The move by LaMarca and his wife, Eileen, has generated some political chatter that his possible future political plans might involve Fort Lauderdale, not Lighthouse Point, where they’ve lived for more than 25 years.

From there, he was elected to previous stints on the City Commission and the Broward County Commission, and to the Florida House of Representatives, where he currently serves.

The neighborhood where the LaMarcas are renting is in the state House district he represents.

He’s in his last year as a state representative; because of term limits, he will leave office after the 2026 elections.

LaMarca and Eileen LaMarca, who is a member of the Broward College Board of Trustees, appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, relocated while their house undergoes a major renovation. He said he hasn’t changed his voter registration because he expects to be back at home by the next time voting takes place.

Their move set off some political chatter because he’s a potential candidate for Fort Lauderdale mayor in 2028, when Mayor Dean Trantalis can’t run for reelection because of term limits.

He’s acknowledged he’s thought about relocating to Fort Lauderdale and running for mayor. “The options are there, and we’re looking at a couple of things,” he said in a recent interview.

LaMarca, who grew up in Fort Lauderdale, said, “We love the area. We love Lighthouse Point. We love Fort Lauderdale. And I will make a decision at some point.”

He said renting in Fort Lauderdale is a matter of construction, not politics.

He said their Lighthouse Point home is being demolished and rebuilt. “We looked at every option to renovate and it’s a 75-year-old … smaller, older house. We want to build something and make a decision then on what we’re going to do.”

The temporary relocation is “not a prelude” to a political campaign, he said. “We just picked that because it was convenient and the right location for us.”

He said he hasn’t changed his voter registration to Fort Lauderdale because he doesn’t expect to be living in the rental by next year’s elections.

Candidates for Fort Lauderdale mayor don’t run with party labels.

LaMarca is a former chair of the Broward Republican Party, and for most of his time on the County Commission and in the state House has been the only elected Republican in an elected office in Broward County in which the candidates run with party labels.

There is precedent for a well-known state legislator moving to Fort Lauderdale and becoming mayor.

Jack Seiler lived in Wilton Manors and served as a city commissioner and mayor in the 1990s. He then served eight years in the Florida House of Representatives. Seiler moved from Wilton Manors to Fort Lauderdale, where he was elected mayor three times until leaving office because of term limits.

At a Tower Forum luncheon in downtown Fort Lauderdale at which LaMarca and other lawmakers discussed the 2026 legislative session, moderator and former state Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff observed that “we’re coming into an election year, which is always very scary.”

Prevented from running for reelection because of term limits, LaMarca piped up: “Not for me!”

“I know,” Bogdanoff responded. “But you never know what’s next for you, Chip. You never know what’s next.”

Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

“We need leaders in Congress who will work to build on the success President Trump has had to secure our borders, defend our nation, reduce waste, and bring tax relief to Americans,” Singer said in a written statement first shared with the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

And in an announcement video, Singer sought to align himself with Trump, using several images of the president — and a clip of Trump mentioning and thanking Singer. “Scott Singer is running for Congress to build on President Trump’s success, to secure our borders, defend our nation, cut waste and bring taxes and costs down for all Americans,” the narrator explains.

He enters the race with some advantages — and facing some political headwinds.

Singer is a prominent local elected official whose base is an important part of the district. And, his statement indicated, he plans to play up his record leading the city. “As mayor, I fought to keep taxes and crime low and delivered results to provide an affordable, safe, and vibrant place to live,” he said.

But he’s a Republican running in what could be a tough environment. In most midterm elections following a presidential contest, the president’s party loses seats in Congress. In 2025 special elections — including in Florida — Democrats have done better than they did in 2024 and Republicans have been doing worse.

Redistricting

Another challenge: Singer, like all the other candidates, doesn’t know exactly where he’ll be running.

Right now, he’s seeking the Republican nomination in the 23rd Congressional District, which takes in northern Broward and much of the coast extending south through most of Fort Lauderdale and a share of southern Palm Beach County, including the city of Boca Raton and unincorporated communities west of the city.

But Gov. Ron DeSantis and leaders of the Florida Legislature are planning an unusual mid-decade redistricting of congressional boundaries before next year’s election. Districts are normally redrawn every 10 years, and Florida’s current map was implemented in 2022.

Republicans are hoping changes will increase the number of Florida congressional districts favorable to the party in response to a demand from President Donald Trump. Trump has demanded that states controlled by Republicans reconfigure congressional district boundaries in ways designed to get more Republicans and fewer Democrats elected.

One of the top targets of Florida Republicans: Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz and the 23rd District. Moskowitz is seeking a third term.

The 23rd District could get more Republican territory by adding more of Palm Beach County and less Democratic territory by removing some of Broward.

The district is already close. The partisan voting index from the Cook Political Report rates the district as D plus 2, which means it performed 2 points more Democratic than the nation during the past two presidential contests.

Moskowitz’s 2022 and 2024 victories were the smallest margins of any congressional races in the state. He lost the Palm Beach County part of the district in both 2022 and 2024, winning both times on the strength of Democratic voters in Broward.

Who is Scott Singer?

In July, the America First Policy Institute announced it was forming a Mayor’s Council with Singer as its chair. The policy institute is a conservative, pro-Trump policy research and advocacy organization founded by leading figures from Trump’s first term. It formed shortly after he lost the 2020 election.

“My mission is to bring common-sense solutions and America First policies that protect our families, our safety, and our livelihood,” said Singer, whose campaign also described him as a fiscal conservative.

Singer, 49, a lawyer, received a bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard University and a law degree from Georgetown University. Born in Miami, he was raised in Fort Lauderdale, where he graduated from Pine Crest School. He and his wife, Bella, have two children.

He was first elected to the Boca Raton City Council in 2014. He was elected mayor in 2018, and reelected in 2020 and 2023. He was the 2021-2022 president of the Florida League of Mayors. Term limits prevented Singer from running for reelection as mayor; he leaves office in March.

Singer considered running for Congress in 2022 but opted against it. In July, he said in an interview he was thinking about a 2026 candidacy.

As he’s been considering the race, he’s been able to use his role of mayor to generate some national attention. When Zohran Mamdani, now the mayor-elect of New York, won the Democratic Party primary in June, Singer’s response to the democratic socialist’s victory was pitching New York businesses on the idea of moving to Boca Raton.

Singer said at the time that his effort wasn’t political or motivated by a potential congressional campaign, but was aimed only at attracting jobs.

The congressional campaign announcement video uses clips of Singer contrasting his Boca Raton with Mamdani’s New York. Singer’s video doesn’t mention Moskowitz.

The mayoralty has given Singer ways to stand out locally, by participating in ribbon cuttings, groundbreakings featuring ceremonial shovels of dirt, and presenting oversized check replicas to recipients of funding.

