Money Flows Into SD 38 Race, but Treasure Coast Voters Sit Outside the Lines

The race for Florida Senate District 38 is drawing serious money, but Treasure Coast residents should know upfront: this seat is not theirs to vote in — and the fundraising snapshot tells a story worth watching anyway.

SD 38 covers a cluster of coastal Miami-Dade communities: Cutler Bay, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, South Miami, parts of Homestead and Coral Gables, and several unincorporated neighborhoods stretching through Kendall and Westchester. Democratic campaign strategists have tagged it as their top state Senate target in Florida, with the Democratic Senate campaign arm, Senate Victory, formally designating it the chamber's priority pickup.

That designation helps explain why the money is moving.

Democratic entrepreneur Richard Lamondin posted the largest headline number for the April 1 to May 31 filing period — more than $300,000 raised — roughly 70% more than Republican incumbent Sen. Alexis Calatayud. But that figure included $100,000 in self-loans and a $30,000 transfer from a shuttered federal campaign account. Strip those out, and Calatayud actually pulled in more new outside dollars, according to public campaign finance records.

Calatayud collected nearly $176,000 across her campaign account and political committee, Vision & Integrity for Florida. Her donor list reads like a directory of institutional Florida: NextEra Energy, the parent company of Florida Power & Light, gave $10,000; insurance firm Slide Insurance Holdings contributed $7,500; and real estate companies tied to Miami Beach-based Redwood RE Management collectively wrote $20,000 in checks. Only 20 of her 101 contributions came from individual personal checks. She ended May with $1.33 million banked.

Lamondin took the opposite approach. Of his 227 outside contributions, just two came from political committees or corporations. He spent only $17,662 last period compared to Calatayud's nearly $89,000 and closed May with roughly $283,000 on hand.

No-party candidate Jeffrey Solomon, a four-time Florida House candidate, raised $9,000, including $2,000 in self-loans, and had $6,400 left by June 1.

Calatayud won this seat by eight points in 2022. Whether that margin holds in a cycle when Democrats have made the district their stated top priority will be one of the cleaner tests in Florida of whether a well-funded grassroots challenger can crack an institutional incumbent. Officials said

All three candidates filed their fundraising disclosures under a June 10 deadline covering activity through May 31.

This article was generated with AI assistance using publicly available information. It was reviewed and approved by a human editor before publication. TC Sentinel uses AI writing tools in accordance with FTC guidelines.