Jacob Ogles
Rep. Fiona McFarland faces a familiar opponent in House District 73: Osprey Democrat Derek Reich.
The Sarasota Republican handily defeated Reich in 2022 as Republicans overperformed statewide. But considering voters in HD 73 split more closely in the 2020 Presidential Election than in any seat in Florida, Reich hopes voters will be in a mood for change.
“This humble teacher from Sarasota is the one to represent this community,” he said.
McFarland, though, believes the community will reward her work over the last four years with another term in office. Over her first four years in the House, she helped craft major policy in her first two terms in office, including on data privacy and social media use by minors.
She also passed legislation to offer donated human milk to infants as part of the Medicaid program. That was a bipartisan bill carried on the Senate side by Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book and signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
More recently, her district saw Hurricane Milton make landfall in October as a Category 3 storm, and McFarland has focused her energies since on relief and recovery. For much of the month, she stopped actively campaigning, at least in the traditional sense, instead devoting campaign resources to public service announcements to bring the community together.
“Our community is reeling from Hurricane Helene and Milton,” she said in a campaign video, “but the reason I made Sarasota County home after my time in the Navy was because there’s something different about this area: a resilience and an unselfish sacrifice to help those in need we’re witnessing that spirit in real time now, neighbors helping neighbors.”
Her storm response may have helped to blunt the effect of some of Reich’s rhetoric against the incumbent.
“Fiona failed Florida,” Reich wrote in mailers shipped in the district. “It’s that simple, just look at her record. Homeowners insurance rates are doubling every year, she voted to cut school funding for Sarasota County’s children, and voted to ban victims of rape and incest from having access to abortion services. I’m born and raised in this community, this is my home. I’ll actually fight to fix the real problems affecting our community, because I don’t see this community as a stepping stone to higher office.”
She also enjoys the benefit of incumbency. Through Oct. 18, she raised more than $227,000 in her official re-election account, which closed the period with $177,000 in cash on hand. Meanwhile, her Friends of Sarasota political committee closed the period with more than $304,000 in the bank.
Reich, for his part, has proven to be one of the most successful fundraisers among Democrats taking on House Republican incumbents. His campaign reported almost $231,000 in donations this cycle, more than McFarland’s campaign account, but he closed the last period with less than $13,000 in the bank. Moreover, his Freedom First Fund has raised less than $20,000 over more than two years and had just over $1,600 cash left as of mid-October.
And while voters in HD 73 split pretty evenly in the Presidential Election in 2020, Sarasota has swung considerably more Republican in the four years since. More than 60,000 Republicans are now registered in the county, compared to 40,000 Democrats and 33,000 others, as of Aug. 20.
Reich plans to hit McFarland on policies that didn’t make it across the finish line, such as an incorporation bill for Siesta Key. After finally getting most of the Sarasota County legislative delegation on board with that effort, it never received a vote in the House Ways and Means Committee last year.
And he also will push her for missing a vote on a six-week abortion ban signed by DeSantis, and for voting for a 15-week abortion ban before that.
Of note, McFarland missed the last abortion vote because she had just given birth to her second child. She has since delivered a third. After being elected to the House weeks after the birth of her first child, she has showcased her growing family in campaign materials and stressed how she chose Sarasota as the community in which to raise her children.
