Kim Daniels faces crowded field in latest fight for political life

Rep. Kim Daniels. Image via AG Gancarski

Duval County Democrats have three choices in one of this month’s Primaries.

They can go with the incumbent, Rep. Kim Daniels, or with one of her two opponents, each of whom have run very different campaigns against her House District 14, a seat that includes portions of northern and western Duval County.

One opponent, Lloyd Caulker, has barely run a campaign at all. He’s yet to record any fundraising, and has gotten numerous letters to that effect from the Division of Elections.

A former pastor and consultant, he is the owner of the “Salvation Navy,” which is described on LinkedIn as “Strategist against the Commandery of Knights Templer, Consistory of Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret Etc.”

Asked about going up against Daniels, who herself is a pastor of global notoriety, Caulker said his campaign was a “divine calling” and that the “Lord Jesus Christ” urged him to run after he left ministry to travel around and “wash feet” like Mary Magdalene.

The other Daniels opponent has been a more serious candidate, meanwhile, though it remains to be seen whether that translates into a win this month.

Therese V. Wakefield-Gamble, a 53-year-old entrepreneur and grandmother from the Northside of Jacksonville, credits a “life-changing experience” with her entrance into the political sphere: recovery from a brain aneurysm after three operations.

The candidate isn’t wasting her second shot at life, spending time this Summer prosecuting the case against the incumbent.

“I looked at her platform and what she was supposed to be running on and then I also reviewed the bills that she proposed and co-signed and there’s a misalignment. It’s not aligning with what she said she was going to run on,” Wakefield-Gamble said.

She has gotten some potentially meaningful endorsements, including from Florida Planned Parenthood PAC, the Florida Democratic Party’s “American Muslim Caucus” and Democratic House candidate Ben Sandlin, who will be on the November ballot against Rep. Wyman Duggan.

She has also been backed by the 90 for 90 group, in another sign that some establishment Democrats are ready to move on from Daniels, an evangelist who calls herself the “Demon Buster.”

A minister by trade, Daniels has aligned with Republicans on “parental rights” and other issues, positions which have rendered her anathema to many of those in her own party.

“I am the opponent of this bill’s worst nightmare,” Daniels said while carrying a bill authorizing school chaplains that is opposed by many in her own party. “I cast out devils, I pray in tongues, I’m a Holy Roller. But nobody on this floor can ever say I tried to convert you. Jesus is too good to push down anybody’s throats.”

Daniels is in the middle of her third term in the House. She was originally elected to serve HD 14 in 2016, was re-elected in 2018, and lost in 2020’s Democratic Primary to current Rep. Angie Nixon. After Nixon was moved to HD 13 during 2022’s redistricting, Daniels won a four-way Primary to return to Tallahassee.

The August Primary likely will decide the race, given that more than 55,000 of the district’s nearly 105,000 registered voters are Democrats, and that only a write-in candidate awaits the Primary winner.