Trump-endorsed Rep. Bill Posey leads fundraising against GOP primary opponents

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., is running for reelection and faces three Republican primary challengers with Joe Babits, John Hearton and Brian Jones. 

Posey has gained the endorsement of former President Donald Trump and several Brevard and Indian River elected officials.

He recently held an event in Melbourne with U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who endorsed his candidacy. None of Posey’s challengers have secured major endorsements in their campaigns thus far.

According to the FEC, as of Dec. 31, 2023, Posey leads in fundraising with over $525,000 in the bank. Hearton has around $133,000 which included a loan to himself of $140,000.

Jones has around $72,000 which included a past loan to himself of $75,000. Babits has $47,000 and previously loaned himself $70,000.

Posey has qualified by petition while his challengers have paid the qualifying fee for the ballot.

A member of the Freedom Caucus, Posey is currently serving his eighth term overall and was elected in 2008. His challengers have called for term limits and believe Posey has served in Congress for too long.

District 8 encompasses coastal areas east of Orlando, from Titusville to south of Melbourne and Palm Bay.

Florida’s Voice spoke with all of the Republican candidates running against Posey on their top campaign priorities.

Joe Babits

Babits moved to Florida in 2012 and is originally from New Jersey. He lives with his wife, Alathia, in Vero Beach and has one daughter named Chandler.

He is the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s disclosure attorney for Shell USA.

With his experience working with the government, Babits told Florida’s Voice he believes Washington is “a mess.”

“I have to deal with the government every day, they make up stuff, it’s just unbelievable, and you get frustrated seeing it,” Babits explained.

Babits said his experience with “rule writing and negotiations” are useful skills he can take to Congress.

“I worked in the government, and it’s outrageous to see the ‘deep state,’ and it was clearly there with Trump, and it’s also there with Biden, I mean, you see the State Department releasing something challenging his Israeli policy,” Babits explained.

Babits said he would like to make all government employees “at-will.”

Other top priorities include securing the border, fixing the economy and social security.

“You could solve the border problem in about half an hour, you could even solve social security maybe a little bit longer, but none of these [problems] are very difficult,” he said.

“It was, to me, even shameful, when the new speaker of the house, did not essentially codify Trump’s executive orders, including no asylum if you cross over the southern border, and put that in the continuing resolution, because then it would have passed, and then that’s all we need. We don’t need more money thrown at it, but we need that,” Babits said.

Babits believes that Ukraine and Russia are “not our problems.”

“Our problem is on the southern border, and you have to take care of that first,” Babits said, noting he would not support any additional funding for Ukraine.

When it comes to free speech, Babits believes Elon Musk deserves to be awarded for his efforts in the purchase of Twitter, now known as X. Musk purchased the platform in October 2022.

“I would call for hearings. Thanks to Elon Musk, who probably should get the Medal of Freedom for what he did, he has released these emails, and we know that the FBI has suppressed, or went to them to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop with no evidence that it was Russia, they just did it,” Babits said.

Musk released documents to journalists called the “Twitter Files” which included “internal discussions leading to it censor the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential election,” as reported by Fox News.

Babits said there needs to be hearings and those associated with the incident “should be fired.”

“Quite honestly, that was a greater threat to our democracy than anything on Jan. 6,” Babits said.

“I think what Americans want is fairness, and they don’t see that today,” Babits explained.

To learn more about Babits, click on his campaign website here.

John Hearton

Also in the running, John Hearton told Florida’s Voice he has been a Florida resident for four years and lives in Satellite Beach. He is married and has three children.

Hearton is a businessman and technologist with a background in cybersecurity.

He told Florida’s Voice he never thought he would be in politics, but over a couple years of “frustration,” he decided to “give back and do what I can to help this country move forward.”

“We’re in a very big turmoil-type of scenario where it seems like neither side can get along, neither side can make things happen and forward the ‘America first’ kind of agenda,” he explained.

“We need to get our own house in order, which is a major issue that’s out there right now,” Hearton said.