Singer received nationwide TV attention before he was in elected office, thanks to his knowledge of obscure information that some would label trivia.

In 2013, he appeared for two nights on “Jeopardy!”, where he won $42,401. Years earlier, at age 25, Singer paid for part of his law school education with the $64,000 he won on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.”

Democratic reaction

Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, said during a video news conference that Singer’s candidacy isn’t a threat to Moskowitz.

“I don’t care who the Republicans put up against Jared,” she said. “Jared is an extremely strong member of the congressional delegation who has made a national reputation for himself of not taking the BS from MAGA and standing up for the people of his community and for the state. So we are not worried.”

Democratic state Rep. Rob Long pointed to his Dec. 9 special election victory in a Delray Beach-Boynton Beach state House district that’s just north of the congressional district. “Jared’s team happened to run my campaign and we just won by 28 points. So I’ll say ‘good luck’ to Scott Singer. I wouldn’t be too worried if I were Jared, though.”

Moskowitz, whose grade of “D” is the lowest rating of any Florida Democrat in scoring by Progressive Punch, which produces a database of congressional voting records from a progressive perspective, has a primary challenger. Progressive activist Oliver Larkin is running against Moskowitz from the political left.

Other Republicans

Singer doesn’t have a clear path to the party nomination.

Republicans already running are former state Rep. George Moraitis, R-Fort Lauderdale; Joe Kaufman, who received 48% of the vote as the party’s 2024 nominee against Moskowitz; plus several lesser-known candidates.

Moraitis didn’t have any comment on Singer’s candidacy.

Kaufman said he is focused on Moskowitz. “I fully expect to defeat him in 2026,” he said via text.

“I’m not worried about Scott Singer,” Kaufman said. He termed Singer a RINO — a slight that means “Republican in name only” who “cavorts” with people who aren’t aligned with Republicans or Trump and “is hated by Boca’s residents for selling out their city. We don’t need another Moskowitz clone working for special interests.”

The most recent reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show that Moraitis had $405,000 in his campaign account on Sept. 30. Kaufman had $359,000.

Most of the district’s voters, including Republicans who vote in the primary to pick the nominee, live in Broward. If the district gets more Palm Beach County Republicans, that could be a plus for Singer and a minus for Moraitis.

The congressional primary is Aug. 18.

Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

“It’s very hard to tell what’s real or what’s not real anymore,” he said, outlining a range of restrictions he wants to place on the companies developing AI.

DeSantis also said that President Donald Trump’s executive order last week designed to block states from crafting their own AI regulations wouldn’t get in Florida’s way.

“The president issued an executive order and some people were saying, ‘Well, no, this blocks the states from doing.’ It doesn’t,” DeSantis said during an event livestreamed from the Florida Atlantic University campus in Jupiter. “An executive order can’t block the states. … Clearly we have the right to do this.”

DeSantis was joined by three parents who outlined the horrors of uncontrolled AI — a child’s suicide and another’s attempted suicide — and by the commander of the South Florida Cyber Crimes Task Force, who outlined other threats.

Proposals

The governor isn’t alone in his desire to impose government regulation on AI.

Last week was “Artificial Intelligence Week” in the Florida House of Representatives, during which lawmakers held multiple hearings to consider the impact of the technology and legislation to restrict it. Some of the proposals the governor touted Monday mirror what lawmakers are working on.

Insurance: Proposed legislation would order insurance companies not to rely solely on AI to resolve claims. “We also want to make sure that artificial intelligence cannot be used as the sole determination for adjusting or denying an insurance claim,” DeSantis said Monday.

A House committee last week unanimously voted to advance House Bill 527, sponsored by state Rep. Hillary Cassel, R-Dania Beach, which would require humans to make decisions about denying insurance claims. Insurers could still use AI and algorithms to process claims and make recommendations about approvals and denials.

Utilities: DeSantis also said he wants to make sure Florida utility customers don’t have to pay more for electricity to cover the power needs of enormous data centers, if they locate in the state. That endorsement comes in the aftermath of criticism from consumer advocates that the DeSantis-appointed Public Service Commission has approved rate increases that place an unfair share of electricity system costs on residential consumers.

DeSantis fashioned himself as a champion of residential electricity customers on Monday. “You should not have to pay one dime more in utility costs — water, power, any of this stuff — because of (AI),” DeSantis said. “Making sure that Floridians are protected against that I think is really, really important.”

Other proposals: DeSantis unveiled his list of proposed AI “Bill of Rights” regulations on Dec. 4. They include a proposed requirement that consumers get notified if they’re interacting, including by phone or written correspondence, email, with an AI chatbot.

DeSantis also wants prohibitions on state or local government agencies using Chinese-created AI tools; banning use of chatbots as licensed therapy or mental health counselors; and prohibiting AI use of an individual’s name, image or likeness without their image for commercial purposes.

Can state act?

Florida’s ability to act is unclear.

On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order attempting to stymie state regulation of AI — something critics from both parties along with consumer groups see as a favor for big AI companies.

The president directed federal agencies to identify burdensome state AI regulations and pressure states not to enact them by withholding federal funding or challenging the state laws in court.

DeSantis said he didn’t think it would interfere with the moves he wants to take, and said he believes the state has authority to act unless Congress passes nationwide regulation. A Trump executive order can’t bind the state, DeSantis said.

Parents’ warnings

Megan Garcia, of Orlando, described the interactions her son, Sewell Setzer III, had with a chatbot before dying by suicide in February 2024.

She said the chatbot started to engage in sexual roleplay that amounted to grooming. Engaging with the chatbot, which claimed to be a licensed therapist, she said her son was told that she was “was there waiting for him and he needed to find a way to come home with her.”

Garcia said her son explicitly told the bot that he wanted to die by suicide and it did nothing to inform him that it was AI and he needed to talk to a human.

Also appearing Monday with DeSantis was the boy’s father, Sewell Setzer Jr. The family is suing the company in federal court.

Mandi Furniss, a Texas mother of four, said her family had “every guardrail” involving the internet and social media. They took the kids’ phones every night, blocked apps on their phones, and didn’t allow access to social media. “We thought we did everything right.”

Still, she said her oldest child, a boy with autism, suffered serious consequences from his interaction with a chatbot. Furniss said her son is just finishing treatment in a mental health facility after trying to take his life.

Furniss said the bot told her son that his parents were trying to take his phone away because they didn’t love him, that he should call child protective services and the police when they tried to take his phone away, and that killing them would be justification for taking away the app.

“We lost our son. He’s still alive. But I don’t know if he’ll ever be the same,” she said.

Furniss also filed a federal lawsuit against the company behind the chatbot; she said it is currently in arbitration.

