman Val Demings, the erstwhile police chief of the Orlando Police Department, who oversaw one of the most brutal police forces in the country, and previously under consideration to be Joe Biden’s running mate, is vacating this seat to lose to Marco Rubio by about ten points. This 10th district is only vaguely reminiscent of the district that Demings represented, though. Demings’s seat was a Black-opportunity district that included the western half of Orange County. This district instead stretches all across the county, hoovering up (almost) every reliably Democratic vote (except those in Darren Soto’s Hispanic-majority district).
Because the district rips across neighborhoods and communities with entirely different makeups, no one politician has a natural constituency here—and it’s inspired entirely unwanted comebacks from two long-forgotten ghouls in Florida politics. The original frontrunners in the race looked to be state Sen. Randolph Bracy and former State Attorney Aramis Ayala. Bracy is a bland, uninspiring centrist who was previously in the inner circle of Gary Siplin, a longtime—and deeply corrupt and socially conservative—fixture of Central Florida Democratic politics. Ayala was the elected prosecutor for Orange and Osceola counties who had the audacity to be the tiniest bit progressive following her election in 2016, triggering a massive backlash. She left this race to run for Attorney General, where she’s favored to win the primary and then lose to incumbent Ashley Moody in November.
The left’s choice here has long been Gen Z activist Maxwell Alejandro Frost, whose platform is more progressive than this area is used to seeing in a viable candidate. He’s racked up a huge amount of endorsements—from organizations the Congressional Progressive Caucus, local unions, nationwide lefty groups like DFA, End Citizens United, the PCCC, and so on—as well as from people like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and local Democratic leaders, too. Frost’s early fundraising success, which outpaced the traditional frontrunners’, was a strong indicator that he was a serious candidate.
But, however the race may have been developing, last-minute entries by former Congressman Alan Grayson and former Congresswoman Corrine Brown scrambled things. Grayson, who represented some of this area during his first stint in Congress and very little of it in his second stint, long held himself out as a progressive—but outstanding, serious allegations of domestic violence make him an unacceptable choice, to say nothing of the long string of non-abuse-related scandals he’s left in his wake. Grayson was last seen losing the 2016 Senate primary to one of the Patrick Murphys, a 2018 congressional primary to Darren Soto, a 2020 write-in campaign for Congress(?), and an aborted run in the Senate primary this year. Brown, meanwhile, is a longtime Jacksonville politician who represented a heavily gerrymandered district that ran from Orlando to Jacksonville until it was dismantled by the state Supreme Court in 2016. A new Jacksonville-to-Tallahassee district was created, and Brown lost to current Congressman Al Lawson by a slim margin. Given that she was notoriously corrupt, it was little surprise that she was indicted in her final term, convicted of various corruption charges, and sent to prison. It was a bigger surprise that the 11th Circuit sided with her in overturning her conviction—resulting in her accepting a guilty plea to reduced charges to avoid a second trial. Brown is running here, she says, because “I carry the people of Orlando in my heart wherever I go.” Uh huh.
As a result of these developments, this race has gotten harder to make any solid predictions about. Any one of Bracy, Frost, Grayson, or Brown could theoretically win. Brown, however, is probably a spent force, and the main argument for Grayson as a candidate is a name recognition, something that’s hard to hold an advantage in as Frost and his allies (unfortunately including crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s Protect Our Future PAC) have been blanketing the airwaves to little pushback from the other candidates. What this race probably boils down to is the new progressive movement in Orlando (and Maxwell Frost’s fantastic fundraising abilities) against the old Orlando establishment and their efforts to elect Bracy.
We only have one recent poll of this election, done by Data for Progress. They found Frost at 34%, Bracy at 18%, Grayson at 14%, and everyone else languishing in single digits.
FL-20 (Broward and Palm Beach County)
Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (i) vs. Dale Holness vs. Anika Tene Omphroy
Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick doesn't deserve the designation of "accidental Congressmember", but her path to office relied on more luck than most. After running a pair of low-budget campaigns against Rep. Alcee Hastings, the incumbent died in office, creating a rare, lower-turnout special election. In the intervening months, she made a few million dollars from the healthcare company she was CEO of. The special election turned into a clown car as prominent politicians poured in, including Broward County Commissioners Dale Holness and Barbara Sharief and state Sen. Perry Thurston. With a fractured vote in Broward County, where most of the campaign action was taking place, Cherfilus-McCormick was able to run up the margin in the district’s less populous Palm Beach County portion and win by just five votes, with 23.76% to Holness's 23.75%.
After that kind of result, and with redistricting in the cards, Cherfilus-McCormick was obviously going to draw in a serious challenger for reelection. Sure enough, Dale Holness announced a rematch not long after the results were certified. And yet, his campaign has gone absolutely nowhere. Barbara Sharief and Perry Thurston both endorsed Cherfilus-McCormick. In fact, the most prominent endorsement he has at the moment is “The Late Alcee L. Hastings”. We’re not sure how he pulled that one, but we’re guessing someone got to expense a Ouija Board to the campaign. The reality is that he’s a factional presence in politics, and Cherfilus-McCormick won in 2020 by not being a factional presence in local politics, instead absorbing voters who weren’t attached to other candidates. He has a much harder time drawing in new voters, and it shows in his last-minute desperate campaign messages surrounding her alleged corruption.
