Sibling rivalry a highlight of Florida Senate race
ORLANDO, FLORIDA—Randolph Bracy and LaVon Bracy Davis are taking sibling rivalry to a new level as brother and sister run against each other in a race for a Florida state Senate seat on Tuesday.
The headline-grabbing candidates are running against two other opponents in the special primary election for the seat that had been held by Geraldine Thompson, a trailblazing veteran lawmaker who died earlier this year.
The winner will face Republican Willie Montague in September for the general election in the Democratic-dominant district. Black voters make up more than half registered Democrats in the district.
Both siblings have experience in the state legislature. Bracy Davis was a state representative and Bracy was a former state senator.
Adding to the family dynamics was the fact that the siblings’ mother, civil rights activist Lavon Wright Bracy, was the maid of honor at Thompson’s wedding and was one of her oldest friends. She has endorsed her daughter over her son.
The siblings’ family has been active in Orlando’s civic life for decades. Their father, Randolph Bracy Jr., was a president of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a founder of a Baptist church in Orlando and director of the religion department at Bethune-Cookman University.
Competing endorsements
It wasn’t the first time the family has been caught up in competing endorsements. When Bracy and Thompson ran against each other for the Democratic primary in a state Senate race last year, Bracy Davis endorsed Thompson over her brother. Campaign fliers sent out recently by a Republican political operative start with “Bracy Yourself!”
Bracy, 48, who played professional basketball in Turkiye, told the Orlando Sentinel it was “disappointing and hurtful” for his sister to run after he had announced his bid.
But Bracy Davis, 45, an attorney by training, said she was running for the people in state Senate District 15, not against any of the other candidates.
She said she intended to continue Thompson’s legacy of pushing for voters’ rights and increasing pay for public schoolteachers. Thompson’s family has endorsed Bracy Davis.
