Jennifer Jenkins, the former Brevard County School Board member who has tangled with Congressman Randy Fine for years, is spoiling for another fight.
The 38-year-old Democrat and former school speech pathologist announced on Feb. 5 that she wants to challenge Fine for his congressional seat in Florida’s 6th District, which includes northern Volusia and all of Flagler counties.
Jenkins had launched a U.S. Senate campaign last year, but dropped out when Alexander Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former member of the National Security Council, entered in January. She endorsed Vindman on Jan. 29.
“Randy Fine is everything that’s wrong with our politics,” Jenkins told The News-Journal in an interview. “You know, when we have families that are struggling, he is busy, you know, sitting online congratulating ICE agents for killing American citizens. He’s telling hungry people to starve away. He’s calling sitting members of Congress Muslim terrorists.”
After Jenkins won a seat on the Brevard County School Board in 2020, Fine and others attacked her for supporting mandatory masking to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic.
In one Facebook post, Fine urged people to call Jenkins. The post included her phone number, which Jenkins said was doxxing and led to hundreds of calls and messages. She and neighbors later complained of protests outside her home, vandalism, and threats.
She asked a judge for an injunction against Fine from “cyberstalking” her. Fine called the request “dangerous” and “un-American,” and in 2022, the judge turned down Jenkins’ request.
Meanwhile, the state attorney for Florida’s 18th Circuit, Phil Archer, declined to file charges against Fine, but cautioned both Jenkins and Fine against the “heated use of rhetoric,” which could lead to a “volatile and dangerous escalation.”
In April 2022, text messages obtained by Florida Today through a public records request showed Fine told a West Melbourne city councilman that funding requests for the Special Olympics and the city would be vetoed because Jenkins had been invited to participate in a fundraising event and Fine had not.
Fine later called Jenkins “a whore.” Ultimately, the Special Olympics money remained in the state budget, but the Florida Commission on Ethics found probable cause that Fine violated ethics rules over the threatened veto.
Fine called the ethics commission a “kangaroo court.”
Jenkins insists that while her history with Fine “does define me as a different candidate and a different kind of opponent,” he is not the focus of her campaign.
Who is Jennifer Jenkins and why is she running?
Jenkins lives in Satellite Beach, nearly 90 minutes south of Daytona Beach. The Constitution requires congressional candidates to reside in the state they seek to represent. Despite that, Fine’s Brevard County residency has been repeatedly questioned by both candidates and residents of the 6th District.
“These lines are drawn by politicians, and they don’t define a community,” Jenkins said. “The families in District 6 are facing the same affordability crisis that I am facing myself, that I’ve been trying to elevate and fight against with our skyrocketing insurance, with our rents rising, our groceries.”
Jenkins was born and raised in Staten Island, New York, and moved to Brevard County with her family. She met her husband, David, a teacher, while she studied education at Brevard Community College.
She later earned a master’s degree in communication science and disorders from the University of Central Florida in 2014, and worked as a speech-language pathologist before her 2020 election to the school board.
Jenkins watched her parents struggle to pay medical bills after her mom contracted an autoimmune disease. She died two years ago, Jenkins said.
And despite working two or three jobs, Jenkins and her husband found themselves “right where my parents were.
“I literally delivered groceries on the weekends to help pay my bills,” Jenkins said. “And so I know what that struggle looks like. And I feel like if we don’t have everyday people stepping up to run in these places, and if we don’t fire these politicians, I don’t know what our future is going to be.”
Jenkins said she views running in a district more than an hour from her home similarly to her statewide campaign for Senate, describing that as: “Making sure that we are in the community actively every day talking to people who live there, hearing from them, and hearing what their concerns are, and making sure that that is the focus of this campaign.”
Jenkins said she feels obligated to continue to fight after winning her 2020 school board seat against future Moms for Liberty cofounder Tina Descovich in a district that Trump had won handily.
“It was fight or flight, and I chose to fight, and I found my way,” she said. “I found my voice as an advocate. My community thanks me for using my voice for them, because they were too fearful to use it themselves.”
That, she said, led her to the 2026 election cycle.
“Democrats need to flip the House,” Jenkins said. “This is a seat that is absolutely in play, and I believe that I am the right person doing it.”
Who else is running in Florida’s 6th?
Jenkins joins three Democrats already running in the 6th: Eric Yonce of Ormond Beach, Rob Cooper II of Ocala, and Ronnie Murchinson-Rivera of Sorrento.
Fine will face a Republican primary challenge from Palm Coast City Councilman Charles Gambaro, Aaron Baker of Sorrento and Shoreh Fontaine of Palm Coast.
The 6th District stretches from Daytona Beach through Palm Coast, as well as west to Ocala. It includes all of Flagler and Putnam counties, as well as portions of Volusia, St. Johns, Marion and Lake counties.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has called for a special session of the Florida Legislature in April to redistrict, so the dynamics could change before the Aug. 18 primary and Nov. 3 general elections.
Contributors: C.A. Bridges, Eric Rogers and Tyler Vazquez of USA TODAY Network.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Randy Fine nemesis hopes to continue feud in Florida’s 6th district
Reporting by Mark Harper, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