Also evidence of desperation on Holness’s part are his newfound occasional half-assed stabs at progressive rhetoric. The well-known moderate even says he supports Medicare for All at this point. Cherfilus-McCormick may be a pretty mainstream Democrat—albeit on the progressive side and a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus—but she was very evidently running as “the viable progressive” in 2021, and it worked for her. That’s ultimately the reason to be happy she’s the favorite here. She may not be Squad material, but she’s at least an above average known quantity, and there’s precious little in Holness’s record to suggest he’d be even reliably average.
Also, state Rep. Anika Omphroy is running, for some reason. Omphroy was elected to the state House in 2018 when the incumbent she planned on challenging forgot to file his candidacy for the state, leaving Omphroy unopposed. Omphroy has been a social and fiscal conservative in the House, which nearly cost her a second term in a hard-fought Democratic primary Omphroy narrowly won in 2020. This is still a two-way race between Cherfilus-McCormick and Holness, but at least Omphroy is leaving the legislature.
FL-23 (Broward County)
Allen Ellison vs. Michaelangelo Hamilton vs. Hava Holzhauer vs. Jared Moskowitz vs. Ben Sorensen vs. W. Michael Trout
Sigh. This race makes the least sense of any race profiled in this newsletter—and represents one of the biggest question marks in this year’s Democratic primaries anywhere. Congressman Ted Deutch, who is only 56 and has been speculated as a candidate for statewide office, isn’t running for re-election. Rather than a vibrant open primary developing, however, the national, state, and local political establishments have consolidated around…Jared Moskowitz. If those words had been said in 2018, when Moskowitz was a moderate-liberal State Representative, that outcome wouldn’t have been too frustrating. But in 2022? After Moskowitz served in Ron DeSantis’s cabinet? Inexplicable. But that’s exactly what’s happened. Every prominent candidate mentioned for this race ended up sitting it out—and endorsing Moskowitz. The one exception is Ben Sorensen, the Vice-Mayor of Fort Lauderdale. Sorensen’s campaign never really got off the ground. His list of endorsements is a bit pitiful, especially when you consider just how many municipalities are in South Florida and how many elected officials there are (a lot). As we covered a few weeks ago, Sorensen started to attack Moskowitz for his—and we’ll say it again—active membership in Ron DeSantis’s administration, but given that Moskowitz has significantly outraised him, he likely doesn’t have enough cash to get this message out there. Moskowitz is headed for an easy win. The margin could suggest whether a future primary challenger might be viable.
SD-05 (Jacksonville)
Tracie Davis vs. Reggie Gaffney
Jacksonville City Councilmember Reggie Gaffney, a party-hopping moderate who even today only occasionally supports his own party, has a long record of controversy, ranging from outright scandal to self-interested assholish behavior. He belongs to a right-wing church, fundraises from Republicans, and relentlessly courts the city’s conservative business establishment. Infuriating behavior, but until now it’s given him the ability to bury his opponents under piles of cash. And he has the quintessential biographical element that guarantees success for politicians in Florida: he defrauded Medicaid. The prospect of him winning a state Senate seat is painful to think about.
State Rep. Tracie Davis, a standard Democrat in the State House, is not normally someone it would be important to elect, but here she absolutely is. Encouragingly for how a prospective Senator Davis might act, she, as a candidate, has embraced an open contempt for the city’s establishment during this campaign. Memorably, after U.S. Rep. Al Lawson endorsed Gaffney, Davis told a reporter, “Did I expect Reggie Gaffney to be backed by the same tired politicians he has suckled from his entire career? Yes I did.”
SD-15 (Orlando)*
Kamia Brown vs. Geraldine Thompson
To run for Congress, state Sen. Randolph Bracy is leaving open this Black-opportunity seat based in downtown Orlando and northwestern Orange County—where there’s a long history of racial violence (it’s where the 1920 Ocoee massacre took place). While this district has a history of supporting moderate-to-conservative Democrats (Bracy was preceded by the notoriously corrupt and conservative Gary Siplin), the choices this year—state Reps. Geraldine Thompson and Kamia Brown—are both solid progressives. Thompson is a longtime state legislator, serving off and on in the state House and state Senate since 2006, and unsuccessfully running for Congress in 2016. Brown, meanwhile, was an aide to now-state Sen. Vic Torres and has served in the State House since 2018. Most of the local Democratic establishment—ranging from progressives to mainstream liberals and moderates—has endorsed Brown over Thompson, and Brown has outraised Thompson, too. But Thompson represented most of this area for ten years in the legislature and likely retains some name recognition, so this race is hard to handicap. The ideological stakes aren’t clear here, with both candidates having a pretty similar voting record, but Brown is likely a slightly better choice because she represents a better chance of building up a progressive bench in this area.
SD-34 (Miami and northern suburbs)*
Shevrin Jones (i) vs. Pitchie Escarment vs. Erhabor Ighodaro
Shevrin Jones is easily the MVP of the Senate Democratic Caucus. That’s a low bar, but Jones is genuinely good. He ousted longtime state legislator Daphne Campbell, a Republican masquerading as a Democrat who nonetheless managed to emerge from contested primaries, in the Democratic primary in 2020, and has a solid voting record dating back to his time in the state House. Given the chumminess of Democrats and Republicans in Miami politics, and the gross strain of social conservatism that infects a lot of Democratic electeds in the area, Jones’s success as an openly gay Black man is notable.
