{"id":298553,"date":"2026-06-06T18:07:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T18:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/298553\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T18:07:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T18:07:23","slug":"democrat-benjamin-sandlin-launches-another-run-in-hd-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/298553\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrat Benjamin Sandlin launches another run in HD 12"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrat Benjamin Sandlin<\/a> is launching a second run in Jacksonville\u2019s HD 12, where he lost by 14 points to House Speaker Pro Tempore Wyman Duggan<\/a> two years ago.<\/p>\n

The Republican-leaning seat is open because Duggan is term-limited. It spans the St. Johns River in the southern part of Duval County.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old repeat candidate filed for the House race Friday, just three days before the beginning of qualifying on Monday, June 8.<\/p>\n

He said the Florida Democratic Party and he had been talking and that they \u201cagreed that this seat was just too close in 24 to leave uncontested.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019d be a huge missed opportunity to have an extra voice for labor rights, public schools and housing justice in the Legislature,\u201d Sandlin told Florida Politics on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

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

He had filed for the race to succeed Democrat\u00a0Jimmy Peluso<\/a>\u00a0in City Council District 7, as Peluso has launched a run for an at-large seat.<\/p>\n

Even after Sandlin dropped out, the District 7 race is still very crowded, with six Democrats and a no party affiliation candidate on the ballot.<\/p>\n

As the sole Democrat in HD 12, it is likely Sandlin will advance to the November ballot upon qualifying.<\/p>\n

Former Jacksonville City Council President\u00a0Terrance Freeman is running in HD 12 to succeed Duggan.<\/p>\n

Freeman is well-positioned for his Primary.<\/p>\n

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

Through the end of May, he raised more than $167,000 to his campaign account and an additional $506,000 to an affiliated political committee, \u201cFor the Future We Want.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had roughly $390,000 on hand at the end of last month.<\/p>\n

Freeman was appointed to the Jacksonville City Council in 2018 by former Gov.\u00a0Rick Scott to fill a vacancy left when a former member encountered legal trouble. He was then elected to an at-large, countywide seat twice in 2019 and 2023, and served a year as Council President.<\/p>\n

He has already announced that he will resign from the Council once a replacement is elected, which could be as soon as August, as there is a Special Election for the seat.<\/p>\n

Republican Deborah Wesley<\/a>, a Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/a> Commander, is the choice of 10 current members of the City Council and is the only filed candidate for the Special. She has raised more than $80,000 as of the end of May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrat Benjamin Sandlin is launching a second run in Jacksonville\u2019s HD 12, where he lost by 14 points…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[91297,28,30,29,101258,36416,36032,5904,13771],"class_list":["post-298553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-ben-sandlin","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-for-the-future-we-want","tag-hd-12","tag-jimmy-peluso","tag-terrance-freeman","tag-wyman-duggan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298553","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=298553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}