Ballotpedia tracked one new state-level candidate in Florida between Oct. 9 and Oct. 15. This was one more candidate than the prior week.
The candidate is a Republican who served in the state Senate from 2006 to 2016, with two of those years as Senate president, and is running for Legislature in 2024.
Details on the candidate are below:
Don Gaetz, R. is running for Florida State Senate District 1. Gaetz, who is the father of U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, said, “It’s apparent that while we are a low tax state, we are also a high electricity cost, high insurance if you can find it state and a high housing cost state. High costs, these kitchen table issues, make it hard for people to live here. The state of Florida has to become an affordable state to live in.”
Since the beginning of the year, Ballotpedia has identified 72 candidates for state-level office in Florida. Five hundred and eighty-five candidates ran for state-level office in Florida in 2022, while 520 ran in 2020. In 2022, 238 were Democratic, while 276 were Republican. In 2020, 266 were Democratic and 194 were Republican. Nationally, Ballotpedia has tracked 673 Democrats and 828 Republicans running for state-level office in 2023, and 206 Democrats and 258 Republicans running in 2024.
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