Eric Gray, the longtime director of Orlando's Christian Service Center, is making his first run for public office, challenging Republican state Rep. Erika Booth in Florida House District 35. The 50-year-old homelessness advocate enters the race with a fraction of Booth's campaign cash, but he says his years helping people navigate homelessness in Central Florida have pushed him toward the State Capitol instead of the Orange County Commission seat he originally filed to seek.
A Political Newcomer Shifts His Sights
Gray switched his target office, moving from an earlier bid for county commission to this bigger challenge against Booth, according to the Orlando Sentinel. He has led the Christian Service Center since 2020, an organization that provides resources to homeless people in the region, and he has never sought public office before this campaign. Gray, who lives in Waterford Lakes, is the father of four children and is divorced; he holds a master's in public administration from the University of Kentucky and a bachelor's in telecommunications operations from the University of Florida, as reported by Florida Politics.
House District 35 includes parts of eastern Orange and Osceola counties, a politically competitive patch of Central Florida. Democrat Tom Keen flipped the seat in a January 2024 special election, only for Booth to beat him back ten months later in the November 2024 general election. The most recent L2 voter data show the district nearly evenly split, with 42,837 registered Republicans, 41,806 Democrats and 48,995 voters registered as third-party or with no party affiliation, Florida Politics reports.
A Money Gap That Favors the Incumbent
Booth starts the cycle with a significant financial edge. Her campaign has raised $258,000, a funding advantage that derives largely from corporate donors and other groups, while Gray's campaign has raised $83,000, relying almost exclusively on donations from private individuals, per the Sentinel's reporting. Republican leaders have marked HD 35 as a priority district this cycle, and Booth is expected to receive backing from House Speaker-designate Sam Garrison, according to Florida Politics. She has also cast more than 1,000 votes in the Florida House, voting with her party 99% of the time.
Booth did not respond to interview requests from the Orlando Sentinel for the article. Her campaign website includes no detailed political platform, while Gray's campaign site lists affordable housing, supporting public schools, a clear path to economic success for young people, and diversifying allowable uses of tourism tax dollars among his stated issues.
Clashing Views on Homelessness and a Camping Ban
Florida enacted a law in 2024 banning camping in public spaces, and Gray says the policy has played out in painful ways on the ground. He recounted seeing homeless people arrested for sitting on sidewalks after police told them to move along, adding that some of them could not physically get up to comply. According to Gray, Orlando police officials and local politicians told him they opposed enforcing the new law but felt they had no choice.
Gray's decision to run was motivated by state pressure on Orange County commissioners over an immigration deal and his concern about looking over his shoulder while serving on the commission, Florida Politics reports. He has also listed criminalization of homelessness among his policy concerns. He advocates for more homeless shelters across Central Florida, building more affordable starter homes and apartments, less luxury development, and social-service programs that help people avoid losing their homes when they fall behind on bills. Gray said he likes Booth personally but strongly disagrees with how she has voted.
Overlapping Paths, Diverging Priorities
Booth, 48, spent two decades as an elementary school teacher in the Osceola County School District, winning Teacher of the Year twice before leaving the classroom to win a seat on the Osceola County School Board in 2022. She resigned from that board in 2023 to pursue the House seat, saying local issues facing educators, parents and students could not simply be solved locally, per Florida Politics. She has three children with her husband, Ricky Booth, who serves as an Osceola County commissioner.
Gray is a University of Florida alumnus. Both candidates agree that housing affordability is a regional problem and that property-insurance market reforms are needed to lower homeowners' premiums. But their answers to that shared problem diverge sharply. On a candidate questionnaire, Booth said she would vote for a constitutional amendment to slash property taxes and said it would not negatively affect police and firefighter budgets, while Gray said he would vote against the amendment, warning it would cause billions of dollars in cuts to police, firefighters and local infrastructure.
A Fight Over Tourism-Tax Dollars
Gray served on the Orange County Tourist Development Tax Advisory Taskforce in 2023, where he advocated expanding allowable uses of hotel-tax revenue to fund projects that benefit residents, such as better roads and public transportation, rather than directing the money primarily toward Visit Orlando and tourism promotion. Booth opposes that proposal, saying tourism is Central Florida's economy and encompasses theme parks, hotels, restaurants and the workers who staff them.
According to ClickOrlando, Orange County homeless shelters were at capacity as demand grew. The 2026 Point-in-Time Count tallied 2,724 people experiencing homelessness across Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties, with the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida reporting the unsheltered population is increasingly older and more disabled, and an estimated shortage of 97,937 housing units for the region's lowest-wage earners.
In Orange County, shelters have been running at capacity as demand grows, ClickOrlando reported, a dynamic that has shaped Gray's years running the Christian Service Center. Florida Politics reports that the Orlando Sentinel named Gray its Central Floridian of the Year in 2024, citing his advocacy on behalf of homeless residents. Now that advocacy is the foundation of a campaign where he will need to close a steep fundraising gap before voters decide the race in November.
