Valerie StaggsCoast Guard officer James Martin and firefighter Bernard Taylor have high hopes of defeating the five-term congressman.
Two first-time candidates are facing off in the Aug. 18 Democratic primary for U.S. House District 21, a seat held by Republican Brian Mast.
Bernard Taylor, a Palm Beach County firefighter, and James Martin, a U.S. Coast Guard officer from Hobe Sound, both say they have what it takes to beat Mast, who is running for his sixth two-year term in Congress. A third Democrat, Pia Dandiya, switched out of the race when Florida redrew its congressional districts in May.
Editor’s note: With 47,700 votes counted Wednesday, Martin had received 50.38% of the vote and Taylor stood at 49.62%.
The district includes all of St. Lucie and Martin counties and portions of northern Palm Beach County including Tequesta, Jupiter, Jupiter Inlet Colony, Juno Beach, North Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Palm Beach Shores, and parts of Riviera Beach and West Palm Beach.
In 2024, Mast carried the district with 61.8% of the vote against Democrat Thomas Witkop. The district is home to 769,221 Floridians.
The supporters
Taylor’s campaign has raised $591,000 to Martin’s $579,000. Mast, who doesn’t face a primary challenge, has raised $4 million.
Neither Taylor nor Martin has accepted PAC money.
Taylor’s campaign account consists primarily of individual donations. Taylor is endorsed by the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida, American Small Business League, People’s Voice United, Palm Beach County Human Rights Council and Epstein Justice.
But he also has an endorsement from Anti-Zionist America, a political action committee that supports candidates who reject Israeli lobby money. Taylor said he has requested that the organization rescind its endorsement because many of its viewpoints do not align with his.
Individual donations also make up the majority of Martin’s campaign account. Martin has contributed $150,000 to his campaign. Some of Martin’s endorsements include former Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic Environmental Caucus of Florida, Moms Demand Action, Democratic Hispanic Caucus and Veterans for Responsible Leadership.
The candidates
Bernard Taylor, 38, is a fourth-generation Floridian and the oldest of five siblings raised by a single mom. The family lived in Section 8 housing in Miami until moving to Vero Beach when Taylor was 11.
Taylor said he was keenly aware of his mom’s struggles. “She worked at Winn-Dixie as a dairy manager making $26,000 a year. She always made sure we had what we needed, but I was old enough to realize there were nights she didn’t eat so we could eat.”
Taylor attended Sebastian River High School, graduating with a full academic and athletic college scholarship.
He went to Livingstone College in North Carolina to study criminal justice, leaving in his second year to pursue a career in the Canadian Football League.
A torn knee ended his football career, and in 2009, he returned to Florida, where he spent the next 10 years working in various jobs before enrolling in the Broward Fire Academy, earning his EMT and firefighter certifications.
He lives in Port St. Lucie but has worked since 2021 for Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.
Taylor said his experiences on the job motivated him to run for office. “When you are in the back of an ambulance, you get to see the world from a very different perspective.”
Taylor is married and the father of five boys ages 1 to 18.
James Martin, 33, is also a fourth-generation Floridian. His great-grandfather was a well-known figure in the Hobe Sound area in the 1920s who built a business delivering goods from the train station and catering to the needs of local residents.
Martin’s father inherited the business, which does concierge car rental services and car restorations, and runs it today. His mom is a schoolteacher.
Martin graduated from South Fork High School in Martin County. While he had respect for what his family built, he wanted to pursue a different path.
“I knew that I wanted to be in the military,” Martin said. “It was the right mix of academics and athletics.”
After high school, he went to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, graduating with honors in 2015.
Martin rose to the rank of captain and served for 10 years at bases in the United States, the Middle East and locally as the commanding officer of an 87-foot Coast Guard cutter in Fort Pierce. In 2020, he moved to Key West to work for the Joint Interagency Task Force South overseeing the interception of drugs.
In 2021, he was recruited for a position under Vice President Harris. He served as chief of staff for national security affairs and executive secretary before leaving in 2025.
Martin is married and is the father of two daughters, a 2-year-old and an infant. He lives in Hobe Sound.
