Florida voters get to pick their preferred candidate in five statewide political races this year.
The offices on the ballot: governor, U.S. senator, attorney general, chief financial officer and agriculture commissioner.
The gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races may be generating the most headlines, but the attorney general position is an important one.
The position is the state's chief legal officer.
Here's what voters need to know about the attorney general's race:
Who are the candidates?
The Republican incumbent, Attorney General James Uthmeier, was appointed to the role by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Before that, Uthmeier had been the governor's chief of staff.
In 2016, he worked as counsel for President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. He later became senior adviser and counsel to former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.
José Javier Rodríguez, his Democratic opponent, was the assistant secretary of labor for employment and training for President Joe Biden's administration.
He served in the state Legislature from 2012 to 2020. The Cuban American lost reelection as a state senator representing part of Miami-Dade County to Republican Ileana Garcia, who's still in office but running for reelection this year.
His loss became a massive news story after investigators found that a third-party candidate with the same last name, Rodríguez, was intentionally used to confuse and siphon away voters. Garcia won by 34 votes. The so-called "ghost candidate" got thousands of votes.
Florida Power & Light, the largest electric utility company in the United States, faces allegations of involvement, which it denies.
A former GOP state lawmaker was convicted of election law violations for his role in the effort. Garcia denies knowing about it.
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The candidates' priorities
While in the Legislature, Rodríguez clashed with Florida Power & Light. He particularly drew the company's ire after Rodríguez proposed allowing landlords to sell rooftop solar power to their tenants, bypassing the utility's sales.
One of Rodríguez's key campaign website-listed priorities is to "rein in the utilities" and "investigate state monopoly electric utilities over excessive rate setting, hidden fees, and deceptive billing practices."
His campaign priorities are split into three categories: crime, costs and corruption.
Under crime, he says he wants to dismantle criminal organizations and give law enforcement the resources to fight violent crime. He also emphasizes protecting senior citizens from elder abuse and making Big Tech "accountable for hurting Florida's children."
Under costs, he says he wants to combat rising utility and insurance prices and investigate the involved companies. He says he wants to stop "corporate landlord" price gouging and target wage theft as well as unsafe working conditions. He also says he wants to "protect taxpayers from data centers" and make sure that companies responsible for pollution pay for the cleanup.
Under corruption, he says he plans to "find, prosecute, and root out the rampant corruption in our state government." He says he wants to recover the $10 million involved in the Hope Florida controversy and look into the contracts made for Alligator Alcatraz. He says he wants Floridians to have more Epstein file transparency. He also notes he intends to "investigate the misuse of public education dollars" with school vouchers and "fight any sale, swap, or surplus of Florida's public and conservation land."
Uthmeier's campaign website doesn't have a dedicated page for priorities, but his biography mentions some areas of focus: "From prosecuting dangerous criminals to combating illegal immigration to suing corporations that jeopardize shareholder value by sexualizing and indoctrinating our children, James is focused on keeping Florida safe, strong, and free," it reads.
He talked his priorities over with the News Service of Florida earlier this year.
With his time already in office, Uthmeier says he's most proud of "what we've done to take down child predators."
"This office has always cared about protecting children and going after predators, but we've repurposed a lot of resources and staff and have made this our No. 1 priority," he said.
He says that will remain his No. 1 priority if he's reelected.
Citing national security and data protection concerns, Uthmeier also touts how his office has created a unit investigating companies with ties to China.
Another priority of his: Big Tech and artificial intelligence, saying children are "unnecessarily being put in harm's way." He's sued multiple online platforms — most recently Discord — for allegedly not protecting minors. He's also taking OpenAI to court.
"At the end of the day," he also said to the News Service of Florida, "we will always stand by law enforcement."
Big disagreements between the candidates
A big point of contention: Alligator Alcatraz.
Uthmeier played a key role in orchestrating the former immigrant detention center in the Everglades, which created a lot of headlines.
Rodríguez has been a big critic of the facility: "While families are struggling with rising costs, more than a billion taxpayer dollars were wasted on cruel political stunts like the so-called Alligator Alcatraz instead of going toward public safety, hurricane preparedness, or lowering costs," he said in a July statement.
Another high-profile sticking point: the Hope Florida controversy.
A leaked grand jury report accused the DeSantis administration of misappropriating $10 million.
It detailed how money from a Medicaid settlement went to the Hope Florida Foundation, which is tied to First Lady Casey DeSantis' charity effort. Yet, the money ultimately went to help defeat the 2024 ballot measure to allow recreational marijuana.
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The report said Uthmeier, when he was DeSantis' chief of staff, was involved in directing the money.
An appeals court disagreed with the report's language and key findings, ordering it to be struck from the court record.
Uthmeier called the whole situation politically motivated and insisted, like DeSantis himself, that the only people who broke the law were the ones who leaked the report: "If somebody shows a violation of law, no matter where it is, I pursue it," he said.
On the campaign trail, Rodríguez has denounced the money transfer.
"Rather than rooting out corruption, my opponent is the root of corruption," he recently told WUSF.
The Republican Party of Florida recently sued to block Democratic ads highlighting the situation. A judge refused to immediately grant the request, but the lawsuit brought even more attention to the topic. The party has since dropped it.
Beyond Hope Florida and Alligator Alcatraz, the candidates have a slew of policy disagreements, from gun laws to abortion to the Trump administration agenda. Uthmeier has Trump's endorsement.
Who will win?
That's up to voters, but some polls indicate it could be a close race.
Any statewide Democratic candidate faces big challenges in Florida, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 1.5 million voters. Uthmeier also has the fundraising advantage.
If you have any questions about state government or the legislative process, you can ask the Your Florida team by clicking here.
This story was produced by WUSF as part of a statewide journalism initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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