Jacob Ogles
From the moment former Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos entered a race to succeed U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, he seemed to be the front-runner — if only because no one else could run.
The Indian Harbour Beach Republican filed shortly before the qualifying deadline in April. Within hours, Posey announced he would not seek re-election and instead endorsed Haridopolos, the longtime Chair of his congressional finance committee. The timing of the news precluded many area pols waiting for Posey’s retirement to explore a run for Congress this cycle in Florida’s 8th Congressional District.
But Haridopolos will face John Hearton, a Republican challenger who had already planned to challenge Posey this year. Joe Babits’ name will also appear on the Aug. 20 Republican Primary ballot, but he announced this week he was suspending his campaign and endorsing Hearton.
The apparent effort to consolidate the anti-Haridopolos vote comes late in the cycle, but Hearton expressed hope it will help cut off Haridopolos from the nomination.
“I call Florida home now. I do not want to be away from here. But we need DC to work in many ways more like Florida,” Hearton said.
“We need to bring core values of love of God, love of Family and love of Country back to every day decisions in Washington DC. We must put the people of the United States first. Lobbyists, special interests, foreign money has no place in our government and I will make it my mission to root out corruption. I cannot be bought and I will never sell out our country, our people (born and unborn) or our Constitution.”
But Haridopolos, while avoiding any seasoned opposition, has taken nothing for granted. Running a campaign primarily on the message, “Let’s make America affordable again,” he has participated in multicandidate debates and waved signs at early voting locations, running like he has ground to make up. He also stressed his background as a legislative leader in Florida, and said Brevard County deserves that expertise in Washington.
“Washington, unfortunately, is broken right now, and we need to send our best and brightest up to Washington, because a lot of problems need to be fixed,” he said at a WESH-hosted debate in July.
“When I was the President of the Senate, I made sure that illegal aliens did not get a driver’s license. When I was Senate President, I led the largest tax cut in Florida history, over $2 billion a year, since 2008. And finally, as Senate President, we faced a budget shortfall of $4 billion. Everyone said we have to raise taxes in order to balance it. I said, heck no, I balanced the budget. (I worked) with (then-Gov.) Rick Scott without raising taxes, and it led to the great Florida economic comeback.”
He also secured endorsements from now-U.S. Sen. Scott, former President and 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and the entire Florida Cabinet. More recently, Gov. Ron DeSantis endorsed the campaign as well.
“I am the only candidate with a proven record of conservative leadership. I am proudly endorsed by President Trump, Governor DeSantis, Congressman Bill Posey, and the NRA,” Haridopolos said. “In Washington, I will always put America First and fight for our conservative values.”
Through the end of July, Haridopolos had raised more than $1.2 million and spent over $478,000. Hearton, by comparison, has raised about $335,000 and spent most of that, around $326,000. But that’s a sizable amount, and Babits spent more than $146,000 on top of that.
Of course, Haridopolos also benefited from the Fight for Florida super PAC, which also spent more than $157,000 through July on ads boosting the former Senate President.
Haridopolos has said he wants to win on a positive campaign, and so far, internal numbers released by his consultants show that has worked. A poll released earlier this month by Spry Strategies showed about 56% of likely Primary voters planned to vote for Haridopolos, compared to less than 10% who favored Hearton and Babits combined.
The same poll showed 67% of voters had a favorable opinion of Haridopolos and only 12% thought poorly of him. By comparison, more than 40% of voters had not heard of Hearton or Babits by that point. Voters were surveyed between July 23 and 26.
The winner of the Aug. 20 Primary will advance to face a Democrat in the General Election. Lawyer Sandy Kennedy and West Melbourne City Councilman Daniel McDow will face each other in an Aug. 20 Democratic Primary to determine the party’s General Election nominee. The Democrats through July raised less than $90,000 combined.
But the district already leans heavily to the right. Posey won his last election with 65% of the vote over Democrat JoAnne Terry in 2022. The same election, more than 62% of voters in the district supported re-electing DeSantis and Rubio. An election cycle before, more than 58% of voters in the district backed Trump for President.
