Janelle Irwin Taylor
A Democrat has stepped up to the plate to challenge Republican Rep. Karen Gonzalez Pittman in House District 65, a Tampa-based district covering parts of South Tampa, Town ’n’ Country and areas abutting Oldsmar in Pinellas County.
Kell Cameron, who filed for the race in late July, will have an uphill climb in the red district. Democrats have a 10-percentage-point disadvantage in the district, holding just 29% of the electorate compared to 39% for Republicans, according to the most recent L2 voter data.
An educator, activist and self-described community servant, according to his campaign website, Cameron is an immigrant who came to the U.S. at 18 years old, “with just two suitcases and an unshakable belief in the American dream.”
Cameron is running with affordability issues at the center of his campaign, noting that Floridians “are being crushed by the cost of living,” including “skyrocketing rent, unaffordable healthcare, rising housing insurance, and infrastructure that’s falling behind.”
He calls his approach “affordability with dignity,” a strategy that emphasizes building what people need, removing barriers, and fighting for working class people.
“I don’t see a lot of folks really fighting for making Florida more affordable, fighting for more opportunity,” Cameron told Creative Loafing. “We have crises in education, infrastructure, housing, and I see a lot of folks on both sides of the aisle really just fighting either culture wars or for their own ambition.”
Cameron is an assistant professor in the School of Information Systems at the University of South Florida, where he teaches MBA operations management and managerial decision analysis courses. He previously taught at Boston University, where he earned his Ph.D. in operations and technology management and a master’s degree in systems engineering.
Cameron lives in South Tampa with his husband, Jayson. They have been together for 10 years.
In addition to a robust voter registration advantage for the GOP, Gonzalez Pittman also secured easy re-election last year, earning more than 57% of the vote over Democrat Ashley Brundage, who is also a member of the LGBTQ+ community as a trans woman.
While Cameron has not yet filed campaign finance reports in the race, Gonzalez Pittman has an early fundraising advantage, with about $15,000 available in her campaign account, as of the end of June, and more than $71,000 available in her affiliated political committee, Friends of Karen Gonzalez Pittman.
