Election 2022: District 15 Republicans face off in Nassau County and west and north Duval

Two conservative Republicans are running for state representative in newly drawn House District 15, which sprawls across all of Nassau County and much of northern and western Duval County. 

In the Aug. 23 Republican primary, political newcomer Emily Nunez faces off against Dean Black, chairman of the Republican Party of Duval County.

They're each running as staunch supporters of former President Donald Trump and each espouses his repeatedly discredited claims that the 2020 election was "rigged" against him. Both say President Joe Biden is not the legitimate president.

Black, Nunez say they will fight against 'woke' culture

Each says they will fight against "woke" culture and abortion rights while fighting to expand gun rights and to clamp down on voter fraud.

Upcoming elections:Change in state law means about 33,000 Duval County voters must update records to request mail ballots

Black is 56, an Air Force veteran and businessman who raises cattle on a ranch at the Duval-Nassau line. He is an eighth-generation Floridian and said his family has been in the area since the early 1800s before it was known as Jacksonville. His website is votedeanblack.com.

Black said he advocates for investments in parks and green space in a rapidly growing area and that the state needs to take efforts to tamp down on rising home prices.

He pledged to fight what he called "the woke corporate left" and to make Jacksonville "a beacon of hope" compared to cities such as San Francisco and Portland, Ore., and "dysfunctional states governed by the left."

"We are popularly known as the free state of Florida," he said. "It’s a real thing. What that alludes to is the fact that we’re free, have been kept safe, supported our business climate and yet we pushed back on some of the radical ideas of the left."

Nunez is 36, a veteran of both the Navy (where she was on the Blue Angels' maintenance control team) and the Marines. Her website is emilynunez.com.

She lives in Yulee and is a retirement planner. She decided to run for office, she said, after becoming alarmed by Jacksonville's efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

"I did not agree with the shutdowns, mandates, any of those things at all. I never supported any of those mandates. I'm not vaccinated myself," she said. "Granted, our governor kept us open and that’s great, but he didn’t have a lot of backup. That’s why I decided to run."

She calls herself the anti-establishment candidate and said statewide Republicans need to take stronger conservative stands on issues such as abortion and gun rights. “Why not? We control the majority of the House and Senate. We can be as conservative as we want.” 

Nunez has criticized Black for a Facebook post in 2015 in which he criticized Trump for being an "erratic billionaire bully."

In 2010: Dean Black latest to challenge Corrine Brown for U.S. House seat

Black said he was a Ted Cruz supporter at the time and was simply supporting his preferred candidate. He notes that in 2020 he was a delegate for Trump at the Republican National Convention, having long since thrown his support behind him. "Once he became the nominee I was all in for him," he said, "and once he became the greatest president in a century, I became a true believer."

No Democrats filed but write-in candidate Jerry Steckloff will be on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.