For months, Rachelle Litt and Meg Weinberger have been campaigning hard for the District 94 seat in the Florida House of Representatives being vacated by Republican State Rep. Rick Roth. But both said this week that politics is taking a backseat as they focus on helping neighbors struggling in the wake of the powerful tornado that tore through the area Wednesday, Oct. 9.
The EF-3 twister with winds estimated at 140 miles per hour was one of some 45 reported across the peninsula as Hurricane Milton moved ashore on the state’s west coast.
Milton, a Category 3 storm at landfall, was the second major hurricane to hit Florida within a month. Helene came ashore in North Florida on Sept. 26.
“I did a tour of the whole area,” said Republican Meg Weinberger, who lives in the rural, horse-friendly Caloosa neighborhood off the Beeline Highway. “It’s just a surreal situation. People are trying to get their legs under them.”
“The whole district had a lot of damage,” said Democrat Rachelle Litt, who lives in the hard-hit Avenir development off Northlake Blvd. “I’ll do everything I can when elected to help people rebuild quickly.”
In the meantime, residents of District 94 — which includes The Acreage, Loxahatchee, Loxahatchee Groves, Westlake, parts of Royal Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens, and all of western Palm Beach County — are clearing debris and assessing damage to their homes and businesses that range from none to minor to catastrophic.
Weinberger and Litt, who said they were blessed to have no damage to their own homes, already are thinking about what two major hurricane landfalls will mean for Florida residents. Hurricane season does not end until Nov. 30.
Litt said the need to help residents recover from the hurricanes and tornadoes will have a major effect on the state’s priorities during the next legislative session, scheduled to begin March 4.
“Many cities are behind the eight-ball” because of the storms, said Litt, a former Palm Beach Gardens City Council member and mayor. “We need to make sure they get what they need to recover.”
But it is not going to be easy, she said. “It’s going to add more stress to the state’s already short housing supply,” Litt said. “It’s going to impact building supplies. Prices are going to go up across the board.”
Weinberger and Litt agree that the state has to step in to stabilize the insurance market in Florida and bring down rates, though landfalls by Milton and Helene will only exacerbate the problem.
“Something has to change,” Weinberger said. “We have to think outside the box. What we’ve been doing is not working.”
Prior to Milton’s arrival, both candidates expressed guarded optimism about their election chances.
“I’ve been knocking on doors six days a week,” Weinberger said. “I’ve been listening to voters… [and] I think that’s the most important thing.”
“My main goal has been to meet as many people in person as possible,” Litt said. “I’ve been knocking on a lot of doors.”
Litt said the main focus of her campaign is on making sure that women “have bodily autonomy” through support of Amendment 4, also on the Nov. 5 ballot. The amendment would repeal the six-week abortion ban passed by the legislature and put the decision of whether and when back in the hands of women and their doctors up to the point of viability.
“Medical decisions need to be made by medical professionals,” said Litt, whose husband is an obstetrician-gynecologist. “I think women will go into the voting booth and do what they need to do.”
Otherwise, Litt said, Florida is on the way to becoming a place of dangerous back-alley abortions and the criminalization of all such procedures.
“We’re already on a slippery slope, and on a sliding board at that,” she said.
Weinberger, who has served as a foster parent and mentor to young women, is firmly anti-abortion, saying on her web site that she supports the “sanctity of human life and the rights of the unborn, while enhancing health services for pregnant and postpartum women” and seeking to promote adoption and improve the foster care system.
For months, Weinberger’s well-financed campaign has been running numerous commercials on local television stations. Prior to the Aug. 20 Republican primary, those commercials leaned heavily into her endorsement by former President Donald Trump. In the spots geared toward the general election, there is no mention of Trump.
Weinberger, who is Palm Beach County chair for Moms for Liberty, said the shift was because, “I want people to get to know me. Not just who endorsed me.”
She said she focuses on seeing more sunshine in Florida’s future than storm clouds.
“I truly believe in our state’s potential to be a beacon of hope for all people in our community,” Weinberger said. “If everyone does a little, a lot can happen.”
Learn more about Weinberger at www.megforflorida.com. For more information about Litt, visit www.rachellelitt.com.
