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Rebekah Jones
Rebekah Jones (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Florida's 1st Congressional District. She lost in the general election on November 8, 2022.
Jones completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Rebekah Jones was born in Windber, Pennsylvania. She earned a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University in 2011. She earned a graduate degree from Louisiana State University in 2014. She attended Florida State University. Jones' career experience includes working as a geospatial data manager with the Florida Department of Health. She has been affiliated with the Sierra Club, the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoological Park, Habitat for Humanity, and with COVID-19 Data Hero Awards.[1]
Elections
2022
See also: Florida's 1st Congressional District election, 2022
General election
General election for U.S. House Florida District 1
Incumbent Matt Gaetz defeated Rebekah Jones in the general election for U.S. House Florida District 1 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Matt Gaetz (R) | 67.9 | 197,349 |
 | Rebekah Jones (D)  | 32.1 | 93,467 | |
| Total votes: 290,816 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House Florida District 1
Rebekah Jones defeated Margaret Schiller in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Florida District 1 on August 23, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Rebekah Jones | 62.6 | 21,875 |
 | Margaret Schiller | 37.4 | 13,091 | |
| Total votes: 34,966 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for U.S. House Florida District 1
Incumbent Matt Gaetz defeated Mark Lombardo and Greg Merk in the Republican primary for U.S. House Florida District 1 on August 23, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Matt Gaetz | 69.7 | 73,374 |
 | Mark Lombardo | 24.4 | 25,720 | |
 | Greg Merk | 5.9 | 6,170 | |
| Total votes: 105,264 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Jeremy Kelly (R)
- Bryan Jones (R)
- William McPhillips (R)
Endorsements
To view Jones' endorsements in the 2022 election, please click here.
Campaign themes
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Rebekah Jones completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Jones' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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- Science and fact-based policies
- Make our world a healthier, more sustainable place
- Serving the people of Florida
When I was 16 years old, Hurricane Katrina washed away everything I had ever known. I grew up along the northern Gulf Coast, just miles north of Gulfport, Mississippi. You could say that storm led me down the path of wanting to better understand hurricanes, climate change and disasters. I've worked in disaster response my entire professional career, and dedicated my studies in both my master's and doctoral degrees to research hurricane impacts during various climatic periods in the Holocene.
From the global scale down to a neighborhood, environmental issues encompass so many problems we face today: energy independence and cost, air quality, water quality, temperature extremes, extreme weather/storms, infrastructure, public health, global financial stability, even international intervention policy.
1. Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson
2. Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff
I think the United States needs to confront its sickness of the soul. We have become more divided, angry, resentful, cruel, and lacking empathy than ever before. There are Americans who actively cheer for the pain and suffering of complete strangers because one person tells them to. Whatever hurt or shared trauma our nation endured needs to be healed - however uncomfortable that process may be.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign website
Jones' campaign website stated the following:
| “ |
Environment As a scientist who has spent more than a decade studying the Earth, its systems, and the friction between the human and natural worlds, the environment will be one of my focus areas. Environmental issues encompass a wide range of issues, from addressing climate change and comprehensive infrastructure funding, to localized problems like protecting timber forests from the Southern pine beetle and emergency planning and response. Florida's beaches should be envied by the world for their beauty. Protecting those beaches - whether from shoreline erosion, sea level rise or major hurricanes - should be a top priority. More than just beaches comprise Florida's First, however, and the unique environmental challenges to forestry, land management, and climate change can define economics in the region. We need environmental policies driven by science, not political posturing or pandering. Long-term sustainability of natural resources could have a monumental impact on the vitality of Florida's ecosystem, both for tourism and for economics.
Florida’s 1st has the highest percentage of veterans of any Congressional district in the United States. Nearly one-fifth of every adult in the district served in the United States military, and Eglin Airforce Base employs nearly 15,000 civilian and military personnel today. Though Eglin today boasts aggressive environmental protection policies, in previous decades Eglin tested a range of chemical weapons, including Agent Orange, that caused disease to military and civilian personnel. I want to make it easier for veterans exposed to toxic substances to access Veterans Affairs benefits.
Federal restrictions on funding for a range of scientific issues, from disease control to medicine, should be repealed. The government has a vested interest in developing the most advanced science in the world, and our place as a leader in scientific discovery and ingenuity in the world must be restored. Decisions about policies with a wide-range of potential impacts should be made only when the best available information, data and research shows the plan to be in the best interest of the people. No more gambling or bad bets with your income, safety or lives.
Federal Funding and Universal Pre-K While communities and states carry most of the burden in funding schools, the feds could do more to ensure every child has access to a quality education from pre-K through graduate school. Universal Pre-K would relieve working parents from a statewide average of $6,647 per year in childcare costs alone. Higher Education While rich kids coast through college with D's and $0 in debt, working-class kids depend on a mix of scholarships and student loans, often requiring a minimum GPA and putting students in debt for decades with interest rates exceeding 6%. Our nation's best and brightest carry a collective debt of $1.57 TRILLION. Capping interest rates to reflect our nation's priorities of furthering scientific and medical discovery through advanced study would allow brilliant students to embrace their gifts without sacrificing 10% or more of their income every month for 25 years. Supporting Teachers and Families When the state of Florida refused to published data about COVID-19 in schools, I stepped up and led the effort to do so nationally. As an advocate for students and teachers, I believe early education should be a community effort that unites parents, teachers and students.
I became a whistleblower and reluctant public figure for refusing to mislead Florida's people with bad data in support of a political plan not grounded by the science. Since then, I've taken the fight for government accountability and transparency personally. I've been invited as the keynote speaker to half-a-dozen major academic conferences about the ethics of data in a crisis, been honored with titles like Whistleblower of the Year, Elemental's 50 Experts to Trust in a Pandemic, Fortune's 40 Under 40 for Healthcare, Forbes' Tech Person of the Year, and have been awarded the Samuel Lawrence Prize, and more. Florida deserves representatives who are honest and care about the people. Being an advocate for accountability and transparency within government is the first step in trusting your represenatatives.
Unlike some of Florida's current representatives, you won't find me in Las Vegas on a traitor tour of the country for my own self-promotion. I will be available to you as often as possible, including during my campaign. You can schedule a one-on-one with me by submitting your information through the survey on my home page. We can chat over the phone, through email, zoom, or in-person.
If you can't vote, then you can't participate in our democracy. The right to vote is one of the most sacred and fundamental pieces of a government that functions for the people. Any laws that might impact a person's access or right to vote should be heavily scrutinized as appropriate. Without a vote, we lose our voice in our democracy.
The United States makes it too hard to hold the media accountable when they publish fake news and outright lies. Media should serve as the Fourth Estate - keeping government accountable, not working as an extension of government offices. I want to make it easier to hold media who publish defamatory, libelous, slanderous and grossly negligent articles about private citizens and limited public figures accountable. This issue has personally impacted my life in the last year, and I know how helpless an ordinary person can feel when the mainstream media defames and slanders the people.[2] |
” |
| —Rebekah Jones' campaign website (2022)[3] | ||
See also
2022 Elections
External links
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Candidate U.S. House Florida District 1 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on July 24, 2021
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Rebekah for Congress, “Issues,” accessed October 7, 2022
