Janelle Irwin Taylor
Kristen Carlson’s newest ad launched Wednesday called “Stand Up” uses her track record as a lawyer and prosecutor to paint her as the best candidate for Florida’s Congressional District 15 seat.
Carlson, a Democrat, is running against Republican State Rep. Ross Spano for the district covering parts of Central Florida and East Hillsborough County.
“Sometimes you have to stand up,” Carlson begins the 30-second ad. “As a prosecutor, I stood up to criminals who harmed women, children, and seniors.”
Carlson then launches into what has become her most prevalent campaign talking point. As General Counselor for the Florida Department of Citrus, the longtime Polk County resident worked on a case with the federal Food and Drug Administration that forced new labeling requirements on orange juice.
“I stood up to importers that ripped off Florida taxpayers,” Carlson said in the ad, “and out-of-state companies that sold contaminated orange juice to schools.”
The late-’80s case involved out-of-state orange juice makers who added refined sugar to orange juice but labeled it as 100 percent pure and then sold it to public schools.
In 2012 Carlson worked on another issue involving imported orange juice from Brazil that contained carbendazim, a banned fungicide. Carlson argued the testing on imported frozen orange juice concentrate should be tested in its diluted form because that’s how it is consumed.
Instead, the FDA was testing the juice product in its frozen concentrate state and found levels of carbendazim that would not have been present once diluted, according to a Lakeland Ledger article at the time.
In that contradictory case, Carlson was standing up for Florida’s robust citrus industry.
Carlson ends the ad saying in Congress she would “stand up to special interests and work with both parties to bring down health care costs and lower taxes for the middle class.”
Living in Polk County for nearly four decades, Carlson spent years working in the citrus industry, which is prevalent in CD 15.
Spano is a Dover Republican who spent six-years in Tallahassee as a state Representative.
The district is historically conservative. It went plus 10 points for Donald Trump in 2016; that same year, incumbent Republican Congressman Dennis Ross took the district plus 15 in his re-election over Jim Lange, his Democratic opponent. Ross opted not to run this year.
Despite the district’s demographics, the two candidates are polling closely with one of Carlson’s internal polls actually showing her with the lead.
FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver gave Carlson a 25 percent chance of flipping the red district.
