Jervonte Edmonds has a challenger in Palm Beach County’s HD 88

​​Freshman Democratic Rep. Jervonte “Tae” Edmonds has a Republican challenger in businessman Ramon Barber, who is seeking to represent Palm Beach County’s House District 88 in his first bid for elected office.

The district, which takes in inland parts of West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach, Mangonia Park and Lake Park, is among the most Democratic districts in the state. More than 68% of the district’s voters cast their ballots last cycle for Democrat Charlie Crist over Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to elections data from Matt Isbell of MCI Maps.

How Barber performs could be some indication of whether DeSantis’ appeal in the traditional Democratic stronghold is growing.

Taken as a whole, Palm Beach County voters in 2022 shocked observers. DeSantis won 51.2% of the vote despite registered Democrats’ 100,000-voter advantage over registered Republicans in the county.

Barber is a graduate of Palm Beach Gardens High School and went to Illinois State University on a full, four-year football scholarship, according to a website for his nonprofit, Motivated King. That organization is dedicated to helping people at risk, or those diagnosed with autism.

He played professional football with the Canadian Football League and the Arena Football League and now runs several businesses and also works as a real estate agent with Keller Williams.

He said it’s on the front lines of working with his nonprofit that he became motivated to run.

“If we want gun violence to go down and poverty be eradicated, we need to put people in place who have the education and the resources to educate parents and children in low-income areas about financial literacy and emotional intelligence,” Barber said. “These are all things that are lacking in our minority community.”

Edmonds, a former legislative aide to Democratic Sen. Bobby Powell, founded a nonprofit, Suits for Seniors, that mentors high school students. He won his seat in a Special Election in early 2022, and followed up with a win in the regular cycle later that year, when he handily defeated Republican candidate Roz Stevens by 42 percentage points.

Edmonds has not reported any donations in April or May, due in part to a ban on sitting lawmakers fundraising during the Legislative Session. But he’s got $13,000 to spend in his bid for re-election, according to campaign finance filings.

In the latest Session, Edmonds co-sponsored legislation signed by the Governor that boosts the preservation of historic African American cemeteries (HB 49). Another measure (HB 783) enhances statewide and local efforts to stop opioid overdoses, including a provision that requires the state’s higher education institutions to have rescue treatments on hand for emergency opioid overdoses.