Though it looked like he might have faced a challenge from Daphne Campbell herself, Campbell is instead running for Mayor of North Miami in 2023. But he still faces challenges from former Miami Gardens City Councilman Erhabor Ighodaro and “consultant” Pitchie “Peachy” Escarment. Ighodaro ran in the same 2020 primary in which Jones beat Campbell, placing a very distant fourth, and made some homophobic comments about what “a marriage should look like,” which was a pretty thinly veiled attack against Jones. While Ighodaro and Escarment have raised little, Jones has stockpiled a significant war chest and looks likely to cruise to re-election.
SD-35 (Southwest Broward County)*
Lauren Book (i) vs. Barbara Sharief
This is one of the strangest primaries in the state—and given everything covered so far, that’s an accomplishment. State Senator Lauren Book, the Minority Leader of the Senate, is facing a primary challenge from former Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief, last seen losing to Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick in 2021. Book’s rise in Democratic politics has been really strange. Book waltzed into the State Senate in 2016 entirely unopposed and was re-elected in 2018 unopposed, too. As the daughter of prominent (and corrupt) lobbyist Ron Book, she’s extraordinary well-connected and has always been able to raise gobs of money to scare off potential primary challengers. But unlike a lot of ambitious Florida Democrats with ties to slimy lobbyists, Book has been pretty progressive in office. Though Florida Democrats can do very little to stop Ron DeSantis, Book has been an able spokeswoman for the party—and seems very, very, very likely to be running for something sometime soon. She has her own ethical problems, which Sharief has been eager to point out—most significantly, the repeated appropriations to her charity in the state budget.
Sharief, meanwhile, is a longtime fixture of Broward County politics. She was a Broward County Commissioner for years, and twice served as mayor of the county. (Mayor is a meaningless title; it’s basically just the chair of the county commission.) She’s always exuded some form of ambition for higher office. Prior to Alcee Hastings’s death, she filed to run for Congress in 2022 (likely in anticipation that the seat would be open). She did end up running for Congress, though in different circumstances, and placed third to Cherfilus-McCormick and Holness in what was obviously a close race. Now, she’s challenging Book for re-election.
The resulting primary isn’t ideological as much as it is personal. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, one of the leading papers in the area, bemoaned the “ugly, contentious race” between Book and Sharief, noting that the “campaign has been seriously derailed.” No kidding! Book’s been attacked for the appropriations to her charity, for not living in the district (she moved into it so she could run for re-election), and for not insisting on a recorded vote on a rape exception to the state’s new abortion law. Sharief, meanwhile, has been attacked for her own corruption (overbilling Medicaid). There’s little discernible difference between the two candidates ideologically, but most of the state’s progressive forces have lined up behind Book—either because they see a difference or because it’s in their best interest to do so. And to make matters weirder, because Book and Sharief were the only two candidates to file, it’s an open primary—meaning all voters, regardless of party affiliation, can cast a ballot here. Book is probably the better choice, and is the pretty clear frontrunner in the race, but she’s not great. Sharief’s performance could foreshadow how well a future primary challenger could do—especially given that this is a plurality Hispanic district with no Hispanic candidates in the Democratic primary—but Book’s close relationship with movement progressives likely limits the possibility that any such challenge could be successful.
HD-08 (Tallahassee)
Hubert Brown vs. Gallop Franklin vs. Gregory James vs. Sharon Lettman-Hicks vs. Marie Rattigan
State Rep. Ramon Alexander, who represented most of Tallahassee and Black-majority Gadsden County in the State House, was a rising star—he was queued to be Minority Leader for the 2022 session. But after he faced some serious allegations of sexual harassment, he resigned. As a result, there’s now a crowded race to succeed him. Sharon Lettman-Hicks looked like an early frontrunner—she runs a prominent political consulting firm and is pretty well-connected. However, when the U.S. Attorney’s office announced the indictment of former Tallahassee Mayor and 2018 Democratic nominee for Governor Andrew Gillum, Lettman-Hicks was scooped up in the controversy and was indicted, too. She dropped out of the race upon her indictment, but will still appear on the ballot.
So the remaining candidates include lawyer Hubert Brown; pharmacist and professor Gallop Franklin; pastor Gregory James; and legislative aide Marie Rattigan. Judging from fundraising, Brown and Franklin are the early frontrunners. Despite the competitive nature of the race, it’s tough to get a read on the candidates’ ideological positioning—other than Franklin, who was endorsed by the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Realtors PAC. The candidates’ issue pages (if they have them) are all boilerplate and most progressive orgs have declined to step into the race. However, Rattigan seems like the best candidate—she’s used a viral story from 2009, in which she was attacked by a cop and arrested for “resisting arrest” at age 13, to advocate for criminal justice reform; served in a leadership position in the Tallahassee NAACP; and worked on Raphael Warnock’s campaign. She’s been outraised by the other candidates, but in a crowded field, it’s hard to tell what might happen. Given Franklin’s connections—he was student body president at Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, an HBCU in Tallahassee, and has remained involved locally—and his financial resources, we’d assume he comes out ahead.
HD-13 (Jacksonville)*
Angie Nixon (i) vs. Delaine Smith
Pastor, real estate agent, and prophetess “blessed and highly favored by God and Man” Delaine Smith is a friend of Kimberly Daniels, an even more overt religious nutcase who Angie Nixon ousted in 2020. This run looks like pure retaliation from a Daniels ally as she attempts to make it back to the House in a different district (see below.)