He decided to run in December 2025. “We were driving past my dad’s business and that was the moment where I knew I had to do something. I told my wife: ‘We have to be the change we want to see.’”
THE ISSUES
Health care
Martin supports a public option for health insurance. “I believe health care is a basic human right. People should have access to quality health care. If you like the insurance you have, you should be allowed to keep it, and if it stinks, you should have a public option.”
Martin is also advocating for a crackdown on pharmacy benefit managers who operate as middlemen. “They upcharge for medications and drive up costs.”
Taylor supports a single-payer, universal health care system to provide coverage for all Americans phased in over four years. “We are the only developed nation in the world that doesn’t have a single-payer health care system.”
He said he doesn’t buy into the argument that wait times will be longer and quality of care will go down. “When I talk to seniors in the community, they can’t get a cardiology appointment for nine months. The wait times are already long.”
Clean water
Martin said Mast has been inconsistent and ineffective on addressing water issues. “You shouldn’t have to wonder how your representative is going to come down on environmental issues. I care about this issue viscerally, not because someone threw a policy book at me.”
He supports cleaning up Lake Okeechobee and restoring the natural water flow. He is also an advocate for maintaining bedrock environmental laws and would work to negotiate with sugar farmers to purchase more land for the Everglades Agricultural Area.
“I also think there is a strong case to be made for making St. Lucie Estuary into a national park.” National park status would offer more environmental protection.
Taylor also takes aim at Mast’s record. “Brian Mast has one water bill that passed and it was for a research study to study the things that are wrong with the water. His voting record is only 16% in favor of protecting the environment.”
Taylor is proposing a plan to not just mitigate water issues in Lake Okeechobee but address the source of the problem. “When you have big industries and big developers who donate to certain politicians, they are not necessarily keen on my plan. We need to have a representative who is worried about our clean water and the health of the people.”
Taylor supports cleaning up the lake and restoring the natural flow. “We need to ensure the lake is doing what it is naturally supposed to do and flow south into the Everglades. None of that stuff should even get into the St. Lucie River.”
Affordability
Martin said the current tariffs are reckless and trade deficits are misunderstood. “When you unpack the arguments about trade deficits, they don’t make sense. I have a trade deficit with the ice cream shop and my barber, too.”
Martin said he would work to bring property insurance down. He supports addressing the issue federally through the Homeowners Defense Act, which would provide a backstop for Citizens Insurance.
Martin supports legislation to stop investors from competing against individual homebuyers. He said middle-market investors are buying investment properties or flipping homes, which makes home-buying harder. “There is housing in Florida, but it is not attainable.”
Taylor is advocating for a tax on corporations and investors who are buying homes in bulk while working to get them out of the housing market. Taxes collected would go into a fund for downpayment assistance for homebuyers. “We need to make sure that while investors are taking homes away, they are also putting back into the system.”
Taylor supports bringing tariff power back to Congress and ending the war in Iran. “The executive branch should not have the power to implement tariffs whenever they feel like it. We need to put a stop to this war that is driving up gas prices. Those two things will do a lot to relieve the pain the American consumer is feeling.”
Education and jobs
Martin supports tax incentives for employers who offer health insurance and other benefits to their employees. He would work with local officials to expand industries such as aerospace and marine. “We have some of the best boat-builders in the world here.”
Taylor is advocating for more skilled trades programs in high schools. “Under my program, once you are a junior in high school you would have the opportunity to pick up a trade skill along with your general education. It is very important that when we put 18-year-olds on the street their only opportunities aren’t just McDonald’s and Walmart.”
Immigration
Martin said he is the only candidate who has been on the front lines of immigration enforcement. “I have seen what people go through to come here. We are a nation of laws, but we can treat people humanely. We now have deportation methods where cruelty is the point.”
Martin is in favor of creating an orderly and transparent asylum process with set time frames. He supports more judges to handle more cases. “Immigration has unfortunately gotten politicized. We need to reframe how we think about immigration.”
Taylor supports reforming the immigration system and providing enough money to courts to process asylum and immigration cases faster. “People shouldn’t have to wait 10 years to find out if they can stay here or not.”
