Richard Lamondin expected to pivot from congressional run to SD 38 challenge

Democratic entrepreneur Richard Lamondin is expected to be announcing soon that he’s exiting the race for Florida’s 27th Congressional District and will instead seek the similarly Republican-held seat representing Senate District 38.

The move — which Lamondin hinted on X that he’ll announce Tuesday — would come nearly a year to the day he first teased his inaugural run for public office.

It’s also relatively lateral; much of SD 38 sits in CD 27, and Lamondin has been engaging voters across the Miami-Dade County district since early April 2025.

If he indeed switches to SD 38, he would challenge freshman Republican Sen. Alexis Calatayud, who flipped the seat red in 2022, winning by 8 percentage points.

The seat was previously held by Democrat Annette Taddeo.

Lamondin, 38, has campaigned on his business bona fides. He is the co-founder and CEO of eco fi, an environmental services company that touts conserving an estimated 10 billion gallons of water and preventing more than 300,000 metric tons of carbon emissions while assisting renters in saving on utility bills.

He ended 2025 with more than $430,000 on hand. First-quarter fundraising reports are due later this month.

His path to the Democratic nomination isn’t unobstructed. Democrat Heniy Dixon is also running. Taddeo, who vacated her seat to run for Governor and Congress ahead of the 2022 election, is strongly considering an SD 38 bid too, multiple sources told Florida Politics.

SD 38 covers several coastal Miami-Dade municipalities, including Cutler Bay, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, South Miami, parts of Homestead and Coral Gables, and the unincorporated neighborhoods of Goulds, Kendall, Perrine, Redland, Sunset and Westchester.

The district now performs slightly more Republican than Democratic. It remains, at least on paper, one of Florida’s most flippable districts.