Joel EngelhardtMarch 24 special election pits Democrat Emily Gregory vs. Republican Jon Maples to represent large swath of coastal Palm Beach County.
The special election to fill a Palm Beach County-based Florida House seat for eight months pits a first-time candidate with a health care background against a financial planner who resigned his seat on the Lake Clarke Shores Town Council to run.
Democrat Emily Gregory, 40, lives in Jupiter’s Abacoa and runs FIT4MOM Palm Beach, offering fitness programs for mothers-to-be and moms after delivery.
Republican Jon Maples, 43, lives in Lake Clarke Shores and is a financial planner with Northwestern Mutual in Palm Beach Gardens.
They are running in a special election March 24 to fill the District 87 seat vacated by Republican Mike Caruso when he left the House to become Palm Beach County clerk and comptroller.
The district, which stretches through downtown Lake Worth Beach and West Palm Beach, along Palm Beach and Singer Island and includes big chunks of Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, North Palm Beach and Juno Beach, has not had representation during the legislative session that ended Friday.
The winner will get to Tallahassee in time for special sessions to approve the state budget and reconsider congressional boundaries and a reduction in property taxes for homesteaded households.
Nearly 42% of the 116,000 registered voters in the district are Republican, 28% Democratic and 26% unaffiliated.
The winner will have to run again in November to get a full two-year term.
Aside from mail-in voting, early voting began Saturday , March 14, and continues until Sunday, March 22, at three locations: the Supervisor of Elections Office on Cherry Road in Westgate, the Palm Beach Gardens Branch Library and the FAU Jupiter campus.
Polls are open from 7 am to 7 pm on March 24, when district residents will have their final chance to vote. North Palm Beach residents will be voting on an open council seat that day as well.
Establishing residency
Maples, endorsed by President Donald Trump, who lives in the district, won a council seat in 2024 in Lake Clarke Shores, a town of 3,500 people south of Forest Hill Boulevard and west of Interstate 95. He retained the seat without opposition the following year before resigning to run for state House.
Maples’ Lake Clarke Shores home, which he bought in 2017, is not in District 87, but he said in an interview Saturday that he bought a house in Jupiter’s Abacoa on Inlet Way and registered to vote there. However, his voter registration is for an apartment he doesn’t own on Inlet Way in Palm Beach Shores.
In response to a follow-up question, he said he is still buying a house in Abacoa.
Legislators must establish “legal residency” in their district at the time of the election. Proving legal residency has caused headaches for some and even forced one Democrat facing a perjury charge over her residency to resign her House seat in 2017.
In 2020, Maples ran in a Democratic-leaning County Commission district with support from residents fighting to end mask mandates, losing by a 60-40 margin to Democratic incumbent Dave Kerner.
Maples has outraised Gregory, who has never held public office, by nearly 3 to 1, topping $500,000. The Florida House Republican Campaign Committee has paid for polling, research and campaign staff with more than $210,000 in contributions. Maples loaned his campaign $14,000.
Emily Gregory
Gregory, who grew up in Stuart, has raised $181,800 through Feb. 12.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., and a master’s in public health from Columbia University in New York City. Her husband, Andrew, is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves and works as director of learning and development at Florida Crystals. They have three sons.
She brings a health care background with a specialty in mental health from jobs at the National Council on Aging in Washington and the Georgia Department of Health but switched to fitness seven years ago with FIT4MOM Palm Beach.
She is seeking office for the first time, she said, because “regular citizens need to get off the bench” and “I think people are really just sick of the current state of affairs.”
On her website she declares: “Our district deserves a representative who listens, shows up and puts people before politics. Extremism DOES NOT belong in our communities.”
She calls proposals to eliminate homestead property taxes for all but police, fire and schools a tax shift, not a tax cut, because local governments would continue to need money to pay for libraries, parks, garbage pickup and other services.
Maples supports the measure, saying people in the district are demanding tax relief.
Gregory proposes a catastrophic fund to help reduce property insurance costs, expansion of Medicaid and more focus on public schools as opposed to private schools.
In a Legislature tightly controlled by Republicans, who hold a supermajority in both houses, Gregory said her election would send an important signal. “Restoring balance to the Legislature is critically important.”
Jon Maples
Maples’ stance on issues is not detailed on his campaign website and he did not respond to a League of Women Voters questionnaire. Gregory’s answers can be viewed here.
In a five-minute January appearance before the North County Neighborhood Coalition at Mirasol in Palm Beach Gardens, Maples discussed making property insurance deductible on federal income taxes to help ease the affordability crisis.
He realizes the Legislature can’t get Congress to act, he said in an interview, but he calculated that such a move would reinvigorate the Florida insurance market, increase competition and result in lower prices.
Maples went to Palm Beach Atlantic University on a basketball scholarship and, while suffering from a knee injury, passed up an opportunity decades ago to try out for the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies.
“It’s one of the moments in my life that I regret the most,” he told the Mirasol audience. “If I could do it all over again, I would go and fail. One of my favorite quotes is, ‘The fear of not trying is worse than failing.’ And so I wish I could have failed in that. If I could go back and do it again, that’s one I would do all over again.”
Maples called himself the “conservative Republican nominee” and vowed to work to protect the nuclear family, stop human trafficking and eliminate child pornography. He and his wife, Kristi, a teacher at King’s Academy, have one daughter.
While Gregory supports more state money for public schools, Maples supports school choice.
By helping pay for homeschooling and private schools, the Legislature is providing more opportunities for minority students deprived of a quality public education, he said.
He supports the Legislature’s most recent effort to rein in DEI, the catch-all for efforts to increase opportunities for minorities.
“It’s about merit, earning your spot,” he said, adding, “As an athlete, you want the best players on your team. It doesn’t matter what they look like.”
Another take: Politico’s coverage of the state House District 87 race.
Joel is a founder, reporter and editor at Stet News. His award-winning newspaper career spanned more than 40 years, including 28 years at The Palm Beach Post, which he left in 2020. Joel lives with his wife in Palm Beach Gardens. He volunteers on the board of NAMI Palm Beach County and the Palm Beach Gardens Historical Society.
