Yes, the presidential primary is imminent, but there are other down-ticket races we’ll be following through the August primary and the November general election. We talked to some people; we learned some things.
Read about our races to watch (and the candidates vying for those seats):
Bob Poe
Former Florida Democratic Party chairman Bob Poe knows he’s crossing some lines with his run for U.S. Congressional District 10, but Poe has always been one to run slightly against the grain. Recently back to the mainland after a congressional field trip to Cuba (foreshadowing!), Poe is optimistic about his volley for the seat representing an area in which he grew up (he announced in front of a gas station at which he worked). That community happens to center around Pine Hills; he’s also facing down Democratic favorites Geraldine Thompson and Val Demings (and attorney Fatima Rita Fahmy), which could make for a tough run. The other race question is an important one.
“As I go out into the community, I’m not finding a racial divide in the African-American community,” Poe says. “I’m finding a bit of skepticism. But once they know who I am and what I’m about, that goes away.”
Part of the insider concern for Poe’s chances is borne of standard polling tactics. Even though he just announced in January, polling has already been directed to take him out, he says. It’s just politics, something Poe is pretty familiar with after serving on the Charlie Crist campaign in 2014 and running the state Democratic Party.
“Here’s what happened: The folks in DC have made a decision about how they thought the race looked and had it all wrapped up with a ribbon,” he says. “When three other people jumped in the race that they hadn’t anticipated, then they needed to rally around their anointed candidate [Demings]. Now, I think that they’ll see that this can go anyway.”
Poe is pushing for human rights on all levels – from LGBT to workers – he says, and he hopes to be part of the breaking of the logjam in the U.S. Congress.
“My view has always been that social justice is best achieved through economic empowerment,” he says. “We can’t have the lowest wage community in the country. When the community prospers, then business will prosper, and not the other way around. We have to have people living with a living wage.”
Poe is also banging the LGBT drum. He is gay, after all. Though the history of gays in D.C. is sometimes a point of amusement.
“For the LGBT community, it’s a historic race,” he says. “I would be the first openly out member of Congress from the state of Florida. I can’t say I’d be the first, really. Just the first unouted member of Congress.”
Linda Stewart
It may all seem like all fun and games when Linda Stewart bicycles through a pride parade with dozens of supporters in Stewart drag – it really happened – but former Orange county commissioner and state Rep. Linda Stewart is far more engaged than her winsome and bawdy persona shows. That’s why she’s running for the Florida Senate District 13 seat against more moderate candidates like Orange County School Board veteran Rick Roach and down-the-middle former state Rep. Mike Clelland.
“Basically, my voting record over ten years of elected offices lends itself to a great deal of experience, not just at the county level,” she says.
Though a longtime hero in the Central Florida LGBT community, Stewart is no political one-trick pony. Her main focus has always been on the environment, and given recent political upheavals on that front, she believes she’s the right woman for the job. But, as with most Democratic legislators, she’s up for the fight on all progressive issues.
“No one seems to be able to stand up,” she says. “I don’t vote quietly. I’m not quiet!”
In a legislative body dominated by conservative interests and interest groups, Stewart promises not to shy away from controversy, especially on issues like LGBT rights, abortion rights and the rolling back of rights for local municipalities. Recent attacks on “home rule” – meaning, the ability of counties and cities to regulate businesses – have left environmental concerns hanging in the air. It’sfracking today; something else tomorrow.
Stewart is a staunch believer in the power of the more reasonable half of Florida’s bicameral legislator, and notes that the state senate is more likely to block the “craziness” that comes out of the house. She’s been there. She knows.
“If you get a senate that is much more democratic, those crazy things that come out of the house, they won’t be able to bring up the companion bills in the senate,” she says. “You can stop them in the senate.”
Carlos Guillermo Smith
“This is not a hypothetical,” says former Orange County Democratic Executive Chairman and current political go-to-guy for Equality Florida. Smith, who is running for Florida House District 49, has never been one to mince words. He’s a realist and, well, somebody who is not afraid to speak up. Though he may not yet have a Republican (or even a Democratic) challenger for the 2016 stakes – with the recent redistricting challenges and victories, the district’s incumbent Rene “Coach P” Plasencia (the one who beat LGBT champion Joe Saunders by 700 votes just two years ago) opted to hop into the conservative District 50 pool – Smith isn’t taking his positions lightly.
“To be frank,” he says, “the reason my race is important to the LGBT community is because we can win.”
But that’s not the only reason. In a presidential election year that has already seen mudslinging from the right about overturning Roe v. Wade and rolling back the historic Obgrfelldecision (thereby repealing legal same-sex marriages), representation couldn’t be more important.
“We’ve all been reduced to such silly and irrational fears,” he says.
Smith acknowledges that rulings like the so-called Pastor Protection Act – which will actually see its day on the Senate floor and likely pass – carry a sort of inevitability in a conservatively stacked legislative field, his optimism remains intact and fast-talking. The House’s one and only LGBT member David Richardson, D-Miami-Dade, needs backup, Smith says. And the nature of the issues is shifting. Transgender discrimination, he says, is on the rise.
“On this I will not compromise,” he says. “We cannot leave the trans community behind.”
