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Research as of Nov. 1, 2026. Early voting: Mon., Oct. 19 to Sun., Nov. 1. Election Day: Tue., Nov. 3, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m..Early voting runs through 7 p.m. Sun., Nov. 1; Election Day is Tue., Nov. 3.Early voting ended Sun., Nov. 1. Election Day is Tue., Nov. 3, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., at your precinct's polling place.Election Day, Tue., Nov. 3: polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at your precinct's polling place.Polls closed at 7 p.m. Tue., Nov. 3; anyone in line by then still votes. Check your voter info at votehillsborough.gov

State House, District 66

State Legislature

Listen: this contest in 1:19

Research as of Nov. 1, 2026

Read by a synthetic voice from this page’s research. A summary, not a recommendation.

Read the transcript

In State House District 66, a Republican first elected in 2020 is seeking reelection. Republican Traci Koster, the incumbent, faces Democrat Jose A. "Dante" Sanchez Sanchez. Koster is a Tampa family law attorney who chairs the House Civil Justice and Claims Subcommittee. She has pushed for years to widen compensation for people who were wrongfully incarcerated, and the Senate's version of that change became law in 2025. She was reelected in 2024 with about 58 percent. She is endorsed by the Hillsborough Republican Party, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries of Florida and Florida Realtors. Sanchez Sanchez is a U.S. Air Force veteran, according to his campaign. He lists stronger schools, safer neighborhoods, family well-being and the environment as his priorities. The research found no progressive group endorsements for either candidate. No public poll was found. In state filings through October 29, Koster had raised about 206 thousand dollars and Sanchez Sanchez about 11 thousand. Creative Loafing Tampa Bay's editors back Sanchez Sanchez. The Tampa Bay Times made no picks in state House races. Research as of November 1, 2026. Sources and the full picture are on this page.

This contest is on some Hillsborough County ballots, not on the example ballot this site is built around. Find my ballot shows whether it’s on yours, or check your county’s sample ballot or the official precinct finder.Check your county’s sample ballot or the official precinct finder to see whether it’s on yours.

FactOfficial sample ballot wording

State Representative, District 66 · Vote for one

  • Traci KosterRepublican Party
  • Jose A. "Dante" Sanchez SanchezDemocratic Party
Lead recommendationEditorialCreative Loafing Tampa Bay, Oct. 22, 2026

Creative Loafing’s pick

José A. 'Dante' Sánchez Sánchez

Why

Creative Loafing listed this pick in its guide without a write-up. Its reporting on the race is below.

Creative Loafing voting guide 2026: How to vote in Tampa Bay, and who we're voting for

From the record our summary of sourced facts, not Creative Loafing’s words

  • An Air Force reservist and immigrant electrician who became Hillsborough’s first Hispanic electrical inspector. (Florida Politics)
  • His platform: insurance-hardening grants tied to lower premiums, safety fixes on Dale Mabry, Gunn Highway and Sheldon Road, and pump-station upgrades. (Jose 'Dante' Sanchez Sanchez campaign)
  • His opponent, Rep. Traci Koster, voted for both recent laws limiting public-sector unions (2023 and 2026). (Florida House)

Why this leads: The site owner's choice (Oct. 24): the recommendation that best matches the owner's values, shown first on every contest. Still an editorial: one outlet's opinion, not this site's.

Where it stands

Fact

Koster is the incumbent. She won the seat in 2024 with 58.3% and in 2022 with 60.1%, both times against a Democratic opponent. No public polls of this race were found. Through Oct. 29, 2026, Koster had raised about $206,000 in monetary contributions and Sanchez Sanchez about $11,000.8,9,1,2

  • 2024: Traci Koster (R) 58.3% (55,211) vs Nick Clemente (D) 41.7% (39,534)8
  • 2022: Traci Koster (R) 60.1% (45,305) vs David Tillery (D) 39.9% (30,027)9

No polls found in the research.

Research as of Oct 23, 2026.

The money gap

Fact

18×Traci Koster has raised 18 times as much as Jose A. "Dante" Sanchez Sanchez.

  • Traci KosterRepublican · incumbent

    $206,114as of Oct 29, 2026

  • Jose A. "Dante" Sanchez SanchezDemocrat

    $11,395as of Oct 29, 2026

Monetary contributions reported to election officials. In-kind contributions and loans are left out here and listed under each candidate below.

Candidates and money

Fact

Traci KosterRepublican · incumbent

Traci Koster is the Republican incumbent in House District 66 and lives in Tampa. Her Florida House profile lists her occupation as a marital and family law attorney and says she was first elected to the House in 2020. In the current term she chairs the Civil Justice & Claims Subcommittee and is vice chair of the Justice Budget Subcommittee.5,4,10

  • Her House profile lists a UCF bachelor's degree in legal studies and a law degree from Stetson. It names her as co-founder and co-chair of Tampa Bay Pro Bono Partners and as 2019-2020 president of the Hillsborough County Bar Association's Young Lawyers Division.10
  • She sponsored HB 893 (2026), which deals with interest on certain trust accounts used for purposes authorized by Florida Supreme Court rule. It passed the House 112-0 on Feb. 11, 2026 and the Senate 38-0 on Feb. 19, 2026, and the Governor vetoed it on June 30, 2026.7
  • In 2025 she sponsored HB 59 on compensation for people wrongfully incarcerated. It would drop the 'clean hands' bar for people with unrelated prior felonies and lengthen the filing deadline. The Florida Phoenix reported she had tried for this change in earlier sessions.6,12
  • HB 59 was laid on the table on April 29, 2025 after its Senate companion, SB 130, passed and became Chapter 2025-194.6
  • The Tampa Bay Times reported that on Jan. 29, 2026 she presented a proposed 'bill of rights' for school board members to a House education subcommittee.11

