After a hard-fought special election sent him to the Florida Senate in March, the IBEW’s own Brian Nathan is determined to beat the odds again in November.

Reporters and pundits declared his first win a major upset: a pro-worker, pro-union political newcomer prevailing in a deep-red district against a cattle rancher with rich and powerful backers. Even the chair of the state’s Democratic Party considered it a “shocking victory.”

The media called the race for Nathan when he was up by 408 votes, less than 1% of the ballots cast. A pub packed with his supporters erupted — family, friends and fellow union members jumping up and down, waving signs and chanting “Brian!”

“It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” the Tampa Local 915 organizer said. “We knew it was going to be close. She [opponent Josie Tomkow] out-fundraised and outspent me. But when we saw the early returns, we thought, ‘OK, we’re actually in this.’ We did the work, and it was paying off.”

Nathan had been thinking about a Senate run since 2025, when legislative attacks on unions and workers included a bill proposed by his then-senator, Jay Collins, to further erode child labor laws.

The bill died in committee, but it still bothered him. “Knowing labor history, protecting children was one of movement’s early motivating factors,” he said. “It felt like we were regressing.”

While he’d never been a candidate, he was far from a political novice. He’d been interacting with lawmakers for years, fighting for the IBEW and labor more broadly as part of the Florida AFL-CIO’s Working Families Lobby Corps. The program expands the practice of lobby days to a week or longer, ensuring that there’s always a union voice in Tallahassee when the Legislature is in session.

When Collins was appointed lieutenant governor last August, the door opened for Nathan to go from advocate to decision-maker.

“I talked to my wife and said, ‘I want to throw my name in the ring.’ I explained the math of a special election, that in some ways it’s easier — the dollar amount you have to raise isn’t as much, and you get to own the news cycle,” he said.

Knowing how upset he was each time he returned from the Capitol, she told him: “Go ahead and do it. We’ll figure it out.’”

Nathan wanted to file right away, but Gov. Ron DeSantis waited until October to set a special election date, a delay that meant no one — let alone a Democrat — would be able to represent Senate District 14 during the regular 2026 session.

Over the next six months, Nathan raised $109,000, mainly in small donations from workers. It was a fraction of what Tomkow, then a Florida House member, took in from faceless large donors.

“She walked in with a quarter-million dollars. I heard she outraised me 10 to 1. Even as much as 20 to 1 if you roll in the political committees,” he said, referring to Florida’s term for PACs.

But Nathan had something Tomkow didn’t: a genuine connection with working people.

“I relied a lot on my biography as a Navy veteran, as an electrician who’s been on his tools, as a union member,” he said. “It really was an economic message, that life in Florida has gotten very expensive, a lot of people are hurting, and the folks in Tallahassee don’t seem to be doing anything to provide meaningful relief.

“As someone who has the same concerns and troubles that everybody in the community does, I said I can go up to Tallahassee and be your champion.”

He was open about his struggles as a young father and the life he was able to build through the IBEW.

“I talked about how when my first daughter was born, we were on WIC,” he said, citing the federal nutrition program for women, infants and children. “Both my wife and I were veterans going to college on the GI Bill and my time in the field working all over the state with the IBEW. That really resonated with people because it wasn’t the regular biography you get from most politicians — college-educated in law or finance.”

“As someone who has the same concerns and troubles that everybody in the community does, I said I can go up to Tallahassee and be your champion.”

_{– Brian Nathan}

Nudged by his father-in-law, then a member of Orlando Local 606, Nathan joined the IBEW in 2008. He’d served previously as a Navy electronics specialist in cryptology, a vast security operation that includes intercepting communications and deciphering codes. He also graduated from the University of Tampa with a double major in sociology and philosophy — behavioral sciences that he said come in handy in politics.

As his new campaign heads into autumn’s political whirlwind, Nathan is heeding lessons from his first run. Stretching his budget as far as he could, he built a grassroots operation with ever-more volunteers knocking doors and making phone calls. Many were recruited through pop-up events at Tampa-area coffee shops, sparing him a major expense.

“We’d say, ‘Hey, can we basically sit in your place of business? We’ll order coffee, we’ll order food.’ It was a place for volunteers to come and get literature, get signs without us having to open a campaign office,” he said. “We’d put it out on social media: ‘Want to come out and help the cause? This is where we’re going to be.’”

Many IBEW brothers and sisters were among his volunteers and contributors. Local 951 Business Manager Jonathan Fielder said it was an honor.

“We stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with him,” he said. “Decisions impacting labor are usually debated by politicians who have never worked on a jobsite. Brian bridges this gap. He is an experienced working-class voice now in the halls of power, ensuring that labor rights and middle-class economic struggles are prioritized.”

Three special sessions this spring gave Nathan his first chance to legislate: In April, when he voted against redistricting; in May, when he voted for the state budget, which included job-creating infrastructure projects in his district; and in June, when he fought a now-passed constitutional amendment that significantly increased the homestead property tax exemption.

“To be clear, property taxes down here are expensive. I could use that relief myself,” he said. “But this was a half-baked product. We don’t know what it’s going to do to our cities and counties. There were just so many holes in it.”

Nathan hopes to support working people with his own bills come January. Priorities include bringing down the sky-high cost of Florida homeowners’ insurance and repairing crumbling infrastructure.

“Updates have been deferred for a long time. It’s expensive, but the more you defer, the more expensive it gets to fix,” he said. “Water management is huge, delivering power is huge, transit is huge.”

IBEW locals are pitching in again with fundraisers and volunteers, even outside his district. An early event during his first race was hosted by Gainesville Local 1205, some 130 miles north of Tampa. Now, one of its members, Jason Bellamy-Fults, is also running for the state Senate — a campaign inspired in part by Nathan’s success. (See story.)

Nathan phoned him early on to offer support and guidance.

“I told him that people are going to want to put you in a box, but you can’t let other people define you,” Nathan said. “You can’t be afraid to push back and say no, even if you think it might hurt you a little bit. The voters can smell if you’re authentic or not from a mile away, and at the end of the day you have to remember that those are the people you’re representing, those are the people you’re fighting for.”