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Candidates for Florida’s 15th Congressional District gathered at political forum Tampa Tiger Bay Club Friday. The candidates for the district that includes parts of Hillsborough, Pasco and Polk County discussed things like the 2020 election and the January 6th riots. Also present were candidates for District 14.
Jennifer Barbosa and James Judge are running against incumbent Laurel Lee in the Primary Election for Congress. Lee did not attend the forum. The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face Pat Kemp in November’s General Election.
One topic was the insurrection on January 6th 2021.
Barbosa faced boos from the crowd after saying Capitol rioters were being unfairly persecuted.
“There are people who are sitting in prison for trespassing, and that’s a very unfair way to treat them. They’re being politically persecuted because they happen to be there on Capitol grounds that day.”
Kemp, a current Hillsborough County Commissioner, said those who were jailed for participating in January 6th riots deserve to be there.
“It was horrid to see what happened on January 6th, and it should only be condemned. And all of those thousands that have been sentenced to prisons in jury trials deserve to be there.”
Candidates were asked whether they believed the 2020 Presidential Election was fraudulent.
Judge addressed the crowd, which had mostly negative reactions for candidates who doubted the election results.
“A lot of people wonder why good people don’t run for office, and it’s because you sit here and laugh at us and mock us while we’re up here trying to answer your questions. The bottom line is some people do believe, in fact, a huge majority of people in this population – maybe not majority, a huge percentage of people in this country believe the election was stolen.”
Judge said he has doubts about the election and both parties are corrupt.
A 2021 Associated Press review found “far too little vote fraud” to tip the 2020 election to former president Donald Trump.
