Jesse Scheckner
Democratic Miami Rep. Ashley Gantt outraised, outspent and outcampaigned two former lawmakers running to unseat her this cycle in House District 109. And according to Tuesday’s vote tally, she also outpaced them at the ballot box.
With all precincts reporting, Gantt had 53% of the vote to repel Primary challenges from former Reps. James Bush III and Roy Hardemon.
Bush, whom Gantt ousted in an upset two years ago, took 29% of the vote. Hardemon, a new foe with a checkered legal past who has run incessantly for the last six years to regain a seat in the Legislature, took the remaining 18%.
“It’s such an honor for my community to re-elect me,” Gantt told Florida Politics by text Tuesday night. “In 2022, they took a chance and I did what I promised. Now, in 2024, I’m more ready and equipped with the knowledge to be effective while advocating for my community.”
No other candidates ran this year in the Democratic-leaning district, which spans a north-central area of Miami-Dade County, including parts of Miami Lakes, North Miami, Opa-locka and Miami’s Brownsville, Liberty City and Overtown neighborhoods.
Accordingly, Gantt will head back to Tallahassee for the 2025 Session without having to compete in the General Election.
Gantt, 39, entered Election Day with the advantage of incumbency, a war chest more than five times as big as her challengers’ and some legislative achievements to lean on.
During the 2023 Session, Gantt passed a bill requiring courthouses to provide private spaces for new mothers to nurse their babies. She also pushed through bills to provide $817,000 to a Broward County man who was wrongly imprisoned for 16 years and $500,000 for a Miami-based after-school and rehabilitation program.
While Gantt failed to get any of the eight bills she sponsored in 2024 across the finish line, she told the Miami Herald she secured $800,000 in state funds for local appropriations.
Gantt said she’d seek investments in local, eco-friendly public transportation development if re-elected. She also vowed to push for more affordable housing options, equitable public school funding, increased teacher wages, pollution and sea-level rise solutions, criminal justice reform, and support for small businesses and job creation.
Through late July, she raised $61,500 through a blend of personal checks, political contributions and business donations. She also spent $35,000 on advertising, campaign merchandise, consulting fees and general campaign upkeep costs.
As a longtime public figure then in his third House stint, Bush’s cross-aisle relations enabled him to bring back millions to the district over the years. But he attracted contempt within his party for supporting so-called “red meat” legislation, casting the sole “yes” vote among Democrats for measures shortening the time in which women could get an abortion and restricting discussion of LGBTQ issues in public classrooms, among others.
At 69 and with decades of state-level service dating back to 1992, Bush is well known in HD 109. In his last Session, Bush passed legislation to direct the Corrections and Education Departments to partner on curricula for student inmates and create new oversight requirements and penalties for detention facilities.
He raised $7,500 by July 26 through 30 personal checks. Of the $4,500 he spent, more than half paid for campaign posters.
Bush didn’t maintain much of an online presence during the 2024 election cycle. Florida Politics could not locate an active website for his campaign. His Facebook page, which is regularly updated and still lists him as a Representative, features several new posts of two-year-old photos showing him delivering oversized checks to local community organizations.
Hardemon, the 61-year-old uncle of Miami-Dade County Commissioner Keon Hardemon, served in House District 108 from 2016 to 2018, when he lost a Primary to now-Rep. Dotie Joseph. He complained his fellow Democrats had “lynched” him, accusing the party of racism against Black people, “especially Black men.”
Joseph is Black, as are Gantt and Bush.
After two consecutive and unsuccessful attempts at gaining back the HD 108 seat, he angled for its neighbor.
Hardemon’s still-active re-election website from 2018 says he delivered more than $2 million to his district. He otherwise passed no legislation that added to, or altered, Florida Statutes.
If elected, he told the Miami Herald he wanted to get more state dollars for Miami and combat gentrification in historically Black neighborhoods.
Through July 19, the last date from which his campaign finance information is available on the Division of Elections website, he raised $4,000 through six contributions. He reported spending nothing, though state records show he paid a four-figure qualifying fee.
Hardemon has a lengthy arrest record. By 2016, police had taken him into custody 19 times. Some of the arrests resulted in felony charges that were later dropped or pleaded down, including armed burglary, battery, criminal mischief and kidnapping.
In one such instance a decade ago, he punched his fiancée in the face and dragged her along the ground while driving off. She later told the Herald that she still planned to vote for him.
