Photo: Fiona McFarland, Derek Reich.

Has Sarasota gone deep red? The best test may come in a state House district encompassing the solid blue City of Sarasota and more reliably red parts of south county.

House District 73 is poised for a rematch between state Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, and Democratic teacher Derek Reich. That may not seem a great political barometer, considering she beat him last year in a 56% to 44% rout. Yet, there’s reason to think the election could be closer this go.

For a second, let’s look at the situation in the brightest of blue lights for Democrats.

First off, Reich last year looked unquestionably green. He drowned a few months after filing in a race where no one knew the political boundaries until well into 2022 thanks to redistricting. Given this reality statewide, the Florida Democratic Party didn’t put effort into House races outside seats they already held. Reich didn’t know how to set up a political committee when he entered the race, and only figured it out a little before the election.

He still has some $4,400 in the committee now, which isn’t much, but Reich at least knows fundamentally how to run a campaign. Plus, he met the important money-summoning Democrats in town, like former Congressional candidate Christine Jennings. 

Reich believes Democrats feel energized, especially after DeSantis vetoed Sarasota spending heavily and screwed around with the New College board. “It is much easier to fundraise with what Ron DeSantis has done in Florida and what Fiona McFarland has enabled,” Reich said.

Then there’s the district. While the House District 72 that elected Democratic state Rep. Margaret Good in a nationally watched rout is gone, this seat in many ways looks bluer. Voters in the district split almost evenly in the 2020 presidential election, going to Donald Trump over Joe Biden but a 49.7% to 49.34% margin, the closest of any in the state.

But let’s not get carried away. Switching and looking through red-rose glasses, Republicans, and McFarland specifically, hold justified confidence.

"There's a reason Fiona's margin of victory has grown in every election she's been in — people trust her, people respect her and people believe in her,” said early McFarland consultant Max Goodman. “I fully expect this trend line to continue in 2024.”

McFarland is a proven two-term incumbent who flipped the seat back to red in 2020. She also knows the political committee game well. Her Friends of Sarasota sits on over $200,000 cash in addition to some $29,000 in her regular account. And if a hint of trouble creeps onto the horizon, she can snap her fingers and attract more contributions.

As for that district make-up? In 2022, two years after voters split evenly on president, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis took the seat by 12 percentage points, about the same margin as McFarland, and GOP Sen. Marco Rubio won it by almost 10. As of November, registered Republicans in the district outnumbered Democrats by about 13,000. Sarasota County is home to the second Republican Party of Florida chair in a row. The state GOP has continued to make gains on Democrats statewide and locally.

Was McFarland last year riding the coattails of a popular Governor? Maybe, but he was popular for a reason. The pandemic caused a national geographic relocation of voters that greatly benefited Florida Republicans, and nothing has occurred yet to effectively reverse that trend. If anything, watching DeSantis flail on the national stage now reinforces the notion Florida has become far more conservative than the country as a whole— good news for GOP incumbents.

McFarland holds the clear, early edge. But this is a famously swingy region. Keep an eye on returns to see if that has changed.

Jacob Ogles is contributing senior editor for SRQ MEDIA.

Photo: Fiona McFarland, Derek Reich.