Hillsborough Republicans vie to try to defeat Kathy Castor after 20 years in Congress

PLANT CITY — Among the congressional districts Florida Republicans most ardently hope to flip this year after they approved a highly partisan redistricting map is the 14th District, which Democrat Kathy Castor has held for two decades.

Eight Republicans filed to run for the dramatically reconfigured seat in the Aug. 18 primary, including Mike Beltran, who represented parts of the district in the Florida House from 2018-2024, and Kevin Steele, who has represented a state House district in Pasco County since 2022.

Castor won the seat by 15 points in 2024. As redrawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis this spring, its population voted by more than 10 points for Donald Trump that same year.

While Florida Republicans believe redrawing the district to make it much more GOP-leaning should guarantee them the seat, not everyone looks at it that way. One of the nation’s most respected political analysis websites, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, last week moved the CD 14 race from leaning Republican to a “toss-up.”

Conservative true believer

Beltran is a hardline conservative who would prefer Florida banned all abortions, instead of the existing six-week ban. He says that if elected to Congress he’d push for a constitutional amendment “to end birth tourism and anchor babies.”

An attorney originally from New York City, Beltran was never afraid to challenge Gov. DeSantis or GOP leadership during his six years in Tallahassee. In 2023, he filed an amendment to push for the open carrying of firearms, but withdrew it after the House speaker and Senate president opposed it (that ban on open carry was found unconstitutional by a state appeals court in 2025).

He’s also emphasizing his bona fides as a true representative of the district, which has been torn up to remove all parts of Pinellas County and significant areas of Tampa, as well. It now encompasses parts of South Tampa, extends east to the Polk County line and south to the Manatee County line.

“We deserve somebody from East Hillsborough who’s represented East Hillsborough. Won elections in East Hillsborough. And with a track record of representing this community so that we can win in November,” Beltran told an audience at an event hosted by the Plant City Chamber of Commerce.

That was a dig at Steele, who has represented Pasco County for the past four years in the Florida House.

While Beltran has received several big endorsements, Steele is the preferred choice of the Republican Party of Florida establishment, including all three Cabinet members — Wilton Simpson, Blaise Ingoglia, and James Uthmeier.

He’s also one of the wealthiest members of the Florida Legislature. A former health care tech executive, he founded the software company DataLink in 2021 and retired after selling it to a private equity firm in 2022. He listed his net worth at more than $156 million at the end of 2025.

Speaking in Plant City Tuesday, he said he was motivated to run for public office because he saw Gov. DeSantis “get beat up” during the COVID-19 crisis as “nobody stood by his side.” He added that during the pandemic, when the COVID vaccine was made available, “the feds” were going to provide it to his employees, with a mandate that they must be at his company’s office to receive it.

“And that day, every single one of my employees worked from home. Because I was not going to mandate that my employees take the COVID shot,” he said to scattered applause. ”You can either stand for something or stand for nothing at all.”

Emphasizing Hillsborough roots

Among the legislation Steele passed while in the House was a property rights bill creating a process for removal of squatters on real property.

Steele has emphasized that he grew up as a Hillsborough County resident and attended Hillsborough Community College and the University of South Florida. But he has lived in Dade City and represented that portion of Pasco County in the Florida House since he was elected in 2022, prompting some of his opponents to emphasize their more direct connection to the community.

Steele told the Phoenix this week that he does own a residence in Hillsborough County and voter registration records show he is registered to vote there. Yet he continued to represent a part of Pasco in House District 56, before resigning from his seat on Wednesday.

Another try

The only candidate in the race who’s run against Castor is Rocky Rochford, a retired U.S. Navy captain who served for more than 33 years.

“I’ve been there, done that,” he says of his 2024 race against the Tampa Democrat, which he lost by double digits. He jokes that Ron DeSantis is now on his Christmas Card list “forever” after the governor’s office drew up the district to make it a Trump +11 seat.

He says he’s totally prepared to take office and has drafted more than 40 bills he is prepared to file if elected. Those include separate “bill of rights” proposals for children and seniors.

And, he promises, “I came up with the solution to fix Social Security.”

Navy reservist

The only female in the race is Bea Valenti, a Navy reservist proud of her work as an intern and later staffer in the first Trump White House. She also has worked as a legislative assistant for Mississippi U.S. Rep Mike Ezell and North Florida U.S. Rep. Neal Dunn before becoming a senior domestic policy adviser for U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody.

She too, referenced the COVID pandemic in her comments in Plant City.

“I refused the vaccine as an active-duty person, because of what they were doing to our troops,” she said. “That was the beginning of my career, and I had a lot to lose, but not like our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.”

She worked with Dunn on The TROOP Act, which would have required military departments to reinstate individuals removed from their ranks because they refused the COVID vaccine (the measure did not pass).

She referred to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during a Senate hearing on the origins and handling of the pandemic. Fauci led the country’s COVID response and headed President Trump’s White House Coronavirus Task Force.

“Y’all see [Anthony] Fauci this week?” she asked the crowd. “’I plead the Fifth. I plead the Fifth. I plead the Fifth.’ It’s treason what that man has done.”

Valenti referenced several policy items she worked on while serving on Capitol Hill, and said she was the only candidate who already has the “on-the-job training” to serve immediately if elected.

The other Republicans in the race include Michael Marcel, John Peters, Gavriel E. Soriano, and Ergin “Batman” Tek.