HD-14 (Jacksonville)*
Kimberly Daniels vs. Garrett Dennis vs. Iris Hinton vs. Mincy Pollock
With Rep. Tracie Davis running for the State Senate rather than for re-election, there’s an open seat in Duval County, covering much of downtown Jacksonville and the Northside—and the options here aren’t great. There’s Jacksonville City Councilman Garrett Dennis; former city council candidate Mincy Pollock; former state Rep. Kimberly Daniels; and retiree Iris Hinton. Hinton’s campaign is extremely low-profile—there’s no campaign website, social media, or platform to speak of—so he’s tough to evaluate.
Let’s start with the worst: Kimberly Daniels. Daniels served on the Jacksonville City Council for several years, and then managed to win a seat in the State House—and it’s unclear why, exactly, she considers herself a Democrat. Here’s what we wrote about her in our 2020 newsletter:
She’s absolutely, and comically, terrible for reasons that are difficult to fit into this newsletter. Let’s try. For a start, all of these are actual Kim Daniels quotes:
“You can talk about the Holocaust, but the Jews, they own everything!”
“I thank God for slavery […]if it wasn’t for slavery, I might be somewhere in Africa, worshipping a tree.”
“We curse gay pride to the root and declare that i[t] is nothing to be proud of; it is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord […]We come against the witchcraft that is working behind the scenes of the homosexual agenda.”
It won’t surprise you that Daniels is aggressively anti-abortion, introduced legislation to mandate Bible studies in public schools, and, while she was on the Jacksonville City Council, opposed an anti-LGBT discrimination ordinance, drawing a bizarre analogy to Biblical Egypt, which she said also had anti-LGBT discrimination laws, along with laws allowing bestiality and necrophilia.
Daniels lost the Democratic primary to Angie Nixon in 2020 in a landslide, 60-40%. Now she’s back.
Then there’s Mincy Pollock. Pollock is a confidant of corrupt former Congresswoman Corrine Brown—and, judging from media accounts, was deeply involved in her corruption scandal. (It’s a genuine wonder why he wasn’t indicted.) Pollock’s campaign is being propped up by local business interests—most notably, the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce.
And finally, Jacksonville City Councilman Garrett Dennis. Dennis is a standard-issue, somewhat business-friendly Democrat. But compared to Daniels and Pollock, he’s the easy choice here. The problem is that Daniels has a history of winning competitive Democratic primaries with pluralities of the vote—and it’s entirely possible that she could do so here. That would be a major, major setback for state Democrats, who long wanted to rid themselves of Daniels, as well as for the district itself. The saving grace here: some of Daniels’s victories came when the primaries were open to all voters, including Republicans, who likely helped her win her 2018 primary, but this primary is closed. So Daniels will be facing an exclusively Democratic electorate, which helps Dennis’s case. Still, while Daniels’s 2020 defeat wasn’t close, 40% could be enough to win in a three-candidate field. We’re pulling for a Dennis win, but a Daniels victory is very, very much on the table.
HD-40 (Orlando)
LaVon Bracy Davis vs. Melissa Myers
With incumbent Kamia Brown running for the state Senate rather than re-election, this seat—which includes the predominantly Black communities of Pine Hills and Ocoee, as well as some neighborhoods in downtown Orlando—is open. The two candidates running to succeed Brown in the Democratic primary are community activist Melissa Myers and attorney LaVon Bracy Davis. Under normal circumstances, we could easily imagine Myers being the better candidate in this race—Bracy Davis is the sister of state Sen. Randolph Bracy, the bland centrist in the FL-10 primary (nepotism being generally bad), and Myers’s status as a community activist might generally be suggestive of more progressive values. But “community activist” is a vague description. Myers’s community work, though laudable in many ways, has seemingly veered into police apologetics—like bringing police officers into heavily policed communities for “feel good” moments that serve as free PR for the police. (That link, by the way, is to what we would best describe as a biographical music video for Myers, in lieu of an actual biography on her website.)
Bracy Davis, meanwhile, has good groups and local progressives in her corner. She’s been endorsed by Ruth’s List (the Florida equivalent of EMILY’s List); progressive state Reps. Anna Eskamani and Carlos Guillermo Smith; and the state teachers’ union, the AFL-CIO, and SEIU. We’ll trust the endorsements on this and say that Bracy Davis is the better choice—and, given her fundraising and endorsements, the likelier winner here.
HD-41 (Orlando)
Travaris McCurdy (i) vs. Bruce Antone vs. Pam Powell vs. Shaniqua Rose
When state Rep. Bruce Antone was term-limited in 2020, Travaris McCurdy ended up winning his seat unopposed. That actually turned out to be a good thing—though McCurdy’s background as a legislative aide could’ve pushed him to be an annoying centrist, he instead emerged as one of the progressive leaders in the State House. He faces a crowded Democratic primary this year—maybe ambitious local Dems are making up for his 2020 default win? Former Orlando City Council candidate and nonprofit executive Shan Rose; minister, radio host, local Democratic activist, and State House candidate Pam Powell (who was initially set to run against McCurdy in 2020); and Antone are all running. Powell and Rose have both raised a decent amount of money, though McCurdy has raised a bit more, and Antone likely has a good amount of name recognition from his two decades in elected office (and other unsuccessful campaigns). It’s tough to say that any of McCurdy’s opponents are decidedly worse—but he’s the best choice. For one, he has the support of local progressives, but he’s also one of the most progressive members of the State House and represents a good opportunity to build a progressive bench in Central Florida. Given the splintered opposition, he’s also probably a favorite to win here, but Antone and Powell can’t be counted out.
