{"id":227818,"date":"2026-04-11T18:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T18:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/227818\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T18:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T18:36:16","slug":"brian-nathan-says-hes-ready-to-fight-for-the-working-class-as-he-heads-to-tallahassee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/227818\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Nathan says he\u2019s ready to fight for the working class as he heads to Tallahassee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Florida\u2019s 14th Senate District in western Hillsborough County went without representation during the past regular legislative session in Tallahassee, so newly elected Democrat Brian Nathan says his first responsibility is to make sure the district doesn\u2019t get slighted when House and Senate leaders resume negotiations on the state budget later this spring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThere is a huge gap between the Senate and the House right now in terms of budget priorities,\u201d Nathan told a group of around 40 students while speaking on the University of Tampa campus on Friday afternoon. \u201cI do not want District 14 looked at as some place where they can start making cuts to balance that budget. That\u2019s my priority right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There is a $1.4 billion gap between the Senate\u2019s proposed fiscal year 2026-27 $115 billion plan and the House\u2019s $113.6 billion plan \u2014 seemingly not that insurmountable, at least as compared to a year ago. That\u2019s when the divide between the two chambers stood at $4.4 billion, an impasse that ultimately took an additional 45 days to resolve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Florida Democrats\u2019 spirits have soared in the month since Nathan and Emily Gregory in Florida\u2019s House District 87 in Palm Beach County scored upset victories in two pro-Trump districts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/floridaphoenix.com\/subscribe\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;SUBSCRIBE&quot;}\" class=\"link \">SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">And, in the case of Nathan\u2019s win, it also a matter of perhaps being able to address what has been seen as a growing problem for Democrats nationally \u2014 losing the working class vote to the GOP.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Nathan is very much a union man, having served as a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 915 for the past decade. He says he started getting more involved in politics by working with the Florida AFL-CIO\u2019s Working Family Lobby Corps over the past five years. That lets rank-and-file members travel to Tallahassee during the legislative session to meet with lawmakers to speak for and against bills.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cI\u2019d go up to Tallahassee for a week of two, do the work, and I kind of got a taste for it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a lot of\u00a0 thankless work. Politics can be a dirty business. But knowing that I\u2019m actually fighting for the people back here \u2014 for the people down in Miami, Sarasota, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville. Just the regular working class folks. That\u2019s what really got me interested.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Nathan\u2019s upset came about because he won a share of Republicans who crossed over to vote for him as well as a majority of NPA voters in a district previously won by Republican Jay Collins by nearly 10 points four years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Culture war stuff\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He told the students that his campaign strategy \u201cwas to actually avoid some of the culture war stuff,\u201d adding that there are enough things going on this state \u00a0\u2014 such as disdain for high property insurance premiums \u2014 that transcend political ideology that might have helped him get crossover votes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe other thing is that I was always honest about where I stood on certain issues,\u201d he added. \u201cIt took some time, but I built, I\u2019d say, a certain amount of goodwill and respect. Even though these folks disagreed with me, they knew where I stood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">And he said it helped that he believed he came across as a \u201cregular person\u201d who could connect with people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWilling to disagree but also willing to listen seemed to help bridge that divide,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Nathan, and the rest of the Florida Legislature, are scheduled to return to Tallahassee on Monday, April 20, for the special session on congressional redistricting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s 14th Senate District in western Hillsborough County went without representation during the past regular legislative session in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[27211,28,13762,6322,102587,93755,232,234,233,37150,102588],"class_list":["post-227818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-brian-nathan","tag-florida","tag-florida-democrats","tag-legislative-session","tag-nathan","tag-senate-district","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-university-of-tampa","tag-working-class"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227818","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=227818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}