Richard Lamondin pivots from congressional run to SD 38 challenge, drawing early party support

Nearly a year to the day Democratic entrepreneur Richard Lamondin teased a run for elected office, he’s switching targets from a congressional district to a seat in the Legislature’s upper chamber.

Lamondin is officially out of the race for Florida’s 27th Congressional District, where he previously aimed to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar. He’s now running to supplant Republican state Sen. Alexis Calatayud in Miami-Dade County’s Senate District 38.

The move is relatively lateral. Much of SD 38 sits in CD 27, and Lamondin has been engaging voters across the district since early April 2025, when he began publicly floating a campaign bid.

His camp says he has heard the same thing repeatedly from voters: Prices are rising, the dollar is weakening and state lawmakers aren’t doing enough to help Floridians with affordability. Accordingly, Lamondin is running on kitchen-table issues, from insurance and health care affordability to public school funding and “decades of corruption in Tallahassee that have made these failures worse.”

“Florida has everything it needs to give people here a fair shot,” he said in a statement.

“What it’s missing is leadership with real skin in the game. I pay preschool bills that rival rent. I support my aging parents. I own a home where insurance premiums have nearly tripled. And every two weeks, I make payroll for my employees whose livelihoods depend on my business succeeding. I’m living this — just like so many people in our community. And I’m done waiting for Tallahassee to do something about it.”

A first-time candidate, Lamondin, 38, is running 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.

In doing so, he says he has created hundreds of jobs.

“And I learned something that no business school teaches you: Real change starts with people who give a damn,” he said in his SD 38 campaign launch video. “I look at my son, and I think of the Florida that he’s going to inherit, whether he’ll be able to stay here, whether the community we love will still be worth fighting for.”

Lamondin points to insurance premiums, child care costs and health care rates that have skyrocketed in recent years, and gas prices now topping $4 per gallon, prompting some state lawmakers to implore Gov. Ron DeSantis to provide relief.

“Meanwhile, Tallahassee spent hundreds of millions of dollars of our money on a prison camp in the middle of the Everglades and forced Miami Dade College to give away (its) most valuable piece of land for $10,” he said.

“We no longer have to choose between a Democrat who can’t win and a Republican we can live with. We can win. And together, we can build something together — a Florida where families can breathe again, where insurance, housing, child care (and) health care don’t feel impossible, and where we can end the political corruption. That Florida is possible.”

Several high-profile Florida Democrats are already lining up behind Lamondin’s SD 38 bid, including Florida Democratic Party (FDP) Chair Nikki Fried, Senate Democratic Leader-designate Tracie Davis and Miami Gardens Democratic state Sen. Shevrin Jones, who is set to take over as Senate Democratic Leader for the 2028 election cycle.

Fried said SD 38 is among the FDP’s “top seats to flip this year — and candidates like Richard are the ones to do it.”

“Florida is shifting. Voters are fed up with the corruption in Tallahassee, and Democrats are winning races across the state,” she said in a statement. “The Florida Democratic Party is proud of Richard’s leadership and his deep commitment to serve.”

Davis called Lamondin “exactly the kind of leader the people of Miami need fighting on their behalf.”

“He has the drive and the vision to make life more affordable and deliver results on the priorities that matter most to Florida’s families and seniors,” she said in a statement. “We are thrilled to welcome him to the race for Senate District 38.”

Jones said he has known Lamondin for more than a decade, long before politics brought them together, and Miamians “couldn’t have a better champion.”

“I know his character, I know his heart, and I know the kind of leader he is,” Jones said in a statement. “I look forward to helping my friend win this election and join me in Tallahassee to deliver better for the families of South Florida.”

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.

Its current representative, Calatayud, won her seat by 8 percentage points in 2022.

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

Calatayud’s moderate legislative profile may make unseating her difficult. She has championed several signature GOP policies, including the landmark Live Local Act to expand affordable housing statewide.

But she has voted against her party colleagues on multiple occasions, including casting the sole Republican “no” vote in the Senate on the state’s draconian six-week abortion ban. This year, she amended a major land-use preemption law to maintain protections for Miami-Dade’s Urban Development Boundary that safeguards vital ecosystems like the Everglades and Biscayne Bay — both legislative focuses of hers.

She also backed a statewide Antisemitism Task Force, worked across the aisle on providing stopgap funding for AIDS medication, passed new survivor-inspired protections for domestic violence victims and was among those who called for strict action after leaked text messages showed members of the Miami-Dade GOP sharing “vile” slurs against Jewish and Black people.

Lamondin points to other actions, including her “yes” vote on renaming Palm Beach International Airport after President Donald Trump and supporting “billion-dollar bailouts to insurance corporations” as evidence Calatayud is out of touch.

Her Live Local Act, he added, “let developers override local decisions.”

“And when Tallahassee forced Miami Dade College to hand over its most valuable piece of land to the Trump Foundation for ten dollars, she said nothing. That’s not representation. That’s abandonment,” he said. “Better Florida starts here — and now, Miami has a choice.”

Lamondin 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. Former Democratic state Sen. Annette 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.