HD-44 (Southern Orlando suburbs)*
Daisy Morales (i) vs. Jennifer Harris
Another strange primary—and another one that’s not really being decided on ideological grounds. In 2020, when this seat was open, the progressive choice was Samuel Vilchez Santiago—and the race was seen as an opportunity to expand the progressive bench in the area. Instead, Daisy Morales, a member of the Orange County Soil and Water Conservation District Board (an unpaid, but elected, office with few responsibilities) won a plurality victory. Morales has been a bit of an odd duck. In her 2020 campaign, her repeated absences from Board meetings was an issue, but it turned out that Morales was dialing into the meetings using the wrong number, which allowed her to hear the proceedings but not be heard herself, and was “yelling or screaming into the phone.” Weird shit.
This year, Morales faces a primary challenge from Rita Harris, a former board member with the Orange County Democratic Party. The race isn’t dividing on any sort of perceived ideological difference among the candidates. In part, it’s geographic and demographic—Morales’s district was cut in half, cutting the influence of Hispanic voters in the Democratic primary and adding a wealthier, whiter part of the county. (Oddly, it’s also become a proxy war for Charlie Crist and Nikki Fried, with Crist endorsing Harris and Fried endorsing Morales.) Still, there’s an ideological difference in the endorsers for each candidate—the more moderate Democratic establishment in the area is endorsing Morales, and progressives are going for Harris. But an unspoken aspect of the race seems to be that Morales is just kind of fucking weird. Harris has lapped Morales in fundraising, and it’s always a little unusual when prominent local and state party leaders dump an incumbent for a challenger in a race where neither ideology nor ethics is an issue.
To make matters stranger, because only Harris and Morales filed, the primary is open to all voters. In a district where 27% of the registered voters are Republicans, that could make a difference in the outcome. And if the race were more explicitly ideological, maybe it would cut one way or another. But though the open primary will likely make *a* difference, it’s hard to tell *what* difference at this point. This race will likely end up close.
HD-47 (St. Cloud and Kissimmee)
Andrew Jeng vs. Dan Marquith vs. Anthony Nieves
Population growth in Osceola County, just south of Orlando, has resulted in the creation of a new, strongly Democratic seat based primarily around St. Cloud. The frontrunner, judging from fundraising and endorsements, is Dan Marquith, a regional director for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, an advisor to Congressman Darren Soto, and before that, a cop for 16 years. (He’s still a cop, too—just as a “reserve deputy sheriff.”) He’s also endorsed by cops, like the Florida Police Benevolent Association, the Florida State Fraternal Order of Police, and Orange County Sheriff John Mina. Despite that, he’s emerged as the establishment choice of Osceola County Democrats. Go figure. Marquith’s closest opponent is Andrew Jeng, a businessman and…former cop. The best candidate in the race is former state employee Anthony Nieves, who has a genuinely progressive platform, few endorsements, and little money. Marquith is likely going to win the primary by a wide margin. He deserves a challenge in 2024.
HD-62 (Tampa and St. Petersburg)
Michele Rayner (i) vs. Wengay Newton vs. Jesse Philippe
This is one of the most frustrating races this year. State Rep. Michele Rayner is excellent. She’s the first (and only) lesbian member of the state House and one of the most progressive members in the legislature. She won a tough primary in 2020 to represent this Black majority district that hops the Tampa Bay twice to scoop up Black voters in Tampa, St. Pete, Bradenton, and Sarasota (protecting Republicans in Pinellas, Manatee, and Sarasota counties from more competitive general elections). Her election in 2020 was also a major upgrade from Wengay Newton, a conservative Democrat who represented the area for years on the St. Petersburg City Council and in the State House. Rayner was originally running for Congress to succeed Charlie Crist in the 13th district, but the—again, flagrantly unconstitutional—gerrymandered district is likely out of reach for Democrats this year, so Rayner dropped down to run for re-election to the State House.
And so, naturally, she faces a primary challenge from…Wengay Newton. (also from attorney Jesse Philippe, but Newton is her biggest opponent.) Newton is coming for Rayner—and hard. His challenge to her is from the right, and proudly so—he has the support of multiple legislative Republicans. Neighboring Republican State Rep. Chris Latvala’s political committee is sending out mailers on Newton’s behalf, which Newton says that he “welcome[s].” He’s endorsed by the state Chamber of Commerce and the Fraternal Order of Police. It’s shameful behavior in a Democratic primary, but unsurprising from Newton. In the State House, Newton had a shitty voting record, backing charter schools and highway expansions. The Sierra Club ranked Newton and Kimberly Daniels as the “least environmentally-friendly” Democrats in the state House, in part because of his vote for the highway bill. In 2017, when Rick Kriseman, the Democratic Mayor of St. Petersburg, was facing a serious challenge from former Republican Mayor Rick Baker, Newton backed Baker. When Newton ran for Mayor in 2021—receiving, we’ll note, only 7% and placing a distant fourth—he claimed (perhaps falsely) to have Baker’s support.
