Lori Berman, a 12-year lawmaker gains early lead over political newcomer, Steve Byers in Fla. Senate race

In the race to represent District 26, incumbent State Sen. Lori Berman, a Democrat, has gained an early lead over challenger Steve Byers, as the county elections supervisor website posted the results of early voting and partial results of those ballots cast in person or by mail.

Shortly before 8 p.m., Berman held more than 58% of the 177,578 ballots counted, while Byers took just over 41%.

Berman, 64, is a lawyer by trade and Byers, 54, is an insurance claims adjuster, beekeeper and founder of Hilltop Christian Fellowship in Monticello.

Both candidates call Delray Beach home, living in the district of more than 390,000 voters that stretches the east coast from Boynton Beach to northern Boca Raton, and runs to the western boundary of Palm Beach County, including the Glades.

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Background on the race: State Sen. Lori Berman faces political newcomer Steve Byers in November race for District 26

Lori Berman on tenure, goals

In her dozen years in office, which she has spent both in the state House and Senate, Berman said she was most proud of passing a bill for a Purple Alert. Like the Amber Alert for children or Silver Alert for seniors, a Purple Alert sends out a missing person notification for an adult with developmental disabilities. The state senator also helped to add workplace discrimination protections for pregnant women into state law.

Among her legislative priorities, Berman lists affordable health care, protecting access to abortion, public school funding, climate change and preventing gun violence.

But there is still work left to do, she said, like expanding Medicaid and passing Greyson's Law, which seeks to revoke or suspend shared custody if the child or other parent believed they could be victims of domestic violence.

Berman acknowledged, however, that accomplishing these things and other Democratic priorities, including protecting abortion rights, may be challenging if Gov. Ron DeSantis is re-elected and the GOP maintains comfortable majorities in Tallahassee.

"I couldn't be in the Legislature if I wasn't a glass half-full kind of person," Berman said. "If the governor gets a mandate, if he wins by the double digits that I'm hearing about lately, I think that it will be a really tough session for the minority party. And I think that there will be very little compromise because the governor will be setting himself up to run for president."

Steve Byers on experience, goals

Byers wants to tackle matters of homeowners insurance and HOAs, as well as voter fraud. He believes that supervisors of elections should be able to know how each voter cast a ballot as a form of an audit, and while he homeschools his children, he believes it was important to invest in public schools by incentivizing teachers with better pay.

If elected, Byers believes his party affiliation would work to his advantage. He ran for this seat to serve as a choice for voters.

"If I'm up there as a Republican, I've at least got a majority that if I can sway and they like me, we'll make a difference," he said.

On abortion and housing insurance

The issue of abortion was shaping up to be the Legislature's top issue next session — something that Berman said she hopes voters won't forget about, saying that DeSantis' re-election would ensure abortion would "be even more limited." But Hurricane Ian and the property insurance market will certainly change the legislative focus, both candidates said.

Berman said potential solutions to the insurance crisis include putting together a national catastrophic fund, akin to the state's fund that partially reimburses insurers' hurricane losses. She would also like to require insurance companies that provide auto insurance in Florida but write property insurance business elsewhere to offer similar coverage.

Byers, who worked with property owners hit by Hurricane Michael in 2018, said he felt that insurance companies were "greedy" and "out of touch," and that lawmakers were just parroting the insurance companies' claims that frivolous lawsuits were affecting their bottom line.

"The hand's getting greedy. The hand's getting stuck in the cookie jar. We need them to let go of a few cookies so you can pull your hand out of the cookie jar," he said. "The solution is to get them to realize the risk-reward benefit doesn't have to be so fat for the insurance companies."