Jesse Scheckner
Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez’s unbeaten electoral streak continued Tuesday, when he defeated Democratic challenger Phil Ehr to earn a third term serving Florida’s 28th Congressional District.
With early votes fully tallied, mail-in ballots partially counted and all but one of 210 precincts reporting between Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, Giménez had 64.6% of the vote to repel Ehr, a retired U.S. Navy pilot who changed targets this year after back-to-back losses in a deep red Panhandle district.
In terms of fundraising, Ehr and Giménez were neck-and-neck heading into the election’s home stretch, but carry-over funds have the incumbent far flusher.
Ehr, 64, originally aimed higher this cycle. He first filed to challenge 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. He lost to Gaetz in 2018 and 2020 in Florida’s 1st Congressional District by more than 30 percentage points.
While campaigning for CD 28, Ehr leaned heavily on his 26-year naval career, his first mission being the Mariel Boatlift rescuing people fleeing Cuba. He continued serving good causes long after his honorable discharge, according to his campaign website, which said he recently completed dozens of humanitarian aid delivery missions in Ukraine. He also taught with the World Chess Federation, instructed British officers at a war college and founded a now-defunct liberal super PAC.
If elected, Ehr vowed to reduce costs for Floridians, work to secure the border, reform legal immigration laws, support gun control measures and champion public education and labor unions.
He also hoped to restore abortion rights and protect Florida’s environment through the construction of clean energy and water infrastructure.
Through Oct. 16, Ehr raised about $1.1 million and spent all but $34,000 of it.
Giménez, 70, raised $1.06 million this cycle, but had about as much remaining by Sept. 30, the last date on which his campaign finance information was available.
He’s something of a household name in Miami-Dade County, 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.
Nine years later, he supplanted Mucarsel-Powell 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 was the primary sponsor of 46 bills, including recent ones aimed at prohibiting 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.
He made headlines for 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 illegal immigration 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 certifying 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.
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 by 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 County.
Modeling by The Hill gave Giménez a 91% chance at winning a third term. An internal poll that Ehr’s campaign commissioned a year ago found that while Giménez wasn’t especially well-liked by voters, more than three-quarters of respondents didn’t know who Ehr was.
Ehr’s team told Florida Politics last month that they made shoring up that deficiency a major campaign focus over the past year through canvassing, community engagements and other activities.
