A GOP school board member will face off with a Democratic aerospace businessman in a closely watched special election in January for a vacant seat in the Florida Legislature.
Republican Erika Booth, a teacher and member of the Osceola School Board, won her party’s primary in Tuesday’s special election for state House District 35 in eastern Orange and Osceola counties.
Booth won nearly 50% of the primary vote, defeating former congressional candidate Scotty Moore at 34% and flight attendant Ken Davenport at 17%.
Tom Keen, who works in the aerospace training and simulation industry, won a close Democratic primary with 36% of the vote.
Attorney Rishi Bagga, the party’s 2022 candidate, took in 34% and Marucci Guzmán, the executive director of the nonprofit Latino Leadership, came in third with 30%.
Turnout for the special primary election was 7,467 for Republicans and 6,750 for Democrats in the two counties.
The final unofficial tally in Orange County wasn’t released until nearly 10 p.m. as the elections office finished counting mail-in ballots.
Booth and Keen will face off on Jan. 16 to fill the vacancy left when former Republican state Rep. Fred Hawkins resigned earlier this year to become president of South Florida State College in Highlands County.
Election Results for Orange County, Lake County, Seminole County, Florida House 35
The January election could be a bellwether for whether Florida Democrats can win swing seats such as District 35, which is almost equally made up of Democrats, Republicans and independents.
The district is one of many surrounding Orlando in Central Florida that would have been won by President Joe Biden in 2020 but were captured by Republicans in the red wave surrounding Gov. Ron DeSantis’ landslide victory in 2022.
Booth 45, of St. Cloud, is married to Ricky Booth, an Osceola County commissioner. Her website states that she will “protect our children from indoctrination” and crack down on illegal immigration.
She also states that she will “defend our God-given rights as enshrined in the Constitution. ALL OF THEM,” and calls for auditing election results to maintain “election integrity.”
Keen, 58, of Lake Nona in Orlando, was a Navy flight officer and has served on Orlando’s Citizens’ Police Review Board and Veteran Advisory Council. He defeated Bagga by 141 votes on Tuesday, after having lost to Bagga by 57 votes in the 2022 Democratic primary.
His listed priorities include committed funding for affordable housing, combating the insurance crisis, expanding access to abortion by rolling back recent GOP-passed laws, and acting as “a brick wall against the Radical Republicans who want to ban books and punish free speech.”
Keen also wrote that DeSantis’ and Republicans’ “attacks on our LGBTQ friends and family are cowardly and despicable.”
DeSantis was criticized by candidates in both parties for scheduling the general election for the seat 10 days into the 2024 legislative session, meaning the winner will miss out on important committee meetings and will need to catch up quickly.
The seat will also be up for election again in November 2024 for a full two-year term.
