Florida GOP nominee blasts 20-year Dem incumbent as a 'socialist' rubber-stamp with 'precious little to show'

Florida Republican congressional nominee Mike Beltran is challenging 10-term Democratic incumbent Kathy Castor in the state's 14th District, telling Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that her two decades in office have produced little beyond renaming post offices. Beltran, a former Florida state representative, said Castor votes with her party more than 90% of the time, including alongside "radical socialists," and argued she would help make Hakeem Jeffries speaker, who would then install Raskin, Omar and Cortez as committee chairs pursuing policies he said clash with what Tampa families need. He also accused Castor of refusing to debate him ahead of November.

Beltran cast his own record in Tallahassee, from 2019 through 2024, as proof of independence from party leadership, saying he opposed insurance companies, home builders and trial lawyers whenever he judged their positions harmful to the communities he represented. He contrasted that with Castor, whom he described as having only recently discovered bipartisanship. Beltran also pointed to federal waste and foreign aid subsidies as examples of the budget problems he says need scrutiny in Washington, framing his campaign as an effort to bring the same cross-examining approach he used in the state Legislature to Congress while still being willing to break from his own party's leadership when he disagrees with it.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Fox News’s reporting. Read the full story at Fox News →