‘Campaign of misinformation’

Maj. George Perera, commander of the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office Cyber Crimes Bureau and the South Florida Cyber Crimes Task Force, said artificial intelligence has created other ill effects, especially with so-called deep fake images.

“It allows bad actors to create a campaign of misinformation” — and worse. The technology can allow someone to take clothed photographs of children, remove the clothes, and depict them performing sexual acts.

He said AI can facilitate hacking, using their knowledge of human behavior and interactions “to be able to convince you that this is the right thing to do and to give them money.”

And, Perera said, it is happening fast. “Artificial intelligence is taking the world by storm. There is nothing in the history of mankind that has gotten the traction that artificial intelligence has,” he said.

Rapid change

DeSantis said the problems could get worse if the companies are not restrained.

“They’re spending ungodly amounts of money on capital investment for AI. The stocks have gone up, all this other stuff. They have not gotten the return on that investment, not even close yet. And maybe they will,” DeSantis said. “But to the extent they’re not getting it, they are going to find ways to make money, and if they can get more young people addicted to some of these products, if that helps monetize, like that’s their incentive to do it.”

DeSantis, 47, contrasted today’s technology with the bygone era of his youth.

“We didn’t have smartphones. We didn’t have the internet,” he recalled. “And yet, you know what? We had fun. We lived. We enjoyed childhood. I mean we learned. We were productive. We were outside a lot more than kids are today.”

This report includes information from The Associated Press and the News Service of Florida.

Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

“This has big implications,” said Democratic strategist Eric Johnson, who’s managed federal, statewide and local campaigns in Florida. “Florida is tracking with the nation. And if you’re any Republican officeholder, you’ve got to be very nervous looking to November (2026),” he said.

After years of poor performance by her party in Florida, Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, was determined to spread the message that “the pendulum is swinging toward Democrats.”

In a 20-minute video news conference Wednesday about the results, she used the word “pendulum” 10 times, declaring that “We’re thrilled that the pendulum is swinging in our favor,” “very excited about the pendulum shifting” and “a pendulum only swings when there’s a force behind it.”

The Florida Democrats’ communications director, Nora Viñas, called the day after Election Day “victory Wednesday,” adding that “it’s a beautiful day to be a Democrat.”

State and county-level Republicans were publicly undisturbed by the results. They downplayed any implications for 2026, and spread the message that election results in 2025 don’t portend trouble for their party next year.

“What happened on Tuesday is not representative of what’s going to happen in 2026,” said Carl Cascio, chair of the Palm Beach County Republican Party.

Next year’s race for governor is “going to draw the Republican vote out heavily. So you’re going to see a truer representative sample of Republican voter turnout, of Republican voters en masse, we hope.”

Evan Power, chair of the Florida Republican Party, pointing to the enormous Republican advantage over Democrats in registered voters, scoffed at the notion expressed by Fried and other Democrats that the December results have implications for November 2026.

“A Florida Dem and Nikki Fried tradition unlike any other — take a lean D district win and try to use it to manufacture momentum. Everyday Floridians are rejecting the radical Democrats pushing us to now a 1.4 million voter advantage,” Power said via text message. “The Democrats remain on the verge of extinction.”

While no single race in 2025 reliably predicts what will happen in 2026, said Sean Foreman, a political scientist at Barry University, “There is a trend. There is a pattern.”

“We’ve seen over the past several weeks that election results are trending toward electing Democrats or more favorable results than they had in the past cycle. Will it continue into 2026? That’s the big unknown,” Foreman said.

Races and results

In contests for mayor of Miami, a state representative and a state Senate seat, the Democratic candidates received significantly higher percentages of the vote than Trump got in 2024.

Miami mayor: The marquee contest — the one that generated national headlines — was the runoff for Miami mayor. Eileen Higgins, the city’s first female mayor, is the first Democrat elected to the job in almost three decades.

The losing Republican mayoral candidate had endorsements from Trump and the state’s top Republicans, Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott.

Higgins won by 19 percentage points. A year ago, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris finished ahead of Trump in the city of Miami by less than 1 percentage point.

State House: In Palm Beach County, Democrat Rob Long was elected to fill the District 90 vacancy in the Florida House of Representatives.

Democrats previously held the seat won by Long, so it wasn’t a pickup. But the county’s Republicans had gone all in for the nominee, a Trump-supporting MAGA adherent who wanted to eliminate vaccine mandates, end property taxes and doubted Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

Long, for example, defeated Republican Maria Zack by 27 percentage points and an enormous swing from 2024.

A year ago in the same territory, Long’s Democratic predecessor won the district by 12 points and Harris finished 10 points ahead of Trump, according to figures compiled by Democratic data analyst Matthew Isbell.

The Higgins and Long results are especially heartening for Democrats because for decades they enjoyed a huge advantage in South Florida, a dominance that’s been eroding for the last decade, especially in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, which have been turning more red.

State Senate: Democrats didn’t win but improved their performance in the 11th state Senate District vacated when Republican Blaise Ingoglia resigned after DeSantis appointed him state chief financial officer. The district includes all or parts of Citrus, Hernando, Pasco and Sumter counties, including the traditional Republican stronghold of The Villages, the Central Florida retirement megalopolis.

Republican Ralph Massullo, a former four-term state representative finished 18 points ahead of his Democratic challenger on Tuesday. But his win was far smaller than last year, when Ingoglia finished 39 points ahead of his Democratic challenger and Trump finished 40 points ahead of Harris.

Fried said the overall Republican-to-Democratic shift is significant, noting that Democrats improved their performance in politically different parts of the state, from heavily Hispanic Miami to Democratic Palm Beach County to the Republican state Senate district.

Richard DeNapoli, the elected state Republican committeeman from Broward County and a former county Republican party chair, said people shouldn’t read too much into the results from December special or runoff elections. “I don’t see any trendlines being formed,” he said.

National trend

The decisions by Florida voters came five weeks after high-profile, off-year major elections — in New York City, New Jersey and Virginia — produced victories for Democrats and defeats for Trump-endorsed Republicans.

As with the big shift in Tuesday’s races in Florida that produced much higher percentages for Democratic candidates and much lower percentages for Republicans — the governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia saw the same phenomenon.

There was also a shift earlier in the year. In April, the Republican winners in two Florida congressional special elections each won by smaller margins than Trump received in their districts in November 2025.

Johnson, the Democratic strategist, said the national picture reinforces what has been happening in Florida. Since November 2025, he said 25 seats have flipped across the country — all from Republican to Democratic and none from Democratic to Republican.

As the year ends, Johnson said it’s not hard to figure out what’s on voters’ minds 13 months after Trump won with a promise to improve the economy and bring down prices.

“It’s Trump. It’s all about Trump,” he said. “You can’t keep telling people, ‘The economy is good and don’t believe your lying grocery store bill.’”

