We focus on the four most critical House races in the state (CD 2, CD 13, CD 15 and CD 27) while giving recommendations in several others as well.
Since Don Fuqua’s election in 1962, Tallahassee has been at the center of a Congressional District, and while more often than not, the Congressional Representative like Fuqua didn’t come from Leon County, Tallahassee, as the largest municipality in the Panhandle and the key city in the Big Bend region, largely dictated who represented it. The two exceptions to this trend would be when Bill Grant and Steve Southerland represented the former 2nd Congressional district, but in both cases, this was quickly corrected in the election of Pete Peterson and Gwen Graham.
The unprecedented foray of Governor DeSantis into the redistricting process eliminated Al Lawson’s minority-access seat, placing Lawson and all of Tallahassee in the 2nd district represented by Bay County’s Neil Dunn, a conservative GOPer.
Lawson, has represented portions of the district since his first election to the State House in 1982. He’s been a distinguished public servant who has put Tallahassee and the Big Bend region first, even if he has been at times too conservative ideologically for this site’s preferences. It’s imperative he’s returned to Washington to help provide the diversity of viewpoints a thriving democracy needs as well as giving proper representation to tens of thousands of North Floridians who could be effectively disenfranchised by DeSantis’ power move.
We strongly endorse Lawson’s candidacy in 2022 as he runs against Congressman Dunn.
In the Pinellas County-based 13th Congressional District, which has been seriously altered by Governor DeSantis’ map, Eric Lynn is the clear choice. Lynn is highly-qualified and has articulated a robust vision for the economy and region. The GOP nominee, Anna Paulina Luna is an extremist who would be one of the most conservative members of Congress from an urban area.
The writers of our website hold Alan Cohn, an investigative journalist with a strong track record of holding the powerful accountable. He’s an award winner, including winning an Emmy when he was at a TV station in Miami. We strongly back his candidacy in the newly drawn eastern Hillsborough County oriented 15th District.
In Florida’s most competitive seat, we strongly endorse Senator Annette Taddeo, whom we also endorsed in the Democratic primary. Her opposition, first-term Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, is a rubber-stamp vote in Kevin McCarthy’s GOP Caucus.
Senator Taddeo has a long history of Democratic Party and progressive leadership at the local, state and
Federal level. She served as the Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chair from 2012 to 2014, when she revitalized the party with the goal of electing Democrats throughout the county and founded the Blue Gala, a very successful annual fundraising event that continues today. Her grassroots efforts paved the way for the successful 2014 and 2016 election cycles where Democrats over-performed in Miami-Dade relative to previous and future cycles.
From 2013 to 2016 she was an Elected DNC member and Vice Chair of the FDP, served on the Executive Committee of the DNC, was the DNC Hispanic Caucus Chair for all southeastern states and helped to lead the founding of the DNC Small Business Owners Council.
In 2017, in a huge upset with national implications, Taddeo was elected State Senator for District 40. It was the first time in Florida’s modern history (post-1968 Constitution) that a Democrat flipped a State Senate seat from the GOP in a special election, as well as the first time voters sent a Latina Democrat
to serve in the Florida Senate. She was subsequently re-elected to a full 4-year term in 2018. The Democrats had last held the seat Taddeo won in the early 1980’s.
As a State Senator Taddeo has carved out a progressive niche that’s helped give the Democrats an opposition lane to counter the extremism of the right. Her experience in business has helped give Democrats and progressives an authoritative and credible voice in the Senate on economic issues as well as Health Care and Education. Her profile as the first Latina Democratic Senator from Miami-Dade County, in addition to her aforementioned experience has also allowed her to emerge as a leader on issues of concern to Hispanics throughout the state.
She’s a potential superstar in Congress and we strongly endorse her candidacy.
Other Congressional Endorsements
CD 1- No Recommendation
CD 3- Danielle Hawk
CD 4- LaShonda Holloway
CD 7- Karen Green
CD 8- Joanne Terry
CD 9- Darren Soto
CD 10- Maxwell Alejandro Frost
CD 11- Shante Munns
CD 12- Kimberly Walker
CD 14- Kathy Castor
CD 16- Jan Schneider
CD 17- Andrea Kale
CD 19- Cindy Banyai
CD 20- Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick
CD 21- Corinna Balderramos Robinson
CD 22- Lois Frankel
CD 23- No Recommendation
CD 24- Frederica Wilson
CD 25- Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
CD 26- Christine Olivio
CD 28- Robert Asencio
Congratulations to all endorsed! Team Corinna is most grateful! 🇺🇸
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