Jacob Ogles
It’s been less than a year since Democratic Rep. Tom Keen won his seat in the Legislature. Now he must defend it against Republican Erika Booth.
The two have effectively campaigned for the House District 35 seat for a year, since each won their respective Primaries last November. Keen went on to win a Special Election against Booth in January, flipping a Republican seat blue in one of Florida Democrats’ biggest wins of the year.
But Keen said he has rarely crossed paths with the former Osceola County School Board member, despite a willingness to attend debates and forums himself.
“It’s crickets over there,” he said. “And it’s frustrating because then people believe the mailers because you don’t have the chance to correct the record.”
Booth, though, said Keen has not followed through on promises made to voters in the prior campaign.
“Our message is resonating. Tom Keen went to Tallahassee under false pretenses,” she said. “He said he’d fix the insurance and affordability crisis — then when represented with solutions, he voted ‘no.’”
Keen, for his part, feels anxious to return to Tallahassee and continue demanding fixes to a property insurance crisis which he said Republican supermajorities have ignored. He voted against legislation that has failed to address the problems, he said.
Keen notes that because he took office after the start of the 2024 Legislative Session, he could not introduce his own legislation. He still joined other lawmakers as sponsors on their legislation and managed to argue a bill on the floor and get two measures passed into law where he was a prime sponsor, if not the initial filer. He also helped secure appropriations, including $8 million for Valencia Community College and state contributions to a major Toho Water Authority modernization.
“As a redshirt freshman, that’s pretty good,” he said.
But he’s eager to return to Tallahassee with not only the chance to file bills but to shepherd legislation through committees ahead of Session. And he hopes Democrats in the next Session will have greater ability to steer the direction of policymaking toward pocketbook issues instead of culture wars.
He said Republican leadership spent nearly 1,000 hours of committee and floor time on issues like a prohibition on transgender people listing gender identity on driver’s licenses — legislation Senate leadership refused to take up — but spent a fraction of that time on insurance.
He did support a sales tax reduction on property taxes, but said that saved the average homeowner $50 to $1,000, a small portion of insurance costs.
Booth, a former Osceola County School Board member, has run with the support of the Florida House Republican Campaign Committee both in the Special Election and regular election cycles. She had to resign her School Board seat in January in order to run, but that means she has been able to spend more of her time campaigning for the November election. She believes constituents have been disappointed by Keen.
“He is out of touch with our community and the reception I’ve received is much more positive than the Special,” she said.
Booth has stressed her own roots in the community. Husband Ricky Booth sits on the Osceola County Commission, and she has been involved in the Florida Farm Bureau, Bookmark Buddies Mentor Program, Silver Spurs Riding Club and the PEO Philanthropic Organization.
Heading into Nov. 5, Keen is widely viewed as the most vulnerable Democrat currently serving in the Legislature. The more than 40,000 registered Republicans in HD 35 outnumber the roughly 39,000 Democrats, but the decision may really come down to the near 40,000 voters with no party affiliation there.
Keen, unlike in January, has outraised the Republican. His campaign reported almost $123,000 in fundraising through Oct. 18, when it still had almost $13,000 cash on hand. Booth, in comparison, raised just over $118,000 and had under $7,500 in the bank at the same time. Meanwhile, the Friends of Tom Keen political committee raised $135,000 over the cycle and had around $5,100 as of Oct. 28. The respective Booth PAC raised around $58,000, but still had almost $42,000 of that to spend in the last days of the race.
