{"id":189970,"date":"2026-03-13T10:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/189970\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T10:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:08:08","slug":"early-voting-starts-saturday-for-special-state-senate-election-in-tampa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/189970\/","title":{"rendered":"Early voting starts Saturday for special state Senate election in Tampa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early voting for Tampa’s open state Senate seat begins Saturday. It’s being held to fill the vacancy left in August, when Jay Collins was appointed as the state’s lieutenant governor. <\/p>\n

Collins replaced Jeanette Nunez, who resigned to become president of Florida International University.<\/p>\n

District 14 includes Democratic strongholds in Tampa, as well as more conservative areas of northern Hillsborough County. <\/p>\n

The Republican candidate is state Representative Josie Tomkow<\/a>, a cattle rancher based in Polk City. She was facing term limits and will resign from House District 51, which is centered in Polk County. Election records show she’s raised more $266,000 in donations. <\/p>\n

She enters the race with endorsements from Congresswoman Laurel Lee; state Reps. Lawrence McClure, the House budget chief; Danny Alvarez, Traci Koster and Michael Owen; Sheriffs Chad Chronister of Hillsborough County, Grady Judd of Polk County and Chris Nocco of Pasco County; and Hillsborough County Commissioner Christine Miller.<\/p>\n

On the Democratic side is Brian Nathan<\/a>. He’s a Navy veteran and is active with a union for electrical workers. Nathan has raised about $56,000. He’s been endorsed by several unions and Democratic-leaning groups.<\/p>\n

The Tampa-based district has historically been a swing seat. Collins was elected after former Sen. Janet Cruz had flipped it blue four years earlier<\/p>\n

Election day is March 24.<\/p>\n

\"District<\/p>\n

State Senate District 14 map <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early voting for Tampa’s open state Senate seat begins Saturday. It’s being held to fill the vacancy left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-189970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}