DELAND, Fla.—Social Security, rising prices and Israel’s war on Gaza and Gazans are key issues in two special elections for U.S. House seats from Florida. Mail voting has already started but formal Election Day is April 1.
The elections draw national attention because of the slim Republican House majority, currently 218-213 with two vacancies in each party’s bloc. All four seats have been considered “safe” for their respective parties: The Republicans in Florida and one Democrat each in Virginia and Arizona.
Democrats see possibilities for an upset in Florida’s 6th District, which stretches south from the edge of Jacksonville through Palm Coast and Deland. Democrat Josh Weil opposes Republican State Sen. Randy Fine there. Trump narrowly won the district last November. The Panhandle-based 1st District is a longer shot.
A check of news clips and websites showed the Florida AFL-CIO and the Florida Education Association, the state’s joint NEA-AFT affiliate and the only union with locals in every county, have so far officially stayed out of the two races. On his website, Weil describes himself as “a public educator” and a single father of two boys.
The Progressive Democrats of America and Social Security Works are all in, however.
“Seniors are mad that Elon Musk―the richest man on Earth―is imposing enormous cuts on the Social Security Administration,” Josh Lawson, director of Social Security Works, told supporters in a March 16 email and PDA a week before. Multi-billionaire Musk, Trump’s puppeteer, is taking a chainsaw, literally, to that and other federal workers and programs.
“So we’re channeling that rage―and we’re going to make sure Trump notices!” Lawson says. He’s pounding the pavement in the district this week, tying Republican nominee Fine to Trump and Musk.
“Musk’s DOGE,” the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, “is laying off thousands of SSA workers and has announced plans to close 47 local field offices so far, including one in Melbourne,” Lawson elaborated.
“According to Martin O’Malley, Social Security’s most recent Senate-confirmed commissioner, these cuts to an already underfunded and understaffed agency could result in a ‘system collapse’ within the ‘next 30 to 90 days.’
“That’s unacceptable. We’ve paid into Social Security our entire working lives. Billionaires like Musk and Trump want to cut our Social Security benefits and give themselves massive tax cuts. We won’t let them!”
Weil has his own take on the threat of Trump, and of his foe in the congressional race, Fine.
“I was moved to join this race by my children and students, who deserve to grow into a society where we care about the facts, the planet, and each other,” Weil’s website says. “We need real solutions, not just talking points, that address real problems; such as how to afford buying a new home.
“We need to protect our environment, fix healthcare, lower drug prices, keep up with inflation for seniors living on a fixed income, and reset our economy—so that it works for everyone, not just the rich. If we can afford “tax breaks” for the wealthy, then surely we can find a few nickels and dimes in the couch for the little guys doing most of the work in America.”
Israel’s war on Gaza intruded into the Fine-Weil race in an unusual away. Fine, a rare Jewish Republican, demands GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s election police arrest Weil because a Weil volunteer, who had a criminal record, was arrested while handing out literature and riding a stolen bicycle. The volunteer was fired after the arrest.
“As potentially unvetted criminals blanket our neighborhoods on the Weil payroll, we need the Florida Office of Election Crimes to step in,” Fine said. “Voters are scared and some feel intimidated. I call on law enforcement to immediately arrest ‘Jihad Josh’ Weil for voter intimidation and suppression. He may take his cues from Hamas, but he isn’t in Gaza anymore.”
Ran briefly before
Weil had briefly run for U.S. Senator two years ago, and during that campaign, denounced the ultra-nationalist right-wing Israeli government. Fine used that to link Weil to Hamas.
Trump has endorsed both Fine and the GOP nominee, Jimmy Petronis, in the 1st District, which covers the Florida Panhandle and which votes deep-red, like the rural white Alabamans to its north.
It’s so deep-red that Petronis, now the state’s chief financial officer, features a big photo of him and a grinning Trump on his campaign website. “You don’t need to replace a fighter with a wet rag,” Petronis said in a recent interview. “You need to replace a fighter with a fighter, and that’s me.”
The “fighter” that Petronis and Democratic nominee Gay Valimont, a progressive and gun control crusader for the last 13 years, want to replace is former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., probably craziest of the radical right House Freedom Caucus while he was in Congress. Gaetz beat Valimont last fall by almost two-to-one.
Trump nominated Gaetz to be Attorney General. Gaetz resigned his House seat, but then had to withdraw as nominee, due to flak from other lawmakers, of both parties, about his rampant ethics and criminal violations.
Valimont emphasizes rising prices, Social Security’s danger from Trump and, she told PDA, his illegal and unconstitutional executive orders. Trump’s “going to take us to World War III, a civil war, or both,” she told a questioner at the progressive Democrats’ March 16 session.
“Trump has no plan to protect Social Security. He wants to privatize it…Democrats have to be tougher” against Trump, Valimont declared. “The Republicans aren’t going to do it.”
As for rising prices, where Trump has broken his promise to make them fall, Valimont retorts, “It doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is, or where you live, the rising cost of living” affects all of us. “”You can’t go to the grocery store and spend less than $100.”
“I plan to use the seat to defend Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and save the (federal) Department of Education,” says Valimont, a nurse who lost her husband to Lou Gehrig’s disease three years ago, and then her 8-year-old son to a brain tumor.
“The department takes care of Title I schools and students, and that’s what we have to save, not just the money” since federal dollars account for only 9%-10% of national education spending “but the programs” that help kids.
Asked about Gaza, she said “it’s bad,” of Trump’s unleashing of the Israeli government—and his plans to annex Gaza and turn it into a resort. “Donald Trump wants to build a hotel on the graves of babies,” Valimont said.
“The Palestinians are not Hamas and they have paid the price for what Hamas did.” Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu “will pay,” too, for his massive retaliation.
As for her longtime cause, comprehensive gun control, Valimont got into the race against Gaetz when he filed a national “stand your ground” pro-gun law—the same law a local Florida vigilante used to justify murdering unarmed Black teen Trayvon Martin more than a decade ago. “Since then our homicide rate went up 32%,” she told the progressives. Her current race is a continuation of that campaign against Gaetz.
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