Newton deserves to lose—and judging from Rayner’s advantage in endorsements and fundraising, it looks like he will. This race also has special significance in the leadup to 2024, when state Sen. Darryl Rouson, who represents this area in the State Senate, will finally be term-limited. The race to succeed Rouson will be hotly contested, but given that this district covers much of the same area as the state Senate district, the incumbent here may have a leg up. Rouson, like Newton, is in the conservative faction of the state party, so a win for Rayner here could mean an upgrade from Rouson in 2024.
HD-92 (SE Palm Beach County)
Kelly Skidmore (i) vs. Hasan Zahangir
Kelly Skidmore, who served in the State House from 2006-10 before making an unsuccessful run for the State Senate, and subsequently returned in 2020, is running for re-election in this western Palm Beach County-based district. Skidmore has a fairly progressive voting record in the legislature, and is facing a challenge from small businessman Hasan Zahangir. Zahangir has raised more money than the typical challenger to a state legislator, but Skidmore is the clear favorite here.
HD-93 (West-central Palm Beach County)
Seth Densen vs. Shelly Lariz Albright vs. Thomas Valeo vs. Katherine Waldron
The closest thing that this district, based in central Palm Beach County, had to an incumbent was state Rep. Matt Willhite, who’s represented the area since 2016. However, Willhite is running for the Palm Beach County Commission instead of seeking re-election, and there’s a crowded race to replace him, featuring Shelly Albright, who sits on a number of local boards; social worker Seth Dansen; legislative aide Tom Valeo; and Palm Beach Port Commissioner Katherine Waldron. Waldron’s raised the most money by far, and has supplemented that with some significant self-funding. Waldron and Valeo have split most of the state and local endorsements; Waldron’s been endorsed by most of the local elected officials in the area, and Valeo by many of the state’s progressive legislators, like Carlos Guillermo Smith. Valeo and Dansen seem like the best options here, with Valeo the more viable of the two, but Waldron’s fundraising, endorsements, and name recognition from past elections (even for a position as low-profile as the port commission) likely put her in the driver’s seat.
HD-97 (Broward County, west of Ft. Lauderdale)*
Lisa Dunkley vs. Saima Farooqui vs. Kelly Scurry
As mentioned above, Anika Omphroy won this seat in 2018 by default, when incumbent state Rep. Barrington Russell just…failed to qualify for re-election. She used that fortuitous entry into the state legislature to vote for abortion restrictions, expand charter schools, and narrowly beat back a primary challenger in 2020 who was backed by lots of progressive orgs. This year, she’s making the bizarre decision to challenge Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick in the primary. Weird choice, but good riddance. The race to replace her has been pretty quiet. The apparent frontrunner is attorney Kelly Scurry, who’s backed by some local elected officials. Saima Farooqui, who’s run for the state legislature a few times before, is also running—and is performing better than in her previous races in terms of fundraising and institutional support. Lisa Dunkley, an Army veteran, is the third candidate in the race, but she’s faded into the background a bit. Ordinarily, we’d say that Scurry is the frontrunner, but nobody in the race has raised very much and no outside groups have stepped into the race—so it could be anyone’s game. The ideological stakes here seem pretty low, and all three candidates seem like upgrades from Omphroy, but Farooqui could be interesting given her past challenges of incumbent state legislators. This is also an open primary, but given how few Republicans are in the district, it’s unlikely to make much of a difference.
HD-98 (Northern Broward County)*
Patricia Hawkins-Williams (i) vs. Carmen Jones
Patricia Hawkins-Williams has represented this Black-majority district, which includes northern Fort Lauderdale, since 2016. She’s been a fairly inoffensive incumbent and hasn’t attracted much opposition. She’s challenged in the primary by Pompano Beach Housing Authority Commissioner Carmen Jones, who hasn’t raised much or run much of a campaign. Hawkins-Williams should win without a problem.
HD-99 (Ft. Lauderdale)*
Daryl Campbell (i) vs. Elijah Manley
State Rep. Bobby DuBose, the Minority Leader in the state House, gave up his seat in the legislature and his leadership post to run in the special election to succeed Alcee Hastings—all to end up placing a very distant fifth with just 7% of the vote. In a concurrently scheduled special election, Daryl Campbell was elected to replace DuBose. He’s running for re-election this year, and is opposed by Elijah Manley. Manley has run for office several times before—Broward County School Board in 2018, State Senate in 2020, and against Campbell earlier this year. Each time, he’s run with a progressive platform, and has done a bit better each time with winning institutional endorsements. This year, he’s racked up some major local endorsements, most prominently from Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis (no leftist himself), congressional candidate Ben Sorensen, and leading environmental groups. Given how few votes Campbell has cast in the legislature, it’s hard to judge his record so far. Manley has alleged that Campbell participated in a homophobic whisper campaign against him in the state House special election that Campbell won, allegations that Campbell vehemently denies.
Manley’s campaign this year seems far stronger than any of his previous ones, though his fundraising is a bit lackluster. We’re inclined to give Campbell the edge here, even if winning a low-turnout special election with 5,000 votes in the Democratic primary means he’s not a seasoned incumbent.
