Following the Money Behind Josie Tomkow
Campaign finance in Florida often looks complicated because, frankly, complexity is useful when you would rather voters not follow the money. Josie Tomkow has a candidate account, two associated political committees, and millions of dollars moving through organizations with names that reveal approximately as much as a witness-protection program.
So let’s simplify it.
Tomkow has her regular campaign account. She also chairs two political committees: Friends of Josie Tomkow and Florida Farmers and Ranchers United. Florida election records confirm that Tomkow chairs both committees.
In the reports we looked at for this election cycle, these three accounts have nearly $6 million in contributions and in-kind support. Not every dollar from the committees goes to Tomkow’s campaign, since political committees can spend money elsewhere. Still, this shows us which groups are putting significant money into organizations she runs.
And the numbers get interesting quickly.
Roughly $3.46 million came from other political committees and leadership funds. Business and industry groups gave about $674,000. Health care interests added around $638,000. Real estate, construction, and development groups contributed about $290,000. The Republican Party provided another $169,000, mostly for polling, research, and campaign consulting.
Insurance is another key area. Companies, organizations, and people involved in property, auto, and casualty insurance gave about $92,500 to the three accounts. That deserves more attention than its ranking suggests because Tomkow is now campaigning on “insurance reform” and protecting homeowners.
Her past votes in the State House show what “insurance reform” has meant in practice. In 2019, Tomkow supported HB 7065, which ended the usual one-way attorney-fee protection for contractors and others assigned a homeowner’s insurance benefits. In 2021, she backed SB 76, which made it harder for policyholders to recover legal fees unless they won more than the insurer’s pre-suit offer.
Then came the 2022 special sessions. Tomkow supported SB 2-D, which made attorney-fee multipliers harder to obtain in property-insurance cases, and SB 2-A, which eliminated one-way attorney fees in residential and commercial property-insurance lawsuits altogether. SB 2-A also prohibited assignment of post-loss insurance benefits for policies issued after January 1, 2023. The following year, she voted for HB 837, which broadened the repeal of one-way attorney-fee protections across insurance cases, leaving only limited routes for recovering those fees.
All these votes have shifted more of the cost and risk of fighting an insurer onto the policyholder. That context matters as Tomkow now campaigns on protecting homeowners and reforming insurance.
Judging by that record, insurance reform under Tomkow has sometimes looked a lot like an aid package for the insurance industry. Her campaign literature even proposes creating a Homeowner Claims Bill of Rights. Florida already has one. It is right there in state law, Section 627.7142. Perhaps the mail from Tallahassee takes longer to reach South Tampa than I realized.
Another group worth noting is tied to a growing issue in Tampa and across Florida: data centers.
At least $94,500 came from donors directly connected to data centers, cloud computing, or the infrastructure behind them. This includes NextEra ($57,000), Amazon ($10,000), Microsoft’s PAC ($2,500), and MasTec ($25,000).
Not every dollar is strictly “data-center money,” but these companies have a clear financial interest in an industry that is asking communities for enormous amounts of land, electricity, and infrastructure. NextEra and Google have announced plans to develop large data-center campuses and the energy to run them. MasTec openly offers construction, power, and communications services for data centers.
Noise is another worry for people living near these centers. Large data centers need cooling equipment, electrical systems, and backup power that can operate around the clock. Research on environmental noise broadly links excessive, continuous noise to sleep disturbance, stress, hypertension, and cardiovascular problems. The long-term health effects of data center noise need more study; ongoing industrial noise is already a known public health concern.
And tucked among all those political committees, insurers, developers, and tech companies is Publix, which gave $50,000 to Florida Farmers and Ranchers United. Maybe they just expect Tomkow to buy a lot of groceries.
There’s much more to this story than one article can cover. As time allows, we’ll take a closer look at some of these industries and political committees individually.
When millions of dollars flow through groups with friendly-sounding names, sometimes the best question to ask is the simplest:
Who put the money in?
Sources
Florida Division of Elections — Friends of Josie Tomkow committee record
https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/committees/ComDetail.asp?account=89569
Florida Department of State campaign-finance export — Josie Tomkow candidate account, current cycle, downloaded October 14, 2026
Florida Department of State campaign-finance export — Friends of Josie Tomkow, current cycle, downloaded October 14, 2026
Florida Department of State campaign-finance export — Florida Farmers and Ranchers United, current cycle, downloaded October 14, 2026
Florida Senate — 2023 Bill Summary, HB 837, Civil Remedies
https://www.flsenate.gov/Committees/BillSummaries/2023/html/837
Florida Legislature — Florida Statutes § 627.7142, Homeowner Claims Bill of Rights
https://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0600-0699/0627/Sections/0627.7142.html
NextEra Energy — Google and NextEra Energy partnership involving data centers and energy infrastructure
https://www.investor.nexteraenergy.com/news-and-events/news-releases/2025/12-08-2025-120206963
Amazon — AWS / cloud and AI infrastructure information
https://www.aboutamazon.com/what-we-do
Microsoft — What is a data center? / Azure and AI infrastructure
https://datacenters.microsoft.com/whatisadatacenter/
MasTec — Data Center construction and infrastructure services
https://www.mastec.com/expertise/data-centers
World Health Organization — Environmental Noise and Health
https://www.who.int/tools/compendium-on-health-and-environment/environmental-noise
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