{"id":274573,"date":"2026-05-17T23:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T23:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/274573\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T23:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T23:55:09","slug":"cd-2-candidates-gear-up-for-tallahassee-debate-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/274573\/","title":{"rendered":"CD 2 candidates gear up for Tallahassee debate Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Candidates vying to replace retiring U.S. Rep.\u00a0Neal Dunn\u00a0in Florida\u2019s 2nd Congressional District will face off in a debate Monday in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n

The debate is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center, hosted by the nonpartisan Capital Tiger Bay Club.<\/p>\n

Jim Rosica, news director of the Tallahassee Democrat, will serve as moderator.<\/p>\n

CD 2 is the state\u2019s most rural District and largest by land area, encompassing 15 counties from the Suwannee River to DeFuniak Springs. Dunn, 73, has held the seat since 2017 but is facing \u201creal health challenges and a pretty grim diagnosis,\u201d according to House Speaker\u00a0Mike Johnson.<\/p>\n

Businessman\u00a0Keith Gross\u00a0and Florida GOP Chair\u00a0Evan Power\u00a0have emerged as the front-runners in the race.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gross, a 42-year-old Army veteran and business owner from Panama City Beach, spent millions of his own funds in an unsuccessful Primary challenge against Sen.\u00a0Rick Scott\u00a0in 2024. Power, 44, lives in Tallahassee and has served as Chair of the state\u2019s Republican Party since January 2024, but this is his first run for elected office.<\/p>\n

Power touts the significant voter registration gains the state GOP has achieved under his tenure and has attacked Gross for previously running as a Democrat for a seat in the Georgia Legislature.<\/p>\n

Gross has defended himself by arguing that President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0was a registered Democrat in 2008 and supported\u00a0Hillary Clinton\u2019s\u00a0Primary campaign that year. He has portrayed himself as a self-made political outsider, in contrast to Power\u2019s 14 years in internal party leadership positions.<\/p>\n

Polling has been extremely limited, but the lone poll conducted thus far showed Gross leading the GOP Primary field in February with 34% support and Power close behind at 32%, well within the 4% margin of error.<\/p>\n

Other candidates who will be present on Monday include former Gulf County Schools Superintendent\u00a0Jim Norton; Austin Rogers, former general counsel for then-Gov.\u00a0Rick Scott, Army veteran and keynote speaker\u00a0Luke Murphy,\u00a0and retired law enforcement officer\u00a0Audie Rowell.\u00a0The same six candidates met two weeks ago for a debate\u00a0held\u00a0by the Bay County Republican Party.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Per the latest available campaign finance reports, Gross is far ahead of the rest of the field with $5.6 million in contributions, all but $70,000 of which are self-funded. Next closest are Rogers at $722,000, Power at $346,000, and Norton at $272,000. In total, eight Republican and four Democratic candidates have filed to run.<\/p>\n

The District is unaffected by the recent redistricting and is rated R+8 by Cook Political Report\u2019s Partisan Voter Index, though Democrats have not come within 19 points of winning the seat since former U.S. Rep.\u00a0Gwen Graham\u00a0\u2014 daughter of Florida Gov.\u00a0Bob Graham\u00a0\u2014 narrowly won in 2014. The seat is considered a safe Republican by Sabato\u2019s Crystal Ball.<\/p>\n

The last day to register to vote is July 20.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Freelance reporter\u00a0Fabrizio Gowdy\u00a0reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Candidates vying to replace retiring U.S. Rep.\u00a0Neal Dunn\u00a0in Florida\u2019s 2nd Congressional District will face off in a debate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[73678,102577,117295,79195,99055,73265,117296,117297,16997,409,51922,9579,73266,23831,42602,62766,117298,64245,102579,446,1361,117299,3856,112145,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-274573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-audie-rowell","tag-austin-rogers","tag-bay-county-republican-party","tag-bob-graham","tag-capital-tiger-bay-club","tag-cd-2","tag-congressional-debate","tag-cook-political-report","tag-donald-l-tucker-civic-center","tag-donald-trump","tag-evan-power","tag-florida-republican-party","tag-floridas-2nd-congressional-district","tag-gwen-graham","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-jim-norton","tag-jim-rosica","tag-keith-gross","tag-luke-murphy","tag-neal-dunn","tag-panama-city-beach","tag-partisan-voter-index","tag-rick-scott","tag-sabatos-crystal-ball","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274573","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=274573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}