Raised $206,114, spent $114,409 (DOS campaign treasurer's reports, all-dates totals through the period ending Oct. 29, 2026 (G6), as of Oct 29, 2026)These are cumulative totals as of Oct. 29, 2026. 'Raised' is monetary contributions only. The same page also shows $46,179.33 in in-kind contributions, most of it reported in the Sept. 5 through Oct. 16 periods. The page's column labels are flattened. Reading the columns as Contributions (monetary, loans, in-kind) followed by Expenditures (monetary, then two smaller columns) is our interpretation, and it is consistent with the per-period figures. The page reports no cash-on-hand figure.1

Jose A. "Dante" Sanchez SanchezDemocrat

Jose A. "Dante" Sanchez Sanchez is the Democratic nominee and qualified on June 8, 2026. His campaign site describes him as a U.S. Air Force veteran running from Tampa. It names his priorities as schools, families, the environment and economic opportunity.5,3,17

  • Citing Florida Politics, a voter-guide aggregator reports that he served as an Air Force reservist with the 927th Security Forces Squadron from 2016 to 2026, including a Middle East deployment. The original article could not be opened.18
  • The same aggregator, citing no source, says he immigrated from the Dominican Republic in 2005 and became Hillsborough County's first Hispanic electrical inspector in 2014. It also says he founded an electrical contracting firm that serves water and wastewater utilities.18
  • His campaign site lists his themes as stronger schools, safer neighborhoods and family well-being, plus environmental stewardship. It links to a 'Big 7' proposals plan for the district.17

Raised $11,395, spent $13,011 (DOS campaign treasurer's reports, all-dates totals through the period ending Oct. 29, 2026 (G6), as of Oct 29, 2026)These are cumulative totals as of Oct. 29, 2026; nothing changed after the period ending Oct. 2. 'Raised' is monetary contributions; the page also shows $9,807.77 in loans. Column interpretation is as described for Koster: the per-period figures add up to the totals. The page notes that waivers ('no activity' filings) were filed for some periods. It reports no cash-on-hand figure.2

Not found in the research

  • Tampa Bay Times: its complete Nov. 3 recommendations list (updated Oct. 20) covers no Florida House races, so times is null and the Times was not searched further.
  • Write-in and minor candidates: the DOS 2026 general-election candidate list shows only Koster and Sanchez Sanchez for HD 66 and no write-ins. The Hillsborough all-races sample ballot (votehillsborough.gov DocumentCenter/View/2615) returned HTTP 403, so the ballot names could not be checked against it directly.
  • Progressive endorsements: no endorsement in HD 66 was found from the Florida AFL-CIO (its House list skips from HD 65 to HD 67), the West Central Florida Labor Council (Oct. 7 list skips HD 66), Equality Florida Action PAC, or the Florida Planned Parenthood PAC. The Planned Parenthood check rests on the House names in WLRN's Oct. 13 report, which may not be the full slate. Searches for Moms Demand Action/Everytown, Sierra Club Florida, Florida Conservation Voters, the Florida Education Association, Hillsborough County Democrats and Creative Loafing Tampa also found nothing for HD 66 in 2026. Blue Voter Guide's HD 66 page (403) could not be opened.
  • Sanchez Sanchez's campaign site shows logos for the Dominican Association of Tampa and a church as supporters. The site does not say these are formal endorsements, and nothing from the groups themselves was found, so they are not recorded as endorsements.
  • Right-leaning endorsements: searches found no 2026 HD 66 endorsement from the NRA, Florida Right to Life, Americans for Prosperity-Florida, the Florida PBA/FOP, the Florida Medical Association, or the Florida Farm Bureau. AIF's Sept. 21 second round did not include HD 66; Koster appears in its July 13 round.
  • iVoterGuide (a conservative Christian voter guide; a rating, not an endorsement) labels Koster 'Leans Conservative' and Sanchez Sanchez 'Leans Liberal' and lists no endorsements for either. Not recorded as an endorsement.
  • Sanchez Sanchez background: the Florida Politics article that the aggregator cites for his Air Force service could not be opened (HTTP 402). His immigration and career details come only from that aggregator, which gives no source for them. BallotReady, which was not opened, reportedly lists a somewhat different job history.
  • Cash on hand: the DOS TreSel pages show no cash-on-hand figure for either candidate. No Oct. 3-16 period appeared for Sanchez Sanchez as of Oct. 23.
  • Polls: no public polling of HD 66 was found.
  • Ballotpedia district and candidate pages loaded empty, so Ballotpedia is not cited.
  • No reliable-source reporting of controversies involving either candidate was found in searches.

Tampa Bay Times

EditorialMoney map

Not found in the research.

EditorialAs recorded in each guide

Endorsements, both lenses

Neither lens is this site's voice

Progressive lens

Lens

Not found in the research.

Right-leaning lens

Lens
Traci KosterREPIncumbent4 support · 0 oppose

SupportEndorsement

Republican Party & officials
Business & industry
Jose A. "Dante" Sanchez SanchezDEM0 support · 0 oppose

No listings found in this guide.

Searched, nothing found

Not found in the research.

Sources

18 for this contest, official records first

Where to vote