Races to Watch: Daryl Parks v. Kimblin NeSmith Vie to Unseat Corey Simon

TALLAHASSEE, FL—Tuesday at 7 p.m. Florida's primary polls will close, and with it will emerge the Democrat nominee hoping to make the Senate District 3 seat—flipped red by the DeSantis-backed Sen. Corey Simon—blue once more.

The candidates are civil rights attorney Daryl Parks and Gadsden County Commissioner Kimblin NeSmith, both planning to unseat former NFL star Simon in the North Florida district. In terms of financing, Parks—who represented the family of murdered teen Trayvon Martin in the newsworthy 2013 case—out-paces his same-party opponent by hundreds of thousands of dollars: since he announced his campaign in early April, he's raised almost $430,000 ($2,000 from him and his law firm) and spent over $350,000.

In comparison, NeSmith—who filed to run in June of last year—has raised just over $32,600 (the better part of $27,000 from his coffers) and spent more than $32,100.

The winner will face Republican Simon on November 5th in what has rapidly become an uphill battle for the Democrats, considering Florida's red-shifted elections in 2022 that paved the way for a redistricted map and a new election law removing inactive voters from county rolls.

Now, there are over a million more registered Republicans than Democrats in the Sunshine State, no longer holding the politically undecided battleground status it clung to for years.

SD 3 encompasses 13 North Florida counties, and in 2022 Simon unseated the incumbent Democrat by just under 13,000 votes—becoming the district's first Republican Senator in over a decade.

NeSmith and Parks will face off in the Democratic primary on August 20th. The winner will face Simon on November 5th, raising the question: can Democrats make SD 3 blue again?

As of noon, just over 28% of registered Democrats in Leon County, the largest county in the District, had turned out to vote.