Daytona Beach, FL – The race to replace Ron DeSantis in the United States House of Representatives this November takes a big shift.
In separate announcements on Thursday, former New Smyrna Beach Mayor Adam Barringer says he’s bowing out of the 6th District House race and endorsing current Ormond Beach state House representative Fred Costello.
Barringer posted a statement on his campaign’s Facebook account saying that he decided to drop out after hearing that fellow Republicans Costello and Deltona state House representative David Santiago were going to run for the seat DeSantis is vacating for a shot at Marco Rubio’s spot in the US Senate.
“It became clear to me that a divided Volusia County could hand the election over to someone from out of the district,” Barringer stated. “We need a united Volusia County in the Republican Primary to win the General Election and we cannot allow a ‘carpetbagger’ to come in and steal this election.”
All this comes less than 48 hours after Santiago declared his intention to run for House District 6 and after former US Congresswoman Sandy Adams pulled her name from consideration due to health.
That now leaves Santiago – a former Deltona councilman who has spent the last 4 years as the District 27 representative in Tallahassee – and Costello – who replaced fellow former Ormond Beach mayor Dave Hood in District 25 during the 2014 election – to battle Ormond Beach commercial realtor GG Galloway and Brandon Patty – a St. Augustine resident who’s also an officer in the US Navy Reserves – for the GOP nomination.
Costello – who ran and lost to DeSantis during the 2012 Republican primary for House District 6 – told WNDB’s Marc Bernier in a recent interview that he planned to hold off on making a decision until after the Florida Legislature session wrapped up in March, but he decided to move ahead after Barringer endorsed him.
In his own news release, Costello pledged to only run for 4 House terms and outlined several goals, including eliminating the Internal Revenue Service, promoting the FairTax and using the free market to reform America’s healthcare system.
Costello – whose wife Linda is a member of the Volusia County School Board – also pledged to do all he could to put more education policy power in the hands of states rather than the federal government.
Another current Volusia state House representative – District 26’s Dwayne Taylor – is running for DeSantis’ seat on the Democrat side. Taylor – a former Daytona Beach City Commissioner – is term-limited in the state House.
3 other Democrats – George Pappas of Daytona Beach, William McCullough of DeLeon Springs and Richard P. Dembinsky of Port Orange – have also filed to run in District 6, according to the Florida Division of Elections.
The recently redrawn district now includes all of Volusia and Flagler counties as well as parts of Lake and St. Johns counties.
Fred Costello
Adam Barringer
Copyright 2016 Southern Stone Communications.