HD-101 (Hollywood and Ft. Lauderdale)
Hillary Cassel vs. Todd Delmay vs. Clay Miller
State Rep. Evan Jenne, who has represented this southeastern Broward County district for all but two years since 2006, is term-limited—and an extremely competitive, expensive race has developed to replace him. Attorney Hillary Cassel, LGBT activist Todd Delmay, and Broward County Commission aide Clay Miller are all running—and each has raised a good amount of money and attracted a fair amount of institutional support. Cassel and Miller are the best candidates here. Both are endorsed by a fair amount of progressive orgs and people—Cassel by the progressive members of the state House and Miller by unions and environmental groups—while Delmay has the backing of the state Chamber of Commerce. Even in a field of strong fundraisers, Cassel has outraised and outspent Delmay and Miller, but any of the three could win.
HD-105 (Hollywood and Miramar)
Marie Woodson (i) vs. Imran Siddiqui
First-term state Rep. Marie Woodson, despite being the most moderate candidate in the 2020 primary, has had a largely uncontroversial time in the State House. She’s going to cruise to reelection against perennial candidate Imran Siddiqui.
HD-106 (Miami Beach)
Jordan Leonard vs. Gustavo Ortega
State Rep. Joe Geller, a longtime force in Miami-area politics (he was involved in the 2000 presidential recount in Miami-Dade County and was even depicted in the HBO film Recount), is term-limited, creating an open seat. The overwhelming favorite to succeed him is Jordan Leonard, the former Mayor of Bay Harbor Islands. (Florida, like other heavily suburban states, has a lot of surprisingly populous cities. Bay Harbor Islands, population 5,922, is not one of them.) Leonard has raised an ungodly amount of money—nearly $300K!—for a mostly uncompetitive race and has been endorsed by pretty much every local elected official. He was initially set to face former state Rep. David Richardson, a solid progressive, in the primary, but Richardson ended up dropping out. Now, Leonard’s only competition is special education teacher Gustavo Ortega, who’s raised little. There’s little ideological daylight between the candidates, and Leonard will win easily.
HD-107 (Miami Gardens)*
Christopher Benjamin (i) vs. Wancito Francius
State Rep. Christopher Benjamin, running for re-election to a second term, has racked up a fairly progressive voting record. He faces a surprisingly well-funded challenge from Wancito Francius, a business owner who unsuccessfully ran for the North Miami City Council in 2019. Francius has actually outraised Benjamin, but the bulk of that has come from self-funding. There’s little reason to think that Benjamin is vulnerable, but Francius has the resources to get his message—which is focused on ideologically vague “transformational leadership” and downplays his anti-choice views—out there.
HD-108 (Miami and North Miami)*
Dotie Joseph (i) vs. Michael Etienne vs. Roy Hardemon
This is another incredibly frustrating race. For years, conservative Daphne Campbell represented this area in the State House, repeatedly winning against liberal primary challengers. When she left, she was succeeded by Roy Hardemon, who won a crowded primary with just 22%, and less than 300 votes ahead of the progressive candidate in the race. Hardemon, as we noted in our 2020 preview, “is awful: he was arrested for kidnapping and assault and was wishy-washy on abortion rights in the legislature.” In 2018, immigration attorney Dotie Joseph, with the support of progressives, beat him. Hardemon returned to challenge Joseph in 2020, but Joseph won with 58% of the vote. This year, Hardemon is back, again—but the more serious challenger is likelier to be Michael Etienne, the former North Miami City Clerk who unsuccessfully ran for Mayor in 2021. Joseph has the benefit of incumbency, and better fundraising, but Etienne has strong support from the local Haitian Creole radio shows, and is advertising heavily on them, which could prove decisive in a low-turnout primary. Some of the donations Joseph has received from corporate groups and the state Police Benevolent Association are concerning, but she’s still the better choice here given her progressive record in the State House.
HD-109 (Miami and suburbs)*
James Bush III (i) vs. Ashley Gantt
James Bush has bounced around different offices for the better part of three decades. First came a stint in the Florida House from 1992 to 2000, followed by a wildly unsuccessful run for Commissioner of Education in 2000 (back when the position was elected). He returned to the State House in 2008, but left in 2010 to unsuccessfully run for Congress, losing to Frederica Wilson in the Democratic primary. When state Rep. Cynthia Stafford was term-limited in 2018, he successfully ran to succeed her and was re-elected in 2020.
And he’s awful—the worst Democrat in the state legislature (after Kimberly Daniels finally left). He’s backed abortion restrictions, DeSantis’s “don’t say gay” bill, and the ban on transgender athletes. He’s rightly earned a primary challenge from attorney Ashley Gantt, a former public defender, who cited Bush’s support for the “don’t say gay” bill as one of the reasons for her campaign. Progressives have gone all-in on her challenge, with Ruth’s List and local Democratic elected officials all backing her. She’s also managed to outraise Bush, which will hopefully allow her to get her message out as she faces an incumbent with a long history in politics. Bush definitely can’t be counted out—this is a district that’s more friendly to social conservatives, and Bush has name recognition on his side. But Gantt is clearly benefiting from institutional support and better financial resources. This will likely be a close race.