Johnson said Trump, by asserting people are doing well economically, is repeating the mistake former President Joe Biden made as public disconnect soared along with prices.

Johnson said the reaction from voters to Republican candidates in Florida and elsewhere looks like the mirror image of voters’ reactions to Democratic candidates in the year after President Barack Obama was elected.

“In 2010, when Democrats took a shellacking with the tea party wave, there were a bunch of special elections preceding it that were the canary in the coal mine,” he said. “The excuses Republicans are using (today) sound a whole lot like the excuses that Democrats were using back then.”

Fried also said many voters are recoiling against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown. Hispanic citizens, and others in the U.S. legally are “walking around scared and not knowing what will happen by the end of the day.”

Johnson, who consulted for state House winner Long’s campaign, said the results showed discontent with the Republican brand.

He said about 50% of the voters who turned out for the special election were Democrats, and about 16% were no party affiliation voters. Long received 63% of the vote.

Unless Long received eight out of 10 NPA voters, something Johnson said was highly unlikely, that suggests there was Republican support for the Democrat. “It means that Republicans actually went and turned out in a special election — turned out and voted for a Democrat. They didn’t stay home because they’re disgruntled. Some chunk of them turned out and voted for the Democrat.”

Republican take

Republican leaders sought to downplay the results.

Cascio said many Republicans weren’t aware of the special election in Palm Beach County.

“If the Democrats want to feel that there’s a swing in the political temperature because they won (state House District 90) in a special election, that’s fine. That’s up to them. I can tell you that our base will be energized and they will come out in 2026. Not only will HD 90 be a different race but all of the races will be well represented by our Republican base,” he said.

At a news conference in West Palm Beach the day after the voting, the governor was asked if the voters’ rejection of the Miami mayoral candidate he endorsed signified a rejection of his policies.

DeSantis distanced himself from the Republican candidate and the outcome.

“I have no idea,” he said. “I wasn’t involved in the runoff. I did an endorsement in the original scrum, and then once it advanced to the runoff, it just wasn’t something I was involved in. So I don’t know what the issues were or any of that.”

Signs for 2026

The 2025 results aren’t a guarantee of future results, but they are a signal.

Republicans have formidable advantages heading into 2026. They are far ahead of Democrats in the number of registered voters. And they have significantly more financial resources for their candidates and their organizing than the Democrats.

Foreman said Democratic prospects rest largely on whether national Democratic organizations and donors decide it’s worth investing significant money in Florida to aid the party’s gubernatorial and U.S. Senate nominees, or decide there’s more payoff to spending their resources in places where they see better chances for victory. Support for the top of the ticket would help candidates lower on the ballot, Foreman said.

“Will they come to the aid of the Democratic nominee for governor and senator? Or will they just pay lip service to it?” he said. And were the Miami results a one-off with local concerns driving the outcome, or a sign of something bigger?

Since Tuesday’s voting, the Democratic Party organization that focuses on congressional races added a Tampa Bay area district to its target list and the national Democratic Party committee that works on state legislative races added Florida to its “target map” for 2026.

Midterm elections two years after a presidential election are often difficult for a president’s party. “There’s just a yin and a yang with some of this stuff. But Republicans are going to have to contend with that,” said DeSantis. He won’t be on the ballot because term limits prevent the governor from seeking a third term.

Cascio acknowledged that the midterm after a presidential election usually isn’t good for the president’s party. Voters in the president’s party “tend to rest on our laurels. We can’t do that this time. We’ve got to come out. … We can’t leave undone the work that still needs to be done.”

Power took to social media with a similar message. “If we are going to defy history as the party in power and win the midterms. Ignore the people who want to run from our President. We must fight with President Trump to deliver on the promises that were made. Let’s go!”

Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

Unofficial results Wednesday showed Long with 9,553 votes, or 63.2%.

Republican Maria Zack finished far behind with 5,424 votes, or 35.9%.

Long fills the vacancy created by the July death of state Rep. Joe Casello. Long will serve during the 2026 legislative session, and then face the voters again.

“We did it! I’m incredibly grateful for the trust the people of HD-90 put in me,” Long wrote in a social media post. “Joe Casello always put this community first, and I’m honored to continue his legacy.

“I’m ready to get to work — fighting every day to make life more affordable, support our first responders, strengthen our public schools, keep our neighborhoods safe, and protect our environment,” Long said.

Long was elected to the Delray Beach City Commission in 2023, defeating an incumbent. He had to resign from the commission to run for the state House.

As a commissioner, he was in the spotlight over the summer as the leader of the ultimately unsuccessful effort in Delray Beach to preserve the LGBTQ+ rainbow pride crosswalk when DeSantis’ state Department of Transportation ordered it removed, along with others throughout the state.

Long is a loss control engineer, runs a political organizing firm, is a former member of the Palm Beach Soil and Water Conservation District board, and a former president of the Palm Beach County Young Democrats.

Long, 40, is also co-author of a children’s book, “The Great Weather Diviner,” a re-imagining of the legend of Groundhog Day made famous by his hometown of Punxsutawney, Pa.

Florida Democrats improve fortunes in December elections. Future trouble for MAGA?

Florida House District 90, which Long now represents, is bordered by Hypoluxo Road in the north, Military Trail on the west (with a couple of pockets west of Military), the Delray Beach-Boca Raton border on the South and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.

It includes all or parts of Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Briny Breezes, Golf, Gulf Stream and Ocean Ridge.

The district leans Democratic, and Casello was a Democrat. But Palm Beach County Republicans pushed hard for their nominee, Zack. Palm Beach County Republican Chair Carl Cascio said before the election that Long was “unfit for higher office.”

And even though Zack received campaign money from the Florida House Republican Campaign Committee, the party organization that works to keep Republican control of the state House of Representatives, others normally aligned with Republicans supported Long instead.

Long’s endorsements included Associated Industries of Florida and the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

He was also endorsed by all the Democratic senators and representatives from Palm Beach County and a range of political organizations including the Service Employees International Union; the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, an LGBTQ+ rights organization; and the Palm Beach County Fraternal Order of Police, a law enforcement union.

Zack offered some unconventional views as she ran for the Legislature. She said that eliminating property taxes would reduce teenage pregnancies — which have already declined precipitously — because family finances would be so improved that one parent could stop working and stay home with the kids.

And Zack said five years after Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election, she remained unsure who won. “I can’t tell you. I assume it was President Trump, but I can’t tell you until there’s a full investigation with all its affidavits and transparency.” Zack has repeatedly touted a theory that Italy helped steal the 2020 election from Trump.

In a statement congratulating Long on his victory, House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa said the result “shows that the people of Palm Beach County want serious leaders with proven track records, not Culture War extremists.”

