Democrat Reich challenges incumbent Republican McFarland in District 73 state House race

The race to represent the coastal area of Sarasota County from Longboat Key to Venice in the Florida House of Representatives should be one of the most competitive races in the state this election cycle — at least on paper.

Former President Donald Trump won state House District 73 with 49.7% of the vote in 2020, compared to President Joe Biden's 49.3%, according to MCI Maps, an organization run by a Democratic political consultant.

The area is currently represented by Republican Fiona McFarland, but as recently as 2018, Democrat Margaret Good won the seat, and it has historically been one of the few toss-up districts along the southwest coast of Florida.

Still, McFarland holds a lopsided advantage in fundraising going into the last weeks of the election. The freshman Republican has raised $284,643 compared to her opponent's $63,500, according to campaign finance reports.

The Navy veteran also wields the name recognition that comes with being an incumbent, as well as this cycle landing during a midterm election when President Biden's lagging polling numbers have Republicans expecting to flip legislative seats across the country.

Yet, Democrats have reason to be hopeful that Derek Reich, a 27-year-old public school teacher at Sarasota High, could unseat McFarland.

Reich has focused his campaign around the issue of abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, tossing the combative issue to the states to decide.

He's sent mailers in recent weeks pointing to a vote McFarland cast in support of the current state law that limits abortions to 15 weeks that does not have an exception for victims of rape or incest.

Reich has called his opponent "Forced Birth Fiona" and "Fiona 'no exceptions' McFarland" in mailers in a district where Democratic voters are more concentrated than in most of the region.

After the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year, "Tallahassee will decide the fate of abortion rights in this state," he said. "And Fiona McFarland, my opponent, voted for no exceptions, none, for rape and incest in Florida’s new 15-week abortion law."

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Education funding becomes issue

McFarland said she understands all politicians use negative campaigning, but she argued that voters are tired of it. She said she doesn't consider the new abortion law extreme, noting that more than 90% of all abortions in Florida occurred before 12 weeks.

"At 15 weeks, a fetus is able to feel pain. They have a full skeletal system. Their organs are formed. And that’s the point at which we set the line to stand up for that potential life," she said. "There are a host of different beliefs and feelings and opinions around this issue and I’m very sensitive and aware of that fact."

Asked if 15 weeks was as far as she was willing to go on restricting abortion, McFarland responded, "there is a lot of debate there. But I like where we landed and I am comfortable with the vote that I took.”

Reich grew up in the North Port-Venice area of Sarasota County, the oldest of four children to a single mother, he said the school district 'gave me my shot at the American dream."

He said after McFarland voted to approve a budget that included a $12 million cut to the Sarasota County school district, he felt he had to run since nobody else had entered the race.

“I had to step up and run for the working-class kids growing up in this county the same way that I did,” he said.

McFarland said the vote was on the state House's first budget and contended that the $12 million wasn't a cut, but a smaller increase in administrative pay.

The maneuver to cut funding was done to punish school districts that implemented COVID-19-related mask mandates despite an executive order from Gov. Ron DeSantis that required parental opt-out.

She said that her vote was on the entire state's $24 billion education budget, and that in the final budget, that funding to Sarasota County and other penalized districts was restored.

“What I was voting yes on was huge investments on mental health in schools, the most voluntary pre-K funding that the program had seen since its inception in the state of Florida” and other funding for a variety of education initiatives, she said.

Reich also criticizes McFarland on the topic of the Parental Rights in Education bill that opponents dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill. He says that before the bill, parents who didn't want their children reading certain classroom materials could request alternative assignments.

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In his opinion, the rights of parents are being trampled by the bill that Republicans say defends parental rights.

He argues the law McFarland supported makes it so anyone can affect policy in the Sarasota County school district by lodging complaints about reading materials in area schools.

"My mother no longer gets to decide what her junior and senior in this school district reads," he said.

He said that the law that passed regarding parental rights in education was vaguely written and opens up teachers to being sued by people offended by their instruction.

Local issues

McFarland won her seat in 2020 and has voted with Republicans on the controversial bills that have passed these past two years, including the abortion law and the parental rights law.

"I don't feel like I need to apologize for being a Republican," she said.

McFarland also seeks to emphasize local issues when citing her accomplishments in Tallahassee, pointing to a law she sponsored after the death of 10-year-old Ethan Isaacs, a sixth-grader at Pine View School for the Gifted who was taking part in a Sarasota Youth Sailing Inc. sailing practice when his boat capsized.

The law McFarland sponsored requires water sport instructors to wear a kill switch lanyard that would turn the engine off if the driver falls into the water. It also requires educational material on using the kill switch to be presented at required boating courses.

“Bringing the voices, the stories and frankly, the problems of the residents of my district up to Tallahassee and trying to create solutions,” she said. “I think that’s what local government is about.”

Early voting begins in Sarasota County on Monday for the Nov. 8 election.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota's District 73 state House race could be closer than most