Holcomb switch reshapes Hernando County commission, state House races

Jeff Holcomb’s decision to leave his re-election bid in Florida House District 53 and enter Hernando County Commission District 4 flipped two races at once and left county voters with a new vacancy to fill before a ballot is cast. Brian Hawkins, who had been running for commission, moved into Holcomb’s legislative seat, then resigned his commission post immediately, turning District 2 into an open board seat and changing the county’s political map in the final hours of qualifying.

The timing mattered because Florida’s 2026 qualifying window for county office and state representative ran from noon Monday, June 8, through noon Friday, June 12. Hernando County’s Board of County Commissioners has five members elected to four-year terms, and it controls county policy, budgets, ordinances and resolutions. Hawkins was listed in county records as the District 2 commissioner elected in November 2022 with a term expiring in November 2026, so his exit created both an election fight and a present-day vacancy on a board that decides growth, spending and local representation.

District 2 now has five candidates: real estate agent Silvia Dukes, Planning Commission Chair Kathryn Birren, conservative conservationist Maxwell Glenn, gun shop owner James Scavetta and Diane Greenwell, who entered just hours before the noon Friday deadline and qualified that same day. Dukes has opened the cycle with the strongest fundraising, posting $23,000 in contributions by the end of May, most of it self-funded. Earlier reporting said Dukes had already loaned her campaign $20,000, giving her an early financial edge before qualifying week began. Glenn’s campaign has framed his pitch around “true conservative values,” conservation, volunteering and minimal government spending.

The House District 53 race also widened fast. John Carroll, chairman of the Hernando County Housing Authority, filed on June 11 and joined a field that already included Democrat Tony Claude and Constitution Party candidate Christopher Anger, who qualified June 8 by paid qualifying fee. House District 53 covers parts of Hernando and Pasco counties and was enacted under the 2022 redistricting plan, making the Republican primary the main contest in a district that remains strongly GOP. Holcomb’s House biography lists him as a Spring Hill resident, realtor and U.S. Navy Reserve intelligence officer, and he was elected to the Florida House in 2022.

District 4 is now narrowed to Holcomb and Marvin Baynham, with a write-in candidate, Donald Bigelow, also qualified. Baynham has the backing of Commissioner Steve Champion, which gives the race another layer of intraparty weight. The district’s ballot now looks very different from the one voters expected before qualifying week, and it will unfold under an electorate that remains heavily Republican, with 69,464 registered Republicans, 30,058 Democrats and 35,220 voters with other or no party affiliation in recent state data. One current county metric source lists 160,912 total registered voters, underscoring how much is at stake in races that were reshaped in a matter of days.