Jesse Scheckner
Retired U.S. Navy pilot Phil Ehr doesn’t lack determination. After back-to-back losses in a deep red Panhandle district, the Republican-turned-Democrat is aiming for a seat representing Florida’s southernmost area, which has grown redder over the past few election cycles.
Standing in his way in Florida’s 28th Congressional District is Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez, who, unlike Ehr, has deep roots and a long history of service in the area he represents.
In terms of fundraising, they’re about tied, according to incomplete campaign finance records. But carry-over funds have the incumbent far flusher than his challenger.
Ehr, 64, originally aimed higher this cycle. He first filed to run against Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, but switched races in October 2023 to clear a path for former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, whom Giménez unseated in 2020.
Ehr was a Republican until 2017 and an Escambia County resident until only a few months ago. In 2018 and 2020, he ran against self-described “conservative firebrand” Matt Gaetz in Florida’s 1st Congressional District, losing by more than 30 percentage points each time.
While campaigning, Ehr leaned heavily on his 26-year career as a Navy pilot, his first mission being the Mariel Boatlift rescuing people fleeing Cuba. Between then and now, he taught for the World Chess Federation, instructed British officers at a war college, founded a now-defunct liberal super PAC and “recently completed dozens of humanitarian aid delivery missions in Ukraine,” according to his campaign website.
If elected, he vows to reduce costs for Floridians, work to secure the border and reform legal immigration laws, impose gun control measures to curb mass shootings and champion public education and labor unions.
He also hopes to restore abortion rights and protect Florida’s environment through the construction of clean energy and water infrastructure.
Through July 31, Ehr raised about $1 million and spent all but $14,500 of it. He also added $53,000 from his bank account to his electoral effort. Another campaign finance report was due Oct. 15, covering his August and September activity. A week later, he’d yet to file one, prompting a warning letter from the Federal Election Commission.
Florida Politics reached out to Ehr’s campaign for clarity on the matter and will update this report.
Giménez, 70, is the only Cuban-born member of Congress, and more than two-thirds of the district he represents is Hispanic, U.S. Census Bureau data shows. For many residents, Giménez is a household name, having served in high-ranking public positions for the past 33 years.
He was appointed Chief of the Miami Fire Department in 1991 and served in the job until 2000, when he began a nearly three-year stint as Miami City Manager. He then won a seat on the Miami-Dade Commission, a job he parlayed into a successful run at the county mayoralty in 2011.
Giménez supplanted Mucarsel-Powell nine years later by 4 percentage points and held onto his seat in newly drawn CD 28 in 2022 with a whopping 64% of the vote.
Since taking his seat in Congress, Giménez has been the primary sponsor of 46 bills, including recent ones aimed at prohibiting student loan forgiveness for students convicted of antisemitic hate crimes, enhancing airport security and creating a grant program to support coral reef restoration in South Florida.
Three other national security-focused bills he carried passed the House floor, but have yet to be taken up in the Senate.
Some of his recent headline-catching actions include calling on President Joe Biden to reimpose sanctions on Venezuela, leading a House probe into the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump and accusing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of “high crimes” over the illegal immigration crisis at the southern border.
Not every salvo was aimed at Democrats. After Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene doubled down on a claim that certain powerful entities can control major weather events like Hurricanes Helene and Milton, Giménez wrote on X that people who say such things should “have their head examined.”
Notably, Giménez defended Trump for refusing to accept the outcome of the 2020 election and later voted against both the certification of Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s electoral votes and a second impeachment of Trump after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Not-so-coincidentally, he again carries an endorsement from Trump.
Through Sept. 30, Giménez raised, spent and had leftover about $1 million this cycle. He benefited from deep-pocketed donors like Dallas billionaire investment analyst Ken Fisher, Dallas real estate developer Ross Perot Jr., Fontainebleau Development CEO Jeffrey Soffer, an array of firefighter groups and businesses in the sugar, national defense and aerospace industries.
Ehr, by comparison, depended far more on personal checks and received nods from SEIU and the Committee to Protect Health Care, among others.
The voter composition of CD 28 has shifted over the past eight years. Hillary Clinton won the area by 16 points in 2016, and Andrew Gillum took it by 7 points two years later, according to MCI Maps.
But Trump took it 6 points in 2020. After redistricting in 2022, CD 28 went to Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio by 28 and 26 points, respectively. Giménez outperformed them both last cycle against underfunded former Democratic state Rep. Robert Asencio.
CD 28 spans a southern portion of Miami-Dade, including Homestead and Florida City, and all of the Keys in Monroe.
Modeling by The Hill shows a 91% chance Giménez wins a third term. An internal poll that Ehr’s campaign commissioned a year ago found that while Giménez isn’t especially well-liked by voters, more than three-quarters of respondents didn’t know who Ehr was.
Ehr’s team told Florida Politics this week that they’ve made shoring up that deficiency a major campaign focus over the past year through canvassing, community engagements and other activities.
The General Election is on Nov. 5.
One comment
Aleyda
October 30, 2024 at 5:38 pm
Carlos Gimenez was a corrupt mayor, now he is a corrupt congressman. He has been screwing over Miami-Dade and the Keys over the past 13 years, enough is enough! Time to vote him out.