Katherine Waldron set for HD 93 showdown with challenger Anne Gerwig

Two years after winning the right to represent an inland swath of Palm Beach County in House District 93, Democratic Rep. Katherine Waldron faces a challenge from a well-known and well-funded GOP foe.

Anne Gerwig, the immediate past Mayor of Wellington, where Waldron lives, has been competitive in messaging, fundraising and in securing organizational endorsements.

She’s still in an uphill battle. By the Division of Elections’ latest count, 37% of the voters in HD 93 are registered Democrats, while 31% are Republicans and 32% are third- or no-party voters.

Waldron, 64, raised $311,000 this cycle, with about $72,000 in cash on hand heading into the race’s home stretch.

Gerwig, 61, raised $163,000 and had $75,000 left. She also received close to $44,000 worth of in-kind aid from the Republican Party of Florida for staff, polling and research costs.

Waldron reported no such help from the Florida Democratic Party.

By her count, Waldron passed the most bills of any freshman House Democrat since the 2022 election while bringing home millions in appropriations.

In a second term, she hopes to reverse legislation that blocked one-way attorneys fees in the state so homeowners can better battle insurance malfeasance.

She told the Palm Beach Post she plans to revive a measure she and Boynton Beach Democratic Sen. Lori Berman carried last Session that would classify firing a bullet onto someone else’s property without permission as trespassing. It’s an issue about which residents across the state have complained for years.

She also hopes to pass measures to help localities prepare for and mitigate climate change effects, expand access to mental health and addiction services and extend the deadline for condo owners to get into compliance with Florida’s new post-Surfside safety law.

As was the case with local, state and federal policymakers on both sides of the aisle, Waldron was outraged by plans to develop public parks throughout the state. She intends on carrying a bill to block such plans in the future.

Gerwig, who served as Mayor from 2016 to 2024 after a six-year stint on the Wellington Village Council, has an ambitious list of policy proposals of her own. She’d like to create a Florida insurance bill of rights, establish an insurance fraud task force to root out abuses and lower rates and make holiday sales taxes permanent.

A self-described education advocate, she also plans to fight to increase teacher pay and classroom funding and to require financial literacy to be part of Florida’s public education curriculum. Her campaign website notes that during her tenure as Mayor, nearly every school in the village scored an “A” rating.

Waldron is for Amendment 4, which would safeguard access to abortion until fetal viability or in cases where it is necessary to protect the mother’s health. Gerwig told the Post she prefers a 15-week ban, which the state had in place (without exceptions for rape and incest) before GOP lawmakers pushed through the current six-week ban in 2023.

Waldron served two terms on the Port of Palm Beach Commission before winning her House seat. Her campaign website boasts an enormous number of endorsers, including the Palm Beach Police Benevolent Association, Ruth’s List Florida, SEIU Florida, Planned Parenthood, Palm Beach-Treasure Coast AFL-CIO, Florida Education Association and International Association of Professional Firefighters Local 2928, among other groups, and more than 100 current and former elected officials.

Gerwig has been endorsed by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, BizPac of Palm Beach County and Florida Right to Life, among others.

Campaign ads in the race have gone ugly. A 30-second spot the House Republican Campaign Committee ran labeled Waldron as “wacky,” citing her votes bills expanding a Florida law that limiting LGBTQ inclusion in public schools and another banning gender-affirming care for minors as a sign she supports “sexually explicit books in grade schools” and “taxpayer-funded sex changes for minors.”

Waldron’s camp ran several digital ads describing Gerwig as an “absent Mayor” for recusing herself from Village Council votes — a move necessary when there are potential conflicts of interest — and bashing her for going negative in campaign ads after saying she wouldn’t.

HD 93 covers Wellington, parts of Greenacres and a western portion of Boynton Beach. Waldron won in 2022 by 1 percentage point (864 votes) against Republican Saulis Banionis, a medical doctor who raised and spent about 60% of what Waldron did, though Waldron previously faced three Democratic Primary opponents.

The district swung widely Democratic in 2018 in 2020, siding with Andrew Gillum for Governor by 15 points and Joe Biden for President by 11 points, respectively, according to MCI Maps.

But it swung Republican in 2022, with voters picking Gov. Ron DeSantis by 3.7 points and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio by 0.2 points.

The General Election is on Nov. 5.