TAMPA, Fla. — A local race has the potential to make history. If elected — Ashley Brundage would become the first openly transgender person to hold elected office in Florida.
The Democratic nominee for State House District 65 is challenging first-term Republican incumbent Karen Gonzalez Pittman.
The district covers most of south Tampa and both tell 10 Tampa Bay that insurance prices, not identity politics, is the top issue in the campaign. Pittman won her first race two years ago by seven points and she has a large lead in the fundraising battle, raising around $250,000 so far; Brundage has raised around $75,000.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and veracity.
10 Tampa Bay: Why are you running for office?
Ashley Brundage: I'm running for a lot of reasons. I'm mostly running because I was asked by so many community organizations and people in the Tampa community who really wanted to bring change to Tallahassee.
Too many times, Republicans and Democrats are blaming each other for all the problems that we have. And I think that it's certainly a perfect opportunity to bring people together by having somebody who was once a Republican-run as a Democrat and be able to bring these two parties together to get away from the cultural war issues that are hurting our economy.
Karen Gonzalez Pittman: I'm running for re-election because I know the pulse of District 65. I feel like I can best represent District 65 because I know District 65. I've lived in Tampa all my life, and for the last over 30 years, I've lived in South Tampa. My four children all went through public schools in South Tampa. I know the area.
Many of my constituents are my friends. I also lived in Dania Shores back in the 80s, so that's also part of my district. So I understand what it's like to be on Dania Shores and Pelican Island.
So I'm very familiar with my district and have a feel for what is needed and what needs to be done. I'm also very tenacious, and I am a mover and a shaker and like to get things done. And I love to work on getting things done correctly.
I think I'm common sense also. And before I ran, there were a lot of decisions and things in society that were happening that didn't seem to be common sense. And I thought that they needed maybe an adult in the room. I don't have any political aspirations to go on. I am here for the people and want to do what's best for the constituents.
And that's why I thought I should run.
10 Tampa Bay: Why do you think you're the best person for the job?
Pittman: Well, leadership has introduced me on the floor as the hardest working representative in the state, as well as another person in leadership, has introduced me as tenacious. Now, I like to say I'm tenacious with grace in order to get things done.
They know that if they need something done, they give it to me. I've lived here for over 31 years. I know the district. I know the roads that need to be fixed.
I know where the potholes are. And one of my big accomplishments that I've done, I've brought over $35 million back to the district. And the majority of that money was to fix our roads.
Brundage: I think my broad mix of experience, having overcome harassment, discrimination, a year and a half of homelessness, I think my experience working 12 years in the restaurant industry, learning and helping people from walking in and working in a customer service environment is really important. People like that are never voted in to be state legislators. But then I also have 11 years in the banking industry. I was a registered investment advisor, so I understand risk mitigation.
And then now, the last two and a half years, I've run my own company and I've actually negotiated contracts with insurance companies. I do business with six insurance companies who hire my company to do consulting for their organization. So I understand from all the different parameters around how we have to understand that your state legislator has to be in a position to be able to address the actual real issues and not be bought and paid for by the other organizations who you're actually trying to hold accountable.
I think it's so important that we make sure that we have a legislator that's in this seat that can actually address real issues and not get lost in all the partisan culture war issues.
10 Tampa Bay: What do you think the issues are that are the most important for the people of this district?
Brundage: This district, it's all about the insurance crisis. We asked our state legislator here to actually address the insurance crisis. And instead what we got was a bill passed with no teeth that's actually not going to address the insurance crisis. And literally after the bill got signed in July, we raised the rates 14% for the residents right here in District 65.
So that tells me that there was no actual real addressing this issue. So this is the number one issue. I've actually started working on the Insurance Accountability Act, which actually addresses the issue by holding insurance companies accountable but gives them creative ways to mitigate their risk by expanding the geographical region where we allow them to write insurance policies.
And then we also are going to bring the legal industry into this discussion because they have to be a part of the solution instead of being part of the problem.
Pittman: As I'm meeting my constituents and the voters, one of the things that they talk about is insurance, that the price of the rates for insurance is skyrocketing. So what I did was I conducted three town halls in the month of July because I kept hearing about insurance, insurance, insurance.
So what I did was I brought in the insurance consumer advocate from Tallahassee, and we had three town halls, and we discussed the problems that my constituents were having with it in order to garner information in order to possibly write a bill in the next session and address the needs of my constituents. So insurance is a big problem. Roads, potholes, and flooding, all of the things that I have worked on.
10 Tampa Bay: What do you believe is your path to victory and how are you going to get it done?
Pittman: My path to victory is working hard and outworking everybody. I out-raise everyone.
I'm one of the top fundraisers in the House. I knock on doors. I'm supposed to knock on 47,000 doors, and between March and today, I've knocked on over 30,000 doors.
I am out there raising money, knocking on doors, meeting my constituents, while also taking care of my constituents that I'm supposed to be taking care of right now, and considering bills for the upcoming session.
Brundage: Well, winning 80.1% in the Democratic primary shows that we have the Democratic support wholeheartedly.
And so where our universe has gotten a lot smaller, we're going to be building relationships with the independent voters because they're our universe of people who we're going to be reaching out to. We've already been knocking on the independent doors. We actually knocked on 1,200 doors in the last five weeks with our campaign.
We made 1,300 phone calls with our volunteers. I think it's so important that we show them that they can actually meet with the candidate and hear from the candidate. Part of what I'm planning to do is to formulate a walk with Ashley on Wednesday on Bayshore in the morning.
And so I'll be on Bayshore every Wednesday morning. You can come and see me and you can meet me and you can walk Bayshore with me starting next week. So come on out there and walk with me on Wednesday.
I think it's important that you have an opportunity to actually talk to your state legislator. And it's not someone that's just in an elite building on an island. I'm a community member.
I live in the community. I work here. And I think it's so important that we have to have access to our legislators.
10 Tampa Bay: What do you believe is the significance of having a transgender person as the major party nominee in a state legislative race?
Brundage: Well, you know, we have to make history sometimes, yes. But statistically speaking, when we look at the makeup of our community, right, cultural wars have existed because it gets more clicks. When people talk about our community, they get more clicks.
I want to say, I think I read a study once that said it was like 20% more clicks if you write an article about something that has to include something that's trans. But this is what shields people from the real issue. The real issue is the rising cost of insurance.
The real issue is not addressing the property insurance crisis. The real issue is not building economic empowerment programs. And so, yeah, we're going to make history.
And I'm proud to be me. I'm proud to live my life authentically. I'm not going to let that be an issue.
But I'm running on the real issues that are affecting everyday people in this district. I think it's so important to continue to focus on that. And I'm going to celebrate, yes, and we did that last week, but now we're moving towards the election that we really want to win.
We really want to win because we can end these cultural war topic issues. The cultural war topic issues are the things that hurt our economy. And it's a waste of our taxpayer money when we could have been focusing on all the real issues affecting real people every day. And that's why people should think about voting for me.
That's why people should get involved in our campaign. That's why they should go to AshleyBrunage.com. That's why they should go and click the button that says volunteer, because we can actually make change that's going to affect every single resident in house district 65.
Pittman: I don't think it has any significance. I think that it is anyone's right to run for office.
So I think it's great. I think it shows what a fabulous place we live in, in this place called America, that anyone can run for office.