Hearton believes “special interests” have been “doing damage to this country for a long time,” and “we need to do what we can to try and bring this country back to ‘we the people.'”

One of his top priorities is securing the southern border.

“We’ve got illegal drugs coming over, we’ve got human trafficking that’s a big issue, gang violence that’s a big issue, we’ve got violence, period, that has been put onto our police force, our first responders, and it’s a major, major concern,” Hearton explained.

He also believes in term limits, a balanced budget amendment, and standalone bills.

“We are sitting here at $34.6 trillion in debt. Quite frankly, nobody in Congress, nobody in the White House, is standing up and saying, this is the wrong thing to do – that we need to make drastic cuts to our government,” Hearton said.

When it comes to the government, Hearton said the country needs “smaller government and less taxes.”

Hearton said he believes if “it’s not in the constitution,” then “we have not given the federal government the authority to run it.”

He said the U.S. Department of Education should be shut down and that others can “either be at least downsized or eliminated altogether – in saving the government a lot of money.”

One of Hearton’s campaign slogans on his website reads: “God, Country, Florida.”

He told Florida’s Voice he attributes his strength to “the person who deserves the credit – the Good Lord.”

“He called me to this and it’s time for me to go ahead and stand up and continue to push,” Hearton said.

To learn more about Hearton, click on his campaign website here.

Brian Jones

Jones is a 36-year-old aerospace engineer. He moved to Florida in 2020 and resides in West Melbourne with his wife, Ashley. He previously lived in the state in 2016.

Growing up outside of D.C., Jones said he has always had an “affinity” towards politics but now feels it is “time to actually solve the problems at the national level.”

“I have a lot of reasons why I’m running, but the primary one is that I believe we need problem solvers and not politicians,” Jones told Florida’s Voice.

Jones wrote a book called “Engineering A Better America” which is his platform outlining “why we need to engineer better solutions and how someone of my mindset as an engineer, not a politician, takes the principles of conservatism and actually demonstrates why it’s the path forward for the country.”

“I’ve been fighting for my country as an engineer for the last decade. I’m a defense contractor. I’ve been deployed to Afghanistan. I’ve been protecting our warfighters and trying to take out bad guys for the last 15 years of my life,” Jones said.

At the top of his priority list, Jones said he wants to close the southern border.

“I will say the quiet part out loud – Congress is powerless to do anything when you have an executive branch and the Department of Justice, that won’t actually enforce the laws or hold anyone accountable, you’re seeing that we are paying the price for that,” Jones said.

Jones also wants to tackle the national debt. He is in favor of single subject spending bills, as well as term limits for members of Congress. He said he is against sending any more funding to Ukraine.

“Congress, despite the fact that we have a Republican majority, the house controls the purse strings of the federal budget, and with a Republican majority, they have failed to balance the budget for decades,” Jones explained.

He believes the number one threat to our national security is the nation’s debt.

“The fallout from disastrous democrat spending has been record high inflation that’s destroying lower and middle class Americans. We are in the infancy of these negative side effects with the long term affects still to be seen,” Jones said.

Jones believes the country needs “leaders in D.C. that have the strength and courage to balance the budget.”

“No more RINOs [Republican in name only] caving to Democrat pressures,” his website states.

An advocate for “accountability,” he believes voters should “start asking ‘how?'”

“That’s the biggest thing that I’ve been trying to communicate to voters is that a lot of times these guys come out […] they get on TV and they make these empty platitudes,” Jones explained. “They give great speeches, and they talk about a lot of things, and yet they say absolutely nothing.”

Jones believes voters need to “stop gravitating towards people who just say the nice things without actually saying anything.”

By not “asking the right questions,” Jones said voters have been “sending career politicians and the wrong people to Congress, who are not actually serving the interests of the people.”

To learn more about Jones, visit his campaign website here.

Democrat Daniel McDow, and Henry R. Schuman – an independent candidate – have also filed to run for the seat.

The primary will be held on Aug. 20 and the general election will be Nov. 5. The filing deadline is April 26.