Pinellas County School Board candidate Katie Blaxberg is speaking up after months of attacks on not her platform, but private and personal choices she has made over the years. That includes her past and current party affiliations, despite running in what is statutorily a nonpartisan race.
For Blaxberg, the personal attacks are more than just politicking as usual. The mom of three has installed extra security at her home in response to fears that her critics may take things beyond internet chat rooms.
At issue are those who support one of Blaxberg's opponents — most of them affiliated with the controversial Moms for Liberty group that is targeting School Board races nationwide.
Blaxberg is a registered Republican, like opponent Stacy Geier.
But while Blaxberg has been a Republican for the vast majority of her voting-age life — and worked as an aide for prominent Republican Pinellas County Commissioner and former state Rep. Chris Latvala — she briefly switched her party affiliation to Democrat.
It's this fact that Geier's supporters are exploiting, including through sharing cherry-picked excerpts from a podcast interview Blaxberg gave in August 2019 explaining her decision to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and, later, switch parties. It was a difficult decision because the Republican values she held were no longer the focus of the national conversation.
Blaxberg, who grew up in the ruby red Panhandle and was raised by conservative parents, registered as a Republican when she turned 18, and she stayed with the GOP through adulthood until 2019. She changed back to the GOP last year.
She hasn't said much about her brief foray into the Democratic Party, until now.
Blaxberg never thought she'd have to go public with one of the most traumatic moments of her life, but speaking to Florida Politics about the direction her campaign has gone as attacks mount, she said she felt it was important to reclaim her voice, and to advocate for women in the process.
Blaxberg was raped. It happened in the early 2000s, when Blaxberg was in her early 20s. Her rapist was someone she knew. She thought she was safe. Afterwards, she was scared, confused and traumatized. Years later, she learned her perpetrator was an avid Donald Trump supporter.
Over the years, Blaxberg has sought therapy and now, she's proud to be a survivor. But her experience has and continues to inform her decisions.
"It was the 'Access Hollywood' tape that did it," Blaxberg said of her decision to vote for Clinton in 2016, referring to the shocking hot mic audio of former President Donald Trump bragging about grabbing women — assaulting them, Blaxberg said.
"Those words were really triggering," she added.
"I had a deeply visceral response to the 'Access Hollywood' tape and when I learned that my rapist glorified this rhetoric while supporting Trump's candidacy I knew I could not vote for my party's nominee," Blaxberg said of her decision to vote for Clinton in 2016. "It felt as if they were using those words as a permission slip."
The idea of putting someone who was so cavalier about assaulting women not only picked a painful scab for Blaxberg, it made her fearful of what a Trump presidency would mean for other women, other victims, other survivors.
She was still a Republican when she voted for Clinton. And before she cast that ballot, she voted in the Republican Primary, hoping to do her part to field a GOP candidate not named Trump.
That was all when Blaxberg was a mother of two, both boys. In 2017 she adopted a daughter.
"I wanted her to know she had power. I wanted her to know she was safe," Blaxberg said.
It wasn't an easy choice, but Blaxberg didn't recognize her own party anymore, and the complacency with what she and so many others saw and still see as blatant bigotry, misogyny and racism, drove her away.
But the departure was only temporary. She returned to the GOP in 2023, before filing to run for School Board. Her critics, which includes Moms for Liberty Pinellas Chapter Chair Angela Dubach, claim she changed her party affiliation to run in what is a conservative district. Blaxberg said that's not the case at all.
"I wanted to make a difference in the party I grew up with," she said.
Leaving felt like giving up, she explained. Her values have not changed, so instead of remaining a Democrat, she decided to return to the Republican Party to restore the decency she once appreciated about the GOP.
Blaxberg is frustrated with the irony of facing brutal attacks — ones largely waged in private groups online, but whose content often makes its way to Blaxberg through shared screenshots that have revealed, terrifyingly, photos of her children — from members of her own party. She also chuckles at how partisanship is playing such a heavy role in a nonpartisan election. And she's mad, too.
"It makes me angry that I have to qualify my choices in who I voted for eight years ago with my own personal trauma," Blaxberg lamented.
Yet Blaxberg has spent weeks grappling with whether to address criticism about her party affiliation. She didn't feel like she should have to justify her conservative values, which should speak for themselves. And she's not quite sure she understands why a commitment to serving all of her would-be constituents regardless of party affiliation comes across as a hot take.
"Working with Chris, I learned the importance of working across the aisle as an elected leader in order to accomplish things for the greater good," she said, referring to her work as an aide for Latvala while he was Chair of the Florida House Education Committee, which included during the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery.
"Not once did I ever answer the phone and ask if they voted for Latvala, because that's not what public service is about. I want to be a leader who represents everyone."
"When I take office, I'm going to be representing people who voted for my opponent, but that doesn't make them any less worthy of my advocacy from the dais," she added.
Telling her story — one that is deeply personal and private — wasn't an easy decision. But as painful as the attacks have been for her personally, she's more worried that staying silent empowers bullies and sends the wrong message to the students she hopes to serve.
"School safety is a big part of my platform, that is why Sheriff Bob Gualtieri endorsed me. A big part of that safety is mental health," Blaxberg said. "Suicide is the No. 2 cause of death among our kids, behind accidents, and cyberbullying and some of the more unsavory aspects of social media are driving this epidemic among our youth. I don't want what's happening in this race to be a model for kids."
She hopes that by speaking up about her trauma, and explaining how it informed her personal political choices over the last eight years, she can now close the chapter on this issue and the campaign can move on to substance.
"Politics has gotten so far away from policy and has turned to attacking people," Blaxberg said. "As a candidate and as an elected official I want to make sure that we bring some decency to this process."
Geier has personally made attacks against Blaxberg's political affiliation, saying at a Republican Executive Committee Meeting, "I am the only candidate for this seat who has never been a registered Democrat and has never pushed the liberal agenda."
She also has not denounced her supporters who have made more serious attacks. At the same meeting she went on to say, "thank you to Angela Dubach, and David Happe, and Amanda Capes, and Heather Vernillo for guiding me through those decisions and to step out in boldness to fight for our children."
The people Geier thanked are the same ones who have launched what Blaxberg describes as a bullying campaign against her, according to screenshots she has of various posts.
"These smoke and mirror tactics are meant to distract from that fact that she is not a qualified candidate," Blaxberg said. "She is out of touch with the real issues at hand for the school board, and instead called on the Pinellas County Commission to audit the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections over invalid claims of voter fraud."
Blaxberg is referencing comments Geier made at a Pinellas County Commission meeting on April 12, 2022.
And Geier isn't the only candidate Blaxberg faces for the District 5 School Board seat. Also running to replace retiring incumbent Carol Cook are Democrats Dawn Douglas and Brad DeCorte.
District 5, which includes Clearwater, is conservative with a more than 14,000 voter advantage for the GOP. That means Democratic candidates aren't likely to gain traction in the district.
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