EAST HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — The three Democratic candidates vying for the opportunity to flip the Congressional District 15 seat in this fall's elections took part in a virtual debate Friday, once again making their case to voters regarding their viability to win in November.

Even with GOP incumbent Ross Spano under federal investigation for alleged campaign finance violations, it’s going to take a major effort for a Democrat to win Florida’s 15^th Congressional District seat this fall.

The seat (which encompasses parts of Polk, Hillsborough and Lake counties) has been held by Republicans for a generation, so it made sense during Friday’s Tampa Tiger Bay Club Democratic virtual debate for state Rep. Adam Hattersley to boast about his moderate bona fides, such as the fact that he’s been endorsed by the Congressional Blue Dog Coalition.

“I wasn’t registered with either party before I decided to run for office,” the Riverview Democrat and Navy veteran said when asked how he could appeal to GOP and independent voters in November. 

But to get the opportunity to challenge Spano (or Lakeland City Commissioner Scott Franklin, the Republican challenging Spano in the GOP primary), Hattersley needs to appeal to the Democratic base in the August 18 primary – as opponent Alan Cohn pointed out. 

“He only became a Democrat for the purposes of running for office. I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, and Democrats want a Democrat,” said Cohn, a former award-winning television news reporter. “You know the Blue Dog Democrats do not share the values that we do in this congressional district.”

The third Democrat in the race, former U.S. Marine Jesse Philippe, said that the only way that anyone in his party can beat a Republican is to talk about things that directly affect the voters. 

“People want to hear a message. They don’t want to hear idealism. They want to know how we are going to improve their life,” Philippe said. “Because if we’re coming in and talking – talking to them about issues that we’ve been talking to them about for twenty-thirty years and haven’t passed anything, people are not going to come out.”

Nationwide protests enter debate

With the country (and the globe) protesting daily about racism and police brutality due to the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis Police officers last week, the candidates were asked what they would do to address policing issues if elected to Congress.

Hattersley said he was incredulous that Plant City Police would reject body cameras yet purchase a military-style vehicle (as they did in 2017), adding that he would support proposals to racially diversify police departments and enhance sensitivity and de-escalation training.

Cohn boasted about an investigative story he reported about police brutality in Massachusetts that led to a federal trial against a group of officers before bashing Hattersley for sending out a fundraising email this week that referred to the Floyd tragedy before asking for campaign donations.

“I think that is out of bounds, and that is one thing that I would never do,” Cohn said. 

Hattersley apologized, and then took a shot at Cohn for failing to attend a Black Lives Matter organized rally in Lakeland last Sunday that Phillipe also attended.

Philippe got the last word in, however, in this exchange.

“Guess what. I’m black. I’m African-American. I’ve lived it. This is not a report,” said Philippe. “I’ve seen the discrimination. I have been stopped for being black. So I’ve lived it.”

He added that he thought that Hattersley’s email was wrong, and that George Floyd’s life and death was bigger than politics.

Candidates' stances on other issues

Cohn later attacked Hattersley on the issue of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. He raised up his phone to play a video clip from a Fox 13 interview last September that showed Hattersley responding to a question about whether he supported raising the minimum wage.

“I do,” he said. “But not necessarily to $15.”

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed a $15 federal minimum wage bill in the summer of 2019, but it went nowhere in the U.S. Senate. Some Democrats, such as Michigan’s Rashida Talib, have called for raising to $20 an hour.

Foreign policy only came up once during the hour-long forum regarding relations with China, which have taken an acid turn with the COVID-19 crisis.

Philippe said the U.S. had to begin moving away from depending on China’s economy and reinvesting in Latin American markets.

Hattersley said he supported Orlando Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy’s proposal to assess the U.S. response to COVID-19, the Chinese government’s response to the outbreak, and the U.S.’ over-reliance on China for critical supplies.

Cohn said President Trump wasn’t wrong to attack China on trade, but said that the tariffs on goods that he imposed on the communist country ended up biting American farmers for “billions of dollars.” 

The Tampa Tiger Bay Club is a bipartisan organization, and organizers said that they had reached out to the two Republicans in the race, Spano and Scott Franklin, but both declined to participate. 

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has listed the race as one of their top ten in the country that they’re hoping to flip this fall,  but the Cook Political Report this week still listed the CD15 race as “Leans Republican.” That’s with Spano as the candidate.