By Anne Geggis
Rep. Patricia Hawkins-Williams of Pompano Beach is seeking to challenge Osgood in the August Primary.
A Democratic Representative has filed to represent Senate District 32 — challenging an incumbent Democratic Senator who was elected only earlier this year.
It’s the second battle in Broward County this election cycle poised to pit a Democratic incumbent Senator against another Democrat.
Rep. Patricia Hawkins-Williams of Pompano Beach had announced she would not run for a fourth term in the Florida House. Instead, she announced she
would be running for the Senate.
Hawkins-Williams had said she would be announcing which district pending the outcome of redistricting.
Redistricting, however, put her Pompano Beach home just inside Senate District 30, which would have her representing a different constituency: Boca Raton, Coconut Creek, Coral Springs and Margate.
Hawkins-Williams did not respond to a text seeking comment about her redesignation to SD 32, which is already represented by Democratic Sen. Rosalind Osgood.
Osgood, just elected to the seat in March because of the domino effect of a Special Election for Congress, said she was “very surprised” to hear of Hawkins-Williams’ decision to run in her district for her current position.
Osgood said Hawkins-Williams assured her in 2021 that she would not be running for the Senate seat that came open when Sen. Perry Thurston resigned to run for Congress.
“As a result of the conversations with Rep. Williams, my family, my mentor Congresswoman (Frederica) Wilson and a lot of prayer, I made a very hard decision to leave the School Board and run for Senate District 33,” Osgood texted Florida Politics. “I won both the Primary and General elections by a landslide. The voters chose me.”
The current Senate map shows Hawkins-Williams’ address on file with the Department of State lands her in SD 30.
In the redistricting process, Osgood’s district, SD 33, was renumbered 32 and its boundaries shifted south.
The shifting boundaries put Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book in the same district as Osgood. Rather than face a Primary battle with Osgood, Book moved to another district. And now she’s facing a challenge from a fellow Democrat in that district, Senate District 35.
