Can Rachel Plakon hold onto a district that voted for Joe Biden or will Democrat Kelley Diona Miller unseat her?

Republican Rep. Rachel Plakon secured her seat in the Legislature in 2022 despite Democrats holding a numbers edge. But can she keep House District 36 red this cycle against a challenge by Democrat Kelley Diona Miller?

The Lake Mary incumbent said she feels confident, both in the state of her campaign and her record in the Legislature. Fresh off a phone call with a potential swing voter, she felt hopeful she could win over as many voters as it takes.

“We put forward a good campaign,” she said. “We’ve pushed back on inflation coming out of Washington, passed $3 billion in tax cuts, and we are keeping Florida’s economy strong.”

But Miller sees extremism coming from the Legislature and said the women of Florida deserve better.

An executive committee member for the Seminole County NAACP and diversity chair for the SEMDEMS, the human resources professional has also been active in the Greater Orlando Society Human Resources Management board and the Association of Talent & Development.

She said lawmakers have ignored issues impacting day-to-day lives of constituents.

“I am running to resolve the affordable Florida affordability crisis we are suffering here in Florida with our homeowners insurance, our car insurances, and I want to do whatever I can to bring the solution,” she said at a WESH debate.

Part of the reason those issues aren’t being addressed is because of a Republican supermajority, she said, and her election would help break that one-party control.

Plakon has maintained a resource advantage throughout the race. Through Oct. 18, Plakon’s re-election campaign had raised more than $170,000, and still had almost $73,000 for her final days on the campaign trail. By comparison, Miller collected less than $37,000. She had most of that still heading into the final weeks, but that constituted just under $20,000 cash.

Beyond that, the Friends of Rachel Plakon political committee had more than $187,000 as of Oct. 29.

On top of that, the Florida House Republican Campaign Committee has made heavy investments in Central Florida markets, thanks in large part to the number of swing seats held by Republican freshmen like Plakon.

In HD 36, registrations show a near-even split between major parties, with 43,530 registered Democrats barely outnumbering the district’s 43,241 Republicans. Some 39,095 no-party voters also call the district home.

And in 2020, the last Presidential Election, more than 51% of voters in the district backed Democrat Joe Biden over Republican Donald Trump, who received just over 47% of the vote there even as he won Florida’s vote statewide.

Miller, who boasts the endorsement of Ruth’s List Florida and other progressive groups, has slammed Plakon for a voting record out-of-step with the arguably moderate district. Plakon supported a ban on most abortions six weeks into pregnancy, and was the lead sponsor of a law prohibiting transgender individuals from using restrooms at public facilities aligned with their gender identity.

Miller scoffed at the idea that transgender people pose a threat to women.

“We are speaking of the ability for a transgender person who is born and who has transitioned into another gender and deciding to go into the bathroom of the gender that they have specified,” she said at the WESH debate. “I don’t believe that this will be an issue with increased violence of any of any kind.”

Plakon, for her part, defended her record.

“We didn’t start the culture war,” she said. “Things have been a certain way for hundreds of years. It wasn’t our war to start. We are fighting for what we believe in as conservatives.”

But she also said lawmakers can multitask, and rejected arguments that the Legislature hasn’t done anything to combat rising insurance rates. She points to tax breaks for homeowners and efforts to bring the cost of building materials under control. She also said lawmakers took steps to stop lawsuit abuse, which would have reduced rates if not for inflation driven by federal spending.

And she touted a series of appropriations she brought to the district in her first term, including $8.32 million in projects just last year. That included $850,000 for The Family Café, which helps children with disabilities, and $1 million for the Seminole Hope and Healing Center, a treatment center working in partnership with Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma. She also secured $2.6 million for the Sanford nutrient reduction project at Lake Jesup and $2.52 million for the Sanford Airport Authority.