U.S. Rep. Brian Mast reelected to congressional District 21 in Martin, St. Lucie counties
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U.S. Rep. Brian Mast won a fourth term representing House District 21, beating Corinna Balderramos Robinson in the Nov. 8 election. With 93% precincts reporting, Mast had 63.6% of the votes.
Mast, 42, a Fort Pierce Republican, will be sworn in Jan. 3 for a two-year term that pays $174,000 a year to represent Martin, St. Lucie and parts of Palm Beach counties in Congress.
Mast spent $4.74 million of the nearly $6.06 million he collected for his reelection campaign, much of it from outside sources. Balderramos Robinson, a Port St. Lucie Democrat, spent $50,704 of her $79,658.
Mast garnered some nonpartisan local support, despite blaming Donald Trump's 2020 loss on election fraud, a false claim for which there is no evidence.
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Mast was endorsed by VoteWater, a Stuart nonprofit that aims to end Lake Okeechobee discharges to the St. Lucie River. Mast echoes Treasure Coast clean-water advocates' demand for zero discharges. He regularly vilifies the sugar industry and takes the Army Corps of Engineers to task over discharges and toxic algae blooms.
Mast is a veteran who joined the Army after graduating high school in 1999. He served for over 12 years and lost both legs while working as a bomb technician in Afghanistan.
In 2018, he said he opposed a ban on future sales of assault rifles in a New York Times op-ed.
Mast handily defeated his three GOP challengers in the Aug. 23 primary with 78% of the vote.
Balderramos Robinson, 57, also is an Army veteran. She joined at age 17, did two combat tours in Iraq, and retired as a major after 25 years. With a doctorate in homeland security management, she has been a Department of Defense national security contractor and Georgetown University adjunct professor.
She also lost a 2014 congressional race in her native South Dakota and a 2020 Senate race in Florida against Sen. Gayle Harrell, a Stuart Republican.
Cheryl Smith is an enterprise and investigations editor. Contact her at cheryl.smith@tcpalm.com or 772-409-1331. Support her team's unique, exclusive and impactful work with a TCPalm subscription.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: 2022 elections: Mast beats Corinna Balderramos Robinson for U.S. House