HD-113 (Southern Miami)
Andrés Althabe vs. Alessandro D'Amico
Somehow everyone in South Florida politics took a look at a safely Democratic district in urban Miami and decided they know just the man to fill it: Alessandro “AJ” D’Amico, an aide to René Garcia, a Republican County Commissioner. Andrés Althabe, who helped found not just his HOA, but an HOA conglomeration called the Biscayne Neighborhood Association, would normally be throwing up every red flag possible in local politics, but he’s cast himself as the more progressive candidate here, or at least the more Democratic one. Thanks to his work with an HOA hydra, he made some rich friends and even managed to keep fundraising pace with D’Amico. Miami may have an upset on its hands tonight.
Duval County (Jacksonville) Sheriff
Lakesha Burton vs. Wayne Clark vs. Tony Cummings vs. Ken Jefferson
Earlier this year, Sheriff Mike Williams, a Republican, was discovered to have moved to neighboring Nassau County. Residency requirements for state and county elected officials are pretty clear, and Williams faced a lawsuit to force him out of office. But he decided he’d rather continue to live in Nassau County than hold office, so he resigned. As a result, we have a special election for Duval County Sheriff. The rules for the special election are a bit weird for Florida—it’s essentially an open primary where the candidates are listed by party affiliation, and if no candidate gets a majority, there’s a runoff in November. And because Jacksonville and Duval County merged decades ago, this office is confusingly referred to as both the Duval County Sheriff and the Jacksonville Sheriff.
There’s only one Republican running in the race—T.K. Waters, who’s been endorsed by Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Republican establishment, and has raised nearly a million dollars. He’ll probably come in first—and runs a real risk of getting a majority in the first round.
The remaining candidates are all Democrats—Lakesha Burton, Ken Jefferson, Wayne Clark, and Tony Cummings. All of them are current, retired, or former members of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Burton is the clear frontrunner, racking up institutional support and running competitively with Waters in fundraising. The ideological differences between the Democrats are unclear. Jefferson, the former public information officer for the department, has made a point of being compassionate towards the homeless, both in his platform and in his nonprofit involvement, which is significant. Burton, meanwhile, doesn’t have much of a platform—which has probably enabled her to fundraise from prominent Republican donors in Jacksonville politics. Burton looks likely to come out ahead of her fellow Democrats, and the general election should be competitive.
Tallahassee Mayor
John Dailey (i) vs. Kristin Dozier vs. Michael Ibrahim vs. Whitfield Leland
First-term incumbent Mayor John Dailey, who was first elected here in 2018 as Andrew Gillum’s successor, is seeking re-election. He faces a stiff challenge from City Commissioner Kristin Dozier, who is running to Dailey’s left. In 2018, Dailey won against Gillum’s chief of staff and was the more moderate choice of the two. He’s governed that way, too—and has been a business- and establishment-friendly mayor. (You know the type.) Most notably, he narrowly pushed through a $20 million city-funded upgrade to the Florida State University football campus. Dozier has been in Tallahassee city politics for the last 12 years as a member of the commission, and while that would ordinarily weigh against her, she’s been pretty outspoken against “economic development” funds that are really corporate slush funds. Developers and Republican lobbyists have lined up behind Dailey, even though he’s a Democrat, which gives you a sense of how the local establishment sees him. The real question mark here is whether this race is decided this month or in a November runoff. It’s easy to imagine Dozier benefiting from higher turnout in the general election, given Tallahassee’s liberal bent. But it’s not out of the question that either candidate could win outright.
Judgeships, Hillsborough County (Tampa)
Hillsborough County has a highly symbolic election for abortion rights in Florida. Judge Jared Smith, a right-wing religious conservative, ruled against allowing a minor to have an abortion because her grades weren’t good enough, a case that received national attention. He’s up for reelection to the Group 37 position of the 13th Circuit, and challenger Nancy Jacobs has promised to protect abortion rights on the bench, even as Florida sinks further in the post-Dobbs state of abortion criminalization. Smith’s response to her candidacy has been both desperate and ugly, commissioning an attack ad in violation of both judicial conduct codes and state law, charging her with being a “woke”, ”activist” judge.
Judgeships, Miami-Dade County (Miami)
There are two particularly interesting judgeship contests in the 11th Circuit Court (ie, Miami-Dade County). In Group 20, cop-backed Ron DeSantis appointee Ron Watson is being challenged by more liberal attorney Brenda Guerrero, while in Group 34, it’s the challenger who is the problem. Trump-supporting Federalist Society member Ariel Rodriguez is trying to defeat incumbent Mark Blumstein.
Judgeships, Orange County (Orlando)
Thanks to nonpartisan races, vacant judgeships defaulting to gubernatorial appointment, and the Orlando metro only becoming a Democratic bastion in the late 2000s, there are a large number of conservative judges still in office, many even official members of the ultra-conservsative Federalist Society. In 9th Circuit Court Group 14, Michael Stewart is running pretty much entirely on the incumbent John Beamer being a FedSoc member; also in the 9th Circuit, Group 9, on open seat, the contest is between prosecutor and former FedSoc member Alison Kerestes and private practice lawyer Fay Olga Pappas. At the County level, FedSoc incumbents Andrew Bain (Group 2), Elizabeth Starr (Group 9), and Elizabeth Joy Gibson (Group 17), are being challenged by more liberal opponents: public defender Jared Adelman, family lawyer Michael Morris, and defense attorney Joshua Eli Adams, respectively. The open Group 9 race is between career prosecutor Steven Miller and Amanda Sampaio Bova, who was the head of the conviction integrity unit for the previous county attorney, progressive DA Aramis Ayala.