Congressman Matt Gaetz easily passed his primary after defeating Mark Lombardo and Greg Merk with 69% of the vote. His next electoral destiny will take place on November 8, where he will face Rebekah Jones, former Florida Health Department data scientist, who still has a score to settle with Ron DeSantis.
The Republican has represented Florida’s 1st Congressional District since 2016 and is expected to have no trouble seeking his third term in the House of Representatives.
Rebekah Jones: a troubled former Florida Health Department worker
Gaetz will be challenged by Rebekah Jones, who gained notoriety in 2020 after claiming she had been fired from the Florida Department of Health for refusing to manipulate coronavirus data.
At the time, the state agency dispensed with her services because of “multiple performance issues,” but she claimed that Governor DeSantis’s administration was fudging the states’ Covid-19 numbers. Since then, she amassed hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers and enjoyed a lot of media press.
In December 2020, Jones alleged that former Florida Deputy Secretary of Health, Dr. Shamarial Roberson, pressured her to “delete cases and deaths.” Jones later recanted and argued on her Twitter account that Roberson asked her to “to go into the raw data and manually alter figures.”
Congressman @MattGaetz’s first reaction to his landslide primary win:
“This is a fighting district, and for two more years they’ll have a FIGHTING congressman.” 🇺🇸🔥 pic.twitter.com/mS4GRoirea
— Joel Valdez (@realJoelValdez) August 24, 2022
However, the credibility of his testimony was undermined by a Florida inspector general’s report, which found the following: the accusations were “unsubstantiated,” meaning, literally, that they were without merit.
Since his statements, Jones gained enough popularity and funds to run for Congress. In June 2021, she confirmed that she will seek the Democratic nomination for Florida’s 1st Congressional District.
On the night of August 23, he achieved his goal after defeating Peggy Schiller in a primary shrouded in controversy. As it turns out, the victory came one day after a Florida appeals court ruled that she could remain on the ballot. In early August, a Leon County circuit judge had disqualified Jones from the primary ballot because records showed she hadn’t been registered as a Democrat for a full year while living for a short period in Maryland.