He supports paying for strong borders and strong immigration policy, but said immigrants are a vital part of our economy whether people want to admit it or not. “A lot of the nursing homes I go to are ghost towns because most of the people who work as health care aides are Haitian. There are people who have completely lost their care.”
Taylor said immigration enforcement gets too much taxpayer money. “There is no reason why ICE should be the 15th-most funded military in the world. ICE should not be funded at $115 billion.”
Overseas conflicts
Martin’s military background informs his viewpoint on many of the world’s current conflicts. “I have a strong view that whenever service members are put in harm’s way, there should be a clear strategy and end game.” He said he is not in support of war, but the president doesn’t have any good options in Iran right now.
Martin said he favors continued support for Ukraine. “I was in the White House when Russia invaded Ukraine so I had a front-row seat. I believe supporting Ukraine is in our national interests. The way of the world cannot be taking borders by force.”
Martin said the United States needs to take a look at its subsidies to Israel. “I think the conversation about Israel now is to agree that they probably don’t need subsidies. Then it becomes ‘should we sell arms to them as long as we are keeping with U.S. laws?’”
Taylor said the war in Iran was not warranted. “According to 18 intelligence agencies in our country, the Iranians were nowhere close to having nuclear weapons. If we are not going to believe the intelligence on the ground, why do we have these agencies? I don’t think we need to spend $2 billion a day when there was no reason to do it. At the end of the day, this war is continuing to put us in debt and make lives here in America hard.”
He said Israel and Palestine both have the right to a peaceful existence, but Americans shouldn’t continue to pay for the conflict. “I believe the way Hamas and the Israeli government are going about achieving a peaceful existence is wrong on both sides. I don’t believe my tax dollars should go to fund a lot of the things that are happening.”
Trust and transparency in politics
Martin said he is committed to a strong anti-corruption platform and his campaign does not take PAC money. “We need to get big money out of politics.”
He supports banning members of Congress from trading stocks and making bets on insider information.
Martin plans to hold quarterly town halls and roundtables with local officials and make his schedule public. “Only one member of Congress — Mark Kelly — keeps a public schedule. So let’s make it two.”
Taylor said his nature is to be open. “For me it is about keeping myself transparent. I plan on getting to Washington and continuing to be who I am. One of the things that keeps me different is I don’t have these aspirations to get into Congress then be a senator next. My only goal is to win this election and represent the people here.”
Taylor also plans to hold quarterly town hall discussions. “What happens in politics a lot is only the communities with the highest donors get to meet their representative. I want to make sure everyone is in the same room together so nobody’s voice gets drowned out.”
The opponent
People are ready for change, Martin said, and his background gives him an edge against Mast.
“The keystone to winning this race is going to be winning independent voters. National security professionals, particularly those with military backgrounds, are able to win independent voters at rates up to six points higher than generic Democrats. That’s just a fact.”
His background is a big differentiator in this race, he said. “My military experience combined with my experience actually making policy at the National Security Council and understanding how policy moves within Washington is critical.”
He said he is the best candidate to affect change quickly. “If Democrats do take back the House and particularly if we flip this seat it is going to be because a lot of independents and Republicans went out on a limb and said, ‘I trust you.’ We need to deliver real results quickly..”
Taylor said his deep ties to the community resonate with voters. “I’m not waiting to get elected to do things that help my community. We just had our big back to school giveaway to help step into the gap for parents who are feeling the crunch. We were able to provide over 3,000 backpacks and school supplies to the community. To me, that’s what real leadership is.”
He said he has tried to separate himself by his actions during the campaign.
“I want people to know you are not getting a politician. You are getting a representative. I think people are looking for a real, authentic candidate that they believe will look out for their best interests.”
Taylor said his ability to engage different voters will be a big factor in the race against Mast.
“The person who can build a coalition between Democrats and independents and even Republicans will be the person who can beat Brian Mast. That’s going to take galvanizing people who don’t normally vote.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication to remove an incorrect reference to Martin being endorsed by End Citizens United.
