Republican candidates debate housing costs, insurance in Broward House race

Republican hopefuls for Broward County’s open House District 100 seat made housing costs and insurance the center of their debate Thursday night at the Riverside Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. The forum, held in the Champ Carr Room and moderated by Ryan Reiter, brought together Yoni Anijar, Raul Gallon and Dr. Eric Stelnicki as the Aug. 18 Republican primary approaches.

The race carries unusual weight in Broward politics. District 100 stretches along the county’s coast from Fort Lauderdale to Deerfield Beach and Lighthouse Point, and it is Broward County’s only consistently Republican-held state House seat. Rep. Chip LaMarca, the Lighthouse Point Republican first elected in 2018, is term-limited and cannot run again, leaving the seat open for the first time in years. Former Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Mayor Chris Vincent, another Republican candidate, did not attend the forum.

Anijar, an attorney and U.S. Army Reserve captain, has tried to make affordability the campaign’s central pitch. He qualified for the ballot by petition on April 17 after submitting 1,264 verified signatures, topping the 1,251 required. That made him the first candidate in the district to qualify by petition in nearly two decades. He has argued for more homes and more options for first-time buyers, a message that fits a district where Broward County says only 5% of families can afford to buy a median-priced home.

The numbers behind that crisis are stark. Broward County’s median sales price for a single-family home was $614,500 in 2024 and rose to $635,000 in 2025. County planning data also put Broward at 866,019 housing units, 753,956 households and a median household income of $80,734, figures that underscore the squeeze on renters, condo owners and homeowners alike. A state representative cannot force prices down overnight, but the office can shape the rules on zoning, incentives, taxes and insurance, all of which influence whether housing gets built and whether existing owners can stay put.

Gallon, who has 25 years of experience in the insurance industry, pressed the issue of property coverage and premiums. He has focused his campaign on cracking down on claim denials and expanding reinsurance capacity in Florida, a nod to the market pressures that have kept insurance costs high across Broward neighborhoods from waterfront condos to inland single-family homes.

Stelnicki, a physician, emphasized health care access and the survival of private medical practices, adding another cost pressure point for district voters. The insurance debate came against the backdrop of Florida’s December 2022 property-insurance overhaul, which state officials said was intended to stabilize the market and return Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to its role as insurer of last resort. For HD 100 voters, the next Legislature will be judged less by campaign slogans than by whether it can turn those promises into lower monthly bills.