Republican incumbent Chris Hall is seeking a second term on the Collier County Commission, facing a challenge from political newcomer Cody Davis for the District 2 seat covering North Naples. The district stretches from Pine Ridge Road north to the Lee County line and Bonita Beach Road, putting a chunk of the county's fastest-growing corridor in play. The race also carries a historic footnote: county officials say Davis is the first recognized third-party candidate ever to run in Collier County.
A Rematch With No Incumbent Precedent
Hall, a Republican first elected to the board in 2022, has built his campaign in part around tax policy, particularly his push to scale back funding for Conservation Collier, according to Naples Daily News. His reelection bid has drawn endorsements from the Collier County Republican Executive Committee, Naples Better Government, and the Southwest Florida Young Republicans. Hall did not respond to any of the Naples Daily News' questions and answers for candidates, the outlet reported.
Davis, by contrast, enters the race as an outsider in more ways than one. He founded the Jeffersonian Party of Florida