State Rep. Christine Hunschofsky of Parkland, who becomes Democratic leader after the 2026 elections, said Long “focused on issues that actually matter to families. …. Floridians are overwhelmed by the affordability crisis that is making everything more expensive. The people want solutions and they want them now.”

Karen Yeh, who was on the ballot as a no party affiliation candidate, had 146 votes, or 1%, in unofficial results.

Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

Democrat Rob Long and Republican Maria Zack are competing to fill the vacancy created by the death in July of state Rep. Joe Casello.

A third candidate, Karen Yeh, is on the ballot, running with no party affiliation.

The winner will get right to work. The 2026 Florida legislative session begins in five weeks.

When, where and how?

The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office said 53 neighborhood polling places would be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day.

Anyone who is in line at 7 p.m. is allowed to vote.

Unlike during early voting, people must vote in their assigned polling place on Election Day.

A voter must have a current, valid photo ID with a signature. The most common are Florida driver’s licenses or state ID cards. Many other forms of ID, including passports, are accepted. If the photo ID doesn’t have a voter’s signature, the person will have to show another ID with a signature.

A voter identification card — which many people call a voter registration card — isn’t needed, and isn’t accepted as a form of identification at a polling place.

Who can vote

Registered voters who live in Florida House District 90 can vote in the special election.

District 90 is bordered by Hypoluxo Road in the north, Military Trail on the west (with a couple of pockets west of Military), the Delray Beach-Boca Raton border on the South and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.

It includes all or parts of Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Briny Breezes, Golf, Gulf Stream and Ocean Ridge.

Mail ballots

People who have requested and received mail ballots need to return them in person unless they plan to vote at an Election Day polling place.

Florida has a strict deadline for returning vote-by-mail ballots. They must be back at the county elections office by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Dec. 9. Postmarks don’t count.

In every election there are ballots that arrive late and can’t be counted under Florida law. In close elections there often have been enough uncounted ballots to potentially change the results.

People can return their mail ballots until 7 p.m. at the Supervisor of Elections Office headquarters near West Palm Beach or until 5 p.m. at a branch office.

Someone who requests and receives a mail ballot is not required to use it. Voters can still vote in their neighborhood polling stations on Election Day. Safeguards are in place to prevent someone from voting more than once.

Low turnout

Turnout in special elections is usually ultra-low, which means a relatively small number of voters can determine the outcome.

And the District 90 special election comes during an off year — between Thanksgiving in November and Hanukkah and Christmas in December — when voting isn’t at the forefront of many people’s minds.

The House District 90 election fits that pattern.

The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office shows 102,904 active registered Republican voters in the district.

Just 1,906 people voted early, the Elections Office reported. In-person early voting ended Sunday.

Another 6,332 vote-by-mail ballots had been received in the elections office by mid-afternoon Monday.

As of Monday afternoon, turnout was 8%.

Leans Democratic

The district leans Democratic, but the contest could be competitive.

The 90th District’s registered voters are 39.3% Democratic, 30.5% Republican, 29.3% no party affiliation independent, with the rest split among various minor parties. In the 2024 presidential election, Democrat Kamala Harris won 54.6% of the vote in District 90 and Republican Trump received 44.2%, according to an analysis by Democratic data analyst Matthew Isbell.

Low voter turnout in special elections like the District 90 contest makes the outcome trickier to predict since a small number of voters can have a huge impact.

Information

People can check to see if they are registered to vote, live in the 90th District, and check polling place locations online at votepalmbeach.gov or by calling 561-656-6200.

There’s a supporter of vaccines, and a vaccine skeptic.

There’s an advocate of slashing property taxes, and a candidate who sees it as foolhardy to implement without a plan for how to pay for fire departments, rescue services and everything else local governments provide.

One hopeful was a champion of LGBTQ+ rainbow pride intersections when Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration ordered their removal — a fight the other candidate called a frivolous waste of tax money.

Beyond the differences over policy, the competition between Democrat Rob Long and Republican Maria Zack is not a friendly one.

Long portrays Zack as a conspiracy theorist who isn’t in touch with the real-life, everyday concerns of people she wants to represent.

“I have not heard her reference anything that would suggest she understands anything about the district,” he said. “I’ve only heard her talk in basically slogans and conspiratorial sort of culture war-related talking points.”

Zack portrays Long as a radical leftist, suggesting that he’s in line with Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani of New York — even though Long has been endorsed by one of the most Republican-oriented pro-business organizations in the state, Associated Industries of Florida, and has received campaign contributions from Republicans.

“Rob Long wants to bring radical New York City politics to Florida and we can’t afford him!” Zack said via email.

A third candidate, Karen Yeh, is on the ballot, running with no party affiliation.

Unlike Zack and Long, there is much more comity between Long and Yeh. When their pictures were being taken before a League of Women Voters of Palm Beach County candidate forum (Zack did not attend) on Nov. 12, Yee encouraged photography of Long.

“He looks like a movie star,” she said.

Early voting starts Nov. 29. Election Day is Dec. 9.

Issues

The winner of the special election will fill the final year of the last state Rep. Joe Casello’s term, serving during the 2026 state legislative session.

Property taxes are by far the biggest issue facing lawmakers next year. Lawmakers are considering a range of proposals that could radically reduce property taxes for owner-occupied residences, and place them on the ballot next year.

Zack wants to slash property taxes. Long, currently a Delray Beach city commissioner, said he favors property tax relief. But, he’s said, the impact on government services, such as public safety, roads, and libraries, needs to be addressed.

Long echoed the view of many local government officials, who caution that the idea of eliminating property taxes may sound good to some, but without that source of revenue local governments won’t be able to pay for vital services.

“Would I support targeted tax relief? Absolutely, but there needs to be a plan for it. There needs to be a way to fund our services, especially fire and EMS,” Long said. “Without a plan to pay for that, I’ll absolutely oppose these efforts.”

Zack faulted Long for his position. “One of the biggest issues voters are concerned about is the reduction of property taxes. Rob Long is wrong for our district because he’s already said he wouldn’t support … proposals currently discussed by the Legislature. Instead he offers platitudes and partisan spin,” she said via email.

In a September interview, Zack also offered an unconventional view of the benefits from eliminating property taxes. She has said it would reduce teenage pregnancies — which have already declined precipitously — because family finances would be so improved that one parent could stop working and stay home with the kids.

Zack also said “one research program I did showed an 11% decrease in crime if we end property tax.”

Vaccine mandates could come before the state Legislature next year, after DeSantis’ surgeon general called for their elimination. Zack supports an end to vaccine mandates, calling it “medically and constitutionally correct.”

