GOP-tied ads attacking LaVon Bracy Davis, Randolph Bracy lead to cease and desist letters

A conservative group purchased airtime in Orlando to attack two Democratic candidates for Senate. Now, one candidate has sent a cease and desist letter questioning the ad’s accuracy.

An attorney for Senate candidate LaVon Bracy Davis’ campaign sent a cease and desist letter to Orlando television stations to stop airing the Committee to Protect Florida ad.

That group, chaired by Republican political consultant Mark Zubaly, created a 30-second ad criticizing Bracy Davis and her brother, former state Sen. Randolph Bracy, as both run in a Special Election in Senate District 15.

Natalie Kato, a Tallahassee lawyer who serves as Treasurer to Bracy Davis’ Liberated by Democracy committee, said in a letter to TV stations that the ad contains inaccuracies. She said an accusation that the candidate took “thousands of dollars from the heartless insurance industry” is “categorically false.”

The ad includes screenshots of donations by Cigna and Florida Blue to Randolph Bracy’s 2020 Senate campaign, dated from 2017 and 2018.

But the ad’s narrator leading into those screenshots tries to tie both candidates together, saying, “Career politicians Randolph Bracy and his sister LaVon Bracy Davis have been in the pockets of the worst insiders in politics.”

“At a minimum, this advertisement confuses the viewer and implies that all of these contributions can be attributed to Representative Bracy Davis. This is simply incorrect,” Kato wrote in a letter obtained independently by Florida Politics.

Zubaly said the cease and desist matters little, as the ad in question was about to come off air soon when it was sent.

“The ad runs out today anyway, so even though the cease and desist was served yesterday the ad buy already had ended,” he told Florida Politics.

He defended the content of the ad regarding Bracy Davis, noting she has taken money from the insurance industry. He pointed at $1,000 donations from Ace American Insurance, Zurich American Insurance and the Committee of Florida Agents to Bracy Davis’ House campaign. He also said both have cast votes to aid the insurance industry, including Bracy Davis in her one term in office.

Of note, Bracy Davis’ committee did accept $500 from the Florida Insurance PC in October 2024, and her campaigns for House have accepted donations from other insurance companies. But neither her 2022 campaign nor her 2024 re-election campaign accepted donations from Florida Blue or from Cigna, nor has her Senate campaign as of May 8.

Bracy and Bracy Davis face lawyer Coretta Anthony-Smith and former U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson in a June 24 Democratic Primary. The winner will face Republican Willie Montague in a Sept. 2 Special Election to decide who succeeds the late Democratic state Sen. Geraldine Thompson.

A representative for Anthony-Smith’s campaign said the operation had no communication with Zubaly’s group, nor knowledge of the ads before they ran. Florida Politics has reached out to Bracy and Grayson for comment.

But the district leans heavily Democratic. No Republican even ran in the district in 2024. Nearly 61% of voters in the district supported Democrat Kamala Harris for President, while less than 38% voted for Republican Donald Trump, even as the GOP nominee carried the state by 13 percentage points, according to MCI Maps.

That makes it unusual for Zubaly, a longtime Campaign Manager for Republican candidates, to play in the race at all. The Committee to Protect Florida, formed in 2017, has historically received and distributed money to Republican groups.

For example, it received $5,000 in 2020 from a committee tied to now-U.S. Rap. Randy Fine, $13,550 in 2024 from a group tied to now-Polk County Elections Supervisor Melony Bell, and $25,000 in 2022 from a committee controlled by Rep. Rachel Plakon. All three politicians were Republican members of the Florida Legislature at the time of the donations.

In 2020, the group collected $1,000 from the Florida Insurance Council, and it has accepted similar contributions from a variety of insurance agencies since its 2017 formation.

The committee has also reported contributions from Florida Conservatives United, Conservatives for Rural Florida and Treasure Coast Conservatives, and distributed $20,000 back to the latter group just this month.

The committee also spent $48,000 this month with Direct Response Campaigns, Zubaly’s Tallahassee-based political media production firm, on television ad buys. Zubaly’s bio for the firm notes prior work both for the Republican Party of Florida and for the Florida Justice Association.

Zubaly said the interest of the committee was in holding candidates to account for their messaging.

“They were campaigning against the insurance industry and that’s just not true,” he said.