Meg Weinberger clinches spot on General Election ballot with GOP Primary win in HD 94

Very few first-time candidates can say they have an endorsement from a former President. Meg Weinberger is among the rare exceptions. Image via Meg Weinberger.

Palm Beach Moms for Liberty Chair Meg Weinberger earned a spot on the Nov. 5 ballot with a Primary win Tuesday over three fellow Republicans in House District 94.

She now faces the district’s lone Democratic candidate, former Palm Beach Gardens Mayor Rachelle Litt, for the right to succeed term-limited Republican state Rep. Rick Roth in representing a large, inland portion of the county.

With all precincts reporting, Weinberger had 48% of the vote to defeat businessman Anthony Aguirre, college professor Christian Acosta and small-business owner Gabrielle Fox, who received 28%, 17% and 8% of the vote, respectively.

Those figures may change slightly overnight as elections personnel cure and count additional ballots.

Weinberger, who entered the race in June 2023, runs a Palm Beach Gardens animal sanctuary called Rescue Life and has served on numerous boards as an animal advocate. Though she was a first-time candidate, she nabbed several major endorsements.

She earned the nickname “MAGA Meg” after receiving an endorsement from former President Donald Trump and affiliated political figures like U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz and Gus Bilirakis, former newscaster Kari Lake and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. Weinberger also got support from other prominent Florida Republicans, including Delray Beach state Rep. Mike Caruso and Palm Bay state Rep. Randy Fine.

Her campaign raised $267,689 in outside cash and spent $284,857 as of Aug. 15. She also loaned her campaign $50,000. Her political committee, Friends of Megan Weinberger, raised another $230,000 and spent $224,989.

Aguirre, a health care-focused businessman at Medtronic, entered the race in April 2023. The race also marked his first run for public office. This month, he received an endorsement from Gov. Ron DeSantis, after sharing DeSantis-aligned talking points about combating “woke” culture.

That pitted DeSantis and Trump at odds in the Primary, with each backing a different Republican candidate.

DeSantis made clear that he opposed Weinberger. He accused her and her husband of donating to prominent Democrats like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, former Governor and U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, and former Tallahassee Mayor and one-time gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum. State and federal records confirmed his claim.

Aguirre’s campaign raised the second-most money in the race. His campaign account brought in $191,215 and he poured in $80,000 of his own money, though it appears he spent none of that by the most recent campaign finance reporting deadline.

Expenditures from his campaign account totaled $179,159. His political committee, the Palm Beach Conservative Leadership Fund, raised $111,000 and spent $4,234.

Acosta, an engineering professor at Palm Beach State College, entered the race for HD 94 in June 2023. He also ran for Florida’s 21st Congressional District in 2020, losing in the Primary to Laura Loomer.

This cycle, he raised $48,383 and spent $45,242.

Fox, a Palm Beach Gardens psychologist and entrepreneur who runs two firms, raised $12,078 and spent $10,617 through mid-August.

The first-time candidate also had a political committee, PBC Conservative Patriots, but it only raised and spent $397.

HD 94 covers a western, largely agricultural portion of Palm Beach County, including all or parts of Belle Glade, Pahokee, Palm Beach Gardens, Royal Palm Beach, South Bay and Westlake.

In 2022, the district favored DeSantis over Crist by 15 percentage points, according to MCI Maps. Two years before Biden edged out Trump for the area, indicating HD 94 could be a toss-up district if Democrats can mount a strong campaign this cycle.

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Robert Haughn and Jesse Scheckner contributed to this report.