Long on a South Florida Sun Sentinel candidate questionnaire (Zack didn’t respond to it) disagreed, writing that “Routine childhood vaccines are one of the safest, most cost-effective tools in public health. Eliminating mandates would reverse progress against measles, polio, and whooping cough and shift costs to families, schools, and hospitals.”

Long led the ultimately unsuccessful effort in Delray Beach to preserve the LGBTQ+ rainbow pride crosswalk when DeSantis’ state Department of Transportation ordered it removed, along with others throughout the state.

He saw the state order as “an effort to silence and basically take away visibility from our LGBTQ+ community” and that removing the intersection would leave “a legacy of cowardice and capitulation.”

Zack said via email that it was an example of how “Long is wrong for our community. He is more concerned with painting sidewalks and wasting taxpayer dollars on frivolous lawsuits than supporting our local businesses, and keeping taxes low and spending in check.”

District

Florida House District 90 is bordered by Hypoluxo Road in the north, Military Trail on the west (with a couple of pockets west of Military), the Delray Beach-Boca Raton border on the South and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.

It includes all or parts of Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Briny Breezes, Golf, Gulf Stream and Ocean Ridge.

Candidates

Long, 40, lives in Delray Beach.

Yeh, 64, lives in Boynton Beach.

Voter registration records showed that, as of Nov. 20, Zack, 62, lives in Palm Beach, which is not in the 90th District.

Legislators assume their offices on Election Day, and must be residents of the district at the time of the election, which means Zack still has time to become a resident of the 90th District.

Long said Zack’s residence shows a disconnect with the district and its voters.

She disagrees. “I love this district,” she said.

Zack grew up and spent her early career in Florida, then lived in Georgia, where she worked as a lobbyist and unsuccessfully ran for government and Republican Party offices, before returning to Florida in 2018.

Long is a loss control engineer, runs a political organizing firm, is a former member of the Palm Beach Soil and Water Conservation District board, and a former president of the Palm Beach County Young Democrats.

He is about to leave the Delray Beach Commission. Under the state’s resign-to-run law, he had to submit an irrevocable resignation to run for state representative, which goes into effect whether he wins or loses.

Yeh described many endeavors. “My background is accounting, computer science, economics, and mathematics. I’m an accountant, fraud auditor, licensed real estate broker, licensed community association manager, professional teacher license, math, science, fifth grade to ninth grade,” she said.

If she wins — no-party-affiliation candidates haven’t been successful in Florida — Yeh said by not being in a party she can “introduce the laws the public wants, not exactly what Democrats want and not exactly what Republicans want.”

Yeh was unclear, in an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and a reporter, who she voted for in the 2024 presidential election.

First she said she voted for the Republican candidate, then she said she did not vote for Donald Trump. Then she said she didn’t “remember exactly” who she voted for. Finally, she said, “I would say I voted for (Democrat Kamala) Harris.”

2020 election

Five years after Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election, Zack remains skeptical that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner, arguing that the question warrants further investigation.

Asked in a September interview who won, she said, “I can’t tell you. I assume it was President Trump, but I can’t tell you until there’s a full investigation with all its affidavits and transparency.”

Zack has repeatedly touted a theory that Italy helped steal the 2020 election from Trump.

“It’s hard to know what really happened in the 2020 election,” she said. “I can tell you there were things that seemed extremely wrong.”

Federal judges appointed by Trump and prominent Republican leaders, including former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said there was no basis to claims that Trump won. They affirmed Biden was the winner.

Money

Long had raised $74,786 as of Oct. 30 for his campaign and $59,100 as of Sept. 30 for his Long Lasting Progress political committee, for a total of 133,886.

Zack had raised $39,845 as of Oct. 30 for her campaign and $2,025 as of Sept. 30 for her Friends of Maria Zack political committee, for a total of $41,870.

Zack has also lent her campaign $34,873. Long isn’t self funding.

The largest single contribution to either candidate is $25,000 to Zack from Florida House Republican Campaign Committee, the party organization that works to keep Republican control of the state House of Representatives.

The party isn’t completely unified behind her, however. Immediately after she won the primary, the Republican who lost, Bill Reicherter, said people should vote for Long.

Long has also been endorsed by Associated Industries of Florida, which calls itself “The Voice of Florida Business,” dedicated to the “principles of prosperity and free enterprise.” In 2024, 88% of AIF’s legislative endorsements went to Republicans.

The party nominees have some notable financial supporters.

Zack received a $500 contribution from Marla Maples, a former wife of President Donald Trump. On the contribution report Zack’s campaign filed with the state Division of Elections, Maples’ occupation was listed as “humanitarian.” An invitation to a Delray Beach campaign fundraiser for Zack showed Maples was on the host committee for the event.

Another contribution keeping with Zack’s political views is $1,000 from the Make America Healthy Again political action committee. It was started after the 2024 election by people associated with the most prominent advocate of the so-called MAHA movement and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Long has multiple contributions from real estate and development interests, and from lawyer-lobbyists, such as the prominent lobbyist Ron Book.

One of Long’s notable contributions is from James Batmasian Investment, Ltd.

Batmasian is a prominent Boca Raton developer who pleaded guilty in 2008 to willful failure to collect and remit payroll taxes, and  was pardoned by Trump at the end of his first term. Campaign filings show the company contributed $5,000 to Long’s political committee earlier this year.

In 2018, Ashley Moody — then a candidate for the Republican nomination for Florida attorney general and now the state’s junior U.S. senator — canceled an event with Batmasian after questions were raised about her appearing there. And in 2014, U.S. Sen Rick Scott, now the state’s senior Republican senator who was at the time running for reelection as governor, canceled a fundraiser at Batmasian’s home when word got out.

Yeh has put $1,900 of her own money into her campaign, and hasn’t reported any other contributions as of Oct. 30.

Outlook

The district leans Democratic, but the contest could be competitive.

The 90th District’s registered voters are 39.3% Democratic, 30.5% Republican, 29.3% no party affiliation independent, with the rest split among various minor parties. In the 2024 presidential election, Democrat Kamala Harris won 54.6% of the vote in District 90 and Republican Trump received 44.2%, according to an analysis by Democratic data analyst Matthew Isbell.

Special elections, like the Long-Zack contest, almost always have low participation. Lower voter turnout makes the outcome trickier to predict since a small number of voters can have a huge impact.

And the Dec. 9 special election comes during an off year — between Thanksgiving in November and Hanukkah and Christmas in December — when many people don’t think about voting.

“Off year elections and special elections — elections that people generally are not aware of — tend to produce considerably smaller electorates,” said Kevin Wagner, a political scientist at Florida Atlantic University. And a smaller electorate “leads to a much greater degree of volatility.”

“When you get a small electorate, it doesn’t take a lot to shift an election,” Wagner said, explaining that victory depends on “who’s highly excited to vote in this race.”

Zack said her campaign is fueled by grassroots efforts.

“In a special election that’s all about turnout, we’re working to activate Republicans and people in the district that want common sense,” she said. “Our campaign has a great team of volunteers who are putting in the work — making phone calls, knocking doors, going to local meetings to get our message out.”

Voting details

Election Day: Dec. 9, at neighborhood polling places, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Early voting: Nov. 29 through Dec. 7, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Delray Beach Community Center, the South County Supervisor of Elections branch office in Delray Beach, and the Ezell Hester Community Center in Boynton Beach.

Mail voting: The deadline in state law to request mail ballots is 5 p.m. on Nov. 27. Even though it falls on Thanksgiving Day, it still stands, and people waiting until the last minute can request a mail ballot online.

Completed mail ballots can be dropped off at early voting locations during early voting hours. Vote by mail ballots must be returned to, and in possession of, the Supervisor of Elections office by 7 p.m. on election night, Dec. 9, or they won’t be counted. Postmarks don’t count.

Information: Available at votepalmbeach.gov or by calling (561) 656-6200.

Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

“We need leaders who aren’t going to coddle their billionaire donors, who won’t support a genocide and who aren’t going to settle for flaccid incrementalism,” Kasky said in the launch video posted on Nov. 18 for his campaign to represent New York City’s 12th Congressional District.

The video’s caption includes the three main points of his campaign: “Medicare for all. Stop funding genocide. Abolish ICE.”

While Kasky’s anti-Trump positions are likely to go over well with the district’s largely liberal populace, his stance that Israel is committing a genocide — and the apparent centrality of that stance to his campaign — could be an issue for constituents. The district includes the Upper West and East Sides of Manhattan, where many voters sided with the pro-Israel Andrew Cuomo over Zohran Mamdani in the city’s recent mayoral election, as well as Midtown Manhattan.

Kasky’s messaging may, however, speak more to young voters in the district. A New York Times/Siena poll from September found that 66% of New York City voters ages 18 to 29 found that Mamdani, an anti-Zionist, “best addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” among the mayoral candidates.

A democratic socialist, Kasky was a vocal supporter of Mamdani throughout the mayoral election — and an aggressive critic of fellow Democrats who objected to the mayoral candidate’s anti-Israel stances.

“‘Vote blue no matter who unless it’s a Muslim who criticizes Israel’s extremist far right nationalist government’ is not ‘vote blue no matter who,’” he wrote in one tweet.

In another, he wrote that Democrats who refused to endorse him after the primary should “go get a consulting gig and stop disrespecting your own voter base.”

Kasky had teased entering the crowded race for months, ever since Rep. Jerry Nadler, Congress’ most senior Jewish member, announced he would not be running for reelection.

In that time, Kasky has also weighed in on the viability of Micah Lasher, the Jewish state Assembly member and former Nadler aide who launched his own campaign for the seat earlier in the fall.

Lasher is unable to “fight fascism” because of his “genocide denial and free speech attacks on students,” Kasky wrote, with a screenshot of a Lasher tweet from Oct. 28, 2023, that criticized what Lasher called the “awful use of the word ‘genocide’ by some westerners to describe Israel’s actions.” (As the war in Gaza neared its two-year mark this summer, a poll found that half of Americans believed Israel had committed genocide, a claim that Israel and the United States both reject.)

Kasky also reposted a poll according to which Brad Lander, Mamdani’s most prominent Jewish ally, would beat the moderate congressman Dan Goldman, who is Jewish and withheld an endorsement due to “some of the rhetoric coming from Mamdani.”

“Needless to say, I am looking forward to working with Brad Lander,” Kasky wrote.

Kasky is the co-host of the “For You Podcast” with Tim Miller, which attempts to “break down the politics of the TikTok generation,” for The Bulwark, a center-right, anti-Trump media company.

One of Kasky’s podcast guests over the summer is now his opponent: Jack Schlossberg.

Schlossberg, who is the grandson of President John F. Kennedy and has said he is “at least 100% half Jewish,” announced his own candidacy for the 12th Congressional District recently.

Kasky remarked on their podcast that many women in his life have crushes on Schlossberg — and Schlossberg replied that the two men have a similar appeal.

“I always say, when you go unhinged politics Jew, it’s hard to go back,” Kasky said.

Kasky was thrust into the national spotlight as a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. Together with other survivors, he led a march in Washington and spurred a national movement that is seen as crucial to the 2022 passage of the most significant federal gun control legislation in decades.

Kasky, a junior at the time of the shooting, is credited with having selecting the name and hashtag #NeverAgain — which has long been linked to Holocaust commemoration — for the student-led gun control campaign. (Another co-founder of Never Again MSD is David Hogg, who recently stepped down as the youngest-ever vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.)

Before the shooting, Kasky said he played Motel in a school production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” The quality of his performance was proof, he joked, that he was not a paid actor in the protests, as some conspiracy theorists accused.

Kasky attended Hebrew school growing up, which he referenced when speaking on MSNBC about the “No Kings” protests against Trump.

“This kind of reminded me of my education growing up — when you go to Hebrew school, you learn about fascism a little bit younger than the other kids,” he said. “And you find yourself asking, in the face of authoritarianism, in the face of seeing a genocide happen before the entire world, what would I do? How would I react?”

He moved to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he later dropped out, and lives in the 12th Congressional District that’s been described as a “crown jewel” of New York politics.

Now, Kasky is running on a progressive agenda that emphasizes fighting Trump and stopping U.S. military aid for Israel, referring to the country’s actions in Gaza in no uncertain terms as a “genocide” — a response which he says has been informed in part by his Jewish identity.

“I am always surprised when people ask me why I focus so much on Palestine,” he wrote. “Beyond my Jewish identity making me strongly opposed to genocide, I’m a school shooting survivor-turned-activist. I started my adult life demanding an end to American-made weapons slaughtering children.”

For more info, go to JTA.org. 

The Orange County mayor, who kicked off his bid before friends and supporters at an Orlando hotel earlier this month, will spend the next year convincing donors big and small he is the Democrats’ best candidate, building a campaign operation from the ground up, and heading out on the road to meet voters in every pocket of the state.

It will be a steep learning curve for Demings, who has been successful in multiple local races for sheriff and mayor over the last few decades but has never faced a statewide campaign.

“You’ve got to spend a lot of time dialing for dollars, but you also have to do the retail politics of it,” said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, a Demings ally who ran unsuccessfully for Florida Attorney General in 2002. “It’s nice, though, to be centrally located because you can get up in the morning and go to any part of the state and still make it back to Orlando if you want.”

Demings has never had trouble raising money for campaigns – but he’s only run in Orange County, where he is an institution and the sums needed to be competitive are far smaller.