Beth Tuura
Politics has long been seen as a man’s game, but Beth Tuura is used to busting down doors to the male dominated clubs. Tuura got her start in television broadcasting as a camera operator. “During my initial six-month review, my manager asked me ‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’ I told him I wanted to be a Technical Director, and he laughed and said, ‘women don’t have the aptitude for that job,’” Tuura says. Within five years Tuura had that job and even went on to win three Emmys. Now she is running for Florida House District 47 currently held by incumbent Mike Miller, R- Winter Park, but before she can take it toe-to-toe with Miller, she will be challenged in the primaries by two Democratic attorneys, Henry Lim and Clint Curtis. It’s going to be a tough road, but one Tuura says needs to be forged.
“I see all the threats that the legislature is making on our health care, our environment, our schools and on our freedoms, and it disgusts me. I see these legislators in Tallahassee who either don’t listen to the people they represent or don’t care about them, and that’s not how our government should be. I am running to be a voice for the community and a fighter for my constituents,” she says. Among the most important issues for voters right are women’s reproductive rights, the environment and equality for the LGBT community, Tuura says. “Floridians deserve someone who will listen and fight and stand up for them, and with me that is exactly what they will get,” Tuura says.
Mike Reedy
“We are not a protected class,” Reedy said to Watermark back in June 2015 when he announced he would be running for Florida Hose District 63.
Reedy was born and raised in Hillsborough County and is a product of its public schools. He attended the University of South Florida and became a realtor in the Tampa Bay area. That’s when it became clear to him the extent of inequality the LGBT community faced in his home state.
“We are one of 29 states in which it’s perfectly legal to fire someone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. They can deny housing. A mortgage company may see a couple with a hyphenated last name and could deny them a mortgage that is not based on credit or credentials, but rather based on [the fact] that they don’t want to provide that service,” Reedy said. Reedy immediately began working with Equality Florida as a consultant and business organizer. With the Florida Competitive Workforce Act killed in committee Feb. 9, which would have protected LGBT people against discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations, the fight will have to be continued next year.
“The thing about civil rights is that you’re not supposed to be able to vote on them; they’re supposed to be rights. Protecting equal rights for women, for LGBT individuals, is something that we need to be doing. You should not be able to be fired for who you love. These issues are what I believe to be American values in general. I don’t know why they are polarizing. If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to get ahead, no matter who you are or who you love,” he said.
Kevin Beckner
Kevin Beckner is a man who requires little introduction to the Tampa Bay area. Beckner has served on the Hillsborough County Commission since 2008 and will finish up his second term this year. Beckner is anywhere and everywhere his presence and experience are needed, whether spearheading a campaign to amend Hillsborough County’s Human Rights Ordinance to include sexual orientation and gender identity or getting employee health benefits for domestic partners and same-sex spouses of county workers. Beckner’s championing of LGBT issues and concerns has garnered him awards and recognition from Equality Florida, the Tampa Bay Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and the Human Rights Campaign, just to name a few. And if that isn’t enough to sell you, he is genuinely a nice guy who cares about Hillsborough County.
“I am passionate about public service,” Beckner says. And it’s that passion that is leading him to run for the office of Clerk of the Circuit Court for Hillsborough County. “As Clerk of the Courts and Chief Financial Officer for Hillsborough County, I will provide the same level of service and dedication that I have while serving as a county commissioner to ensure that tax dollars are safe and wisely invested,” he says.Beckner’scampaign will focus on his16 years of professional experience as a financial planner, not to mention his service as an elected official; those skills, he says, will transfer to the clerk’s office.
“I have the experience, track record and background to improve the clerk’s office and bring us into the 21st Century, and I am prepared to lead the clerk’s office into the future,” he says.
Susannah Randolph
When Representative Alan Grayson announced in July his plans to run for U.S. Senate, Central Florida’s political hopefuls jumped on his Congressional District 9 vacancy like it was the last slice of pizza. A whopping seven candidates from both parties have filed to run for the seat – including Dena Minning, who as far as we know is still romantically linked to Grayson – but there are two clear frontrunners: State Senator Darren Soto and Grayson’s former District Director, Susannah Randolph.
It’s going to be a tough primary. Tough to the point that some local Dems are dismayed that voters will have to choose between the two, but both candidates told Watermark that regardless of the race, now is the time.
“I would be running no matter who my opponent was,” Randolph says. “I am running because we need someone who will fight for women’s rights and access to reproductive health care, protect the gains we have made for marriage equality, put an end to workplace discrimination and prioritize making economic equality a reality.”
Despite a voting record that leans to the right, Soto says Democrats need people like him in Congress “to face down the dangerous and reactionary rhetoric” spouted by modern Republicans.
“This district also needs someone who can really deliver on the issues that matter to Central Florida: jobs, protecting the environment, protecting and extending human rights and social justice,” Soto says. “These are the causes I’ll champion in Congress.”
Will the to-be-determined Democratic presidential nominee turn out the voting numbers both Soto and Randolph will need to secure the seat? When Central Florida’s Dems are forced to pick sides, which way will they go? We’ll have to wait till August to find out, but in the meantime, this is a race we’re watching closely.
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