TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat representing District 14, leaned on her congressional record Tuesday as she sought reelection in a district described as dramatically more Republican than the one she has represented for years.<\/p>\n
Supporters gathered Tuesday evening at the Tampa Bay History Center as election results began to come in. Castor was expected to appear there later in the evening.<\/p>\n
Castor, who has served in Congress since 2007, spent the day visiting polling places and speaking with voters. Her stops included South Tampa, Sun City Center and Brandon.<\/p>\n
She said that during the election cycle, she has told voters she is willing to break from her party when necessary. As an example, she pointed to a vote to ban congressional stock trading.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of the most competitive races in the country,\u201d Castor said. \u201cThere are very powerful special interests that wanted to defeat me. First through gerrymandering out of turn, and then spending $25 million to defeat me. Ads that were largely funded by tech and AI executives, polluters, because they know I\u2019m an independent advocate for my neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castor said the campaign has required her to introduce herself to thousands of voters who have not previously had her as their congresswoman.<\/p>\n
She said she has focused on bringing more federal investments to Tampa Bay and lowering the cost of gas and health care.<\/p>\n
Beltran, supporters eye opening in Kathy Castor\u2019s 14th District seat<\/p>\n
Mike Beltran, a Republican candidate for Florida’s Congressional District 14, is campaigning for a seat Kathy Castor has held for 20 years.<\/p>\n
After last year\u2019s state redistricting, Beltran supporters said they are hopeful the 14th District could be up for grabs.<\/p>\n
Beltran\u2019s website says he is an attorney who served in the Florida House of Representatives for six years, from 2018 to 2024.<\/p>\n
At a recent campaign event, Beltran highlighted his work to make health care more affordable and to prevent what he called “leftist, out-of-state special interests” from putting policy amendments into the state constitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, we also ensured that we spent every dollar wisely. We paid down debt, we put money into reserves, and we made sure that we focused on durable infrastructure rather than fluffy spending from Washington,\u201d Beltran said. \u201cIt\u2019s no coincidence that, here in Florida, we spend less than half per capita than what they spend in blue states up north. That type of fiscal responsibility that worked in Florida can work in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beltran said he is running for Congress to bring those same efforts to Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat representing District 14, leaned on her congressional record Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4318,3140,2287,99,275,135,137,136,835],"class_list":["post-446604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-local-politics","tag-politics","tag-spectrum-news-staff","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446604","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=446604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}