In 2022, he raised $356,000, about seven times more than his next best-funded competitor. That same year, he helped raise $1.5 million for a campaign to raise the sales tax to pay for transportation upgrades, though it was was ultimately defeated.

During his first mayoral bid in 2018, facing stiffer competition and without the advantage of incumbency, he raised more than $800,000.

Demings will have have a major assist when it comes to statewide and national fundraising — his wife, former U.S. Rep. Val Demings, who gained a national profile after helping leading the first impeachment trial against President Trump in 2019 and making President Biden’s shortlist for a running mate the following year.

He campaigned with her across Florida three years ago when she was on the ballot for U.S. Senate, and will count on her advice as he crisscrosses Florida in the lead up to the Democratic primary next year.

“My wife is experienced. She’s run statewide before,” he said. “She’s well-known all over this country and she’s well-known all over the state of Florida. I count that as a blessing.”

Val Demings raised $79 million for her unsuccessful bid against then-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, far more than Charlie Crist, the party’s nominee for governor that year.

Dozens of Broward Democratic leaders endorse David Jolly for governor

Jasmine Burney-Clark, who served as the Florida Campaign Director for President Joe Biden in 2024, went as far as to call Val Demings her husband’s “competitive advantage.”

“I think that she stands to help his race significantly bring in the funds and the notoriety,” said Clark, who founded Equal Ground, an Orlando-based group focused on Black voter turnout.

If so, Demings may be able to quickly erase the fundraising gap between himself and his main party rival — though he has a long way to go to match the GOP.

Last month, Florida Politics reported that David Jolly, the other major Democratic candidate in the race so far, had raised about $2 million. That total generated concerns among Democrats about his lack of fundraising prowess.

On the Republican side, Trump-endorsed U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds has raised at least $31 million and former House Speaker Paul Renner has raised more than $3.5 million.

Matthew Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst, noted Jolly had been consolidating support from Democrats across the state prior to Demings entering the field. For example, earlier this month more than two dozen faith leaders from Black congregations announced a coalition to back Jolly.

But Isbell added that Demings has one thing Jolly does not: a decades-long track record as a Democrat. Jolly is a former Republican congressman from St. Petersburg who switched parties before launching his bid for the governor’s mansion.

Demings’ profile may also have risen statewide as he’s squabbled in recent months with Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General James Uthmeier and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia over issues ranging from immigration enforcement to “DOGE” audits.

“Demings has a very real shot in that primary,” Isbell said.

When he launched his bid last week, Demings said he intended to serve out the remaining year of his mayoral term as he campaigns. His early months on the stump are expected to include a listening tour around the state, he said.

His campaign didn’t respond to questions this week about any scheduled campaign events or how much money was raised at the kickoff rally.

He entered the race on Nov. 11 after months of speculation and an initial dismissive reaction from the seat’s current occupant, Jerry Nadler.

Schlossberg, the 32-year-old grandson of President John F. Kennedy who has risen to prominence recently as a progressive social media darling, posted an announcement that focused on Donald Trump and the cost of living.

“We deserve better, and we can do better, and it starts with the Democratic Party winning back control of the House of Representatives,” Schlossberg said.

Schlossberg, 32, is running to represent New York’s 12th Congressional District, which covers the Upper West and East Sides and all of Midtown Manhattan, where he said he was “born and raised, where I took the bus to school every single day from one side of the district to the other.”

His mother is the author and former U.S. ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy; Schlossberg’s father is Jewish artist Edwin Schlossberg. His paternal grandfather, Alfred Schlossberg, worked in what he told the New York Times was the “shmatte business,” making men’s dress shirts.

The younger Schlossberg was raised with some Jewish traditions at home, such as incorporating Hanukkah traditions into their holiday parties.

“I feel I’m at least 100% half Jewish ;),” he told Hey Alma last year, as he broke out as a social media star.

Schlossberg was born in 1993 — one year after Nadler was first elected. Nadler, Congress’ most senior Jewish member, announced in September that he would not be running for reelection to make way for the next generation. Nadler’s retirement opened up an already-crowded race to represent a “crown jewel” of New York politics, with a number of others rumored to be exploring their own candidacies.

Other candidates officially running include Alex Bores and Micah Lasher, both members of the state Assembly, as well as 26-year-old non-profit founder Liam Elkind.

Schlossberg has worked as a political correspondent for Vogue and endorsed Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention. He has never held public office — a fact that Jerry Nadler himself hammered home in an interview with CNN following his retirement announcement, when Schlossberg was considering running.

“Well, there’s nothing particularly good or bad about a Kennedy holding my seat. But the Kennedy, unlike Schlossberg, should be somebody with a record of public service, a record of public accomplishment, and he doesn’t have one,” Nadler said. “And so, I don’t think he’s going to be a candidate in the end, and he certainly is not going to be a major candidate. There will be major candidates,” Nadler continued, pointing to Lasher as one example. “I’m sure there’ll be other candidates.”

Schlossberg took Nadler’s criticism in stride, writing on Instagram, “Honestly no offense taken whatsoever ! As a New Yorker, a progressive and an American, I have nothing but thanks and respects to offer Rep Nadler.”

Schlossberg endorsed Zohran Mamdani ahead of the Democratic mayoral primary, and said on Instagram that he didn’t “give a f–k” that he would “piss off” former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his cousin by marriage. In an Instagram post responding to people who ask why he supports Mamdani as a Jew, Schlossberg said, “If you think that Zohran doesn’t like Jews, you’re f–king brainwashed.”

He added, “We cannot have this thing where if you disagree with Israeli policy, you hate Jews. That’s not good and that’s not fighting antisemitism. That’s horses–t and that’s a cop-out.”

In an interview with the New York Times the day after Mamdani’s election, he said he thought Mamdani’s victory — including his wide margin among young voters — was a positive omen for his own campaign.

Schlossberg defended Mamdani against allegations of antisemitism in that interview. “New York needs to be a safe place for Jewish people,” Schlossberg said. “I’m very sensitive to the Jewish community’s concerns, because I feel them, too. It bothers me.”

While a supporter of Mamdani, he disagreed with the mayor-elect’s pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in New York, and, unlike Mamdani, chose not to describe the conflict in Gaza as a “genocide.”

“I think it’s painfully clear that Israel’s committing atrocities in Gaza,” Schlossberg said.

In an interview days before Schlossberg entered the race, Democratic strategist Trip Yang said the 12th district race is “wide open.”

“Jerry Nadler is an icon, trailblazer. Nadler is one of the most popular figures in Manhattan history,” Yang said.

“This is one of the most important congressional districts — a lot of wealth, a lot of power in this district. But it’s an open seat,” Yang said. “So you can have a lot of big names enter right now. It is wide open.”

For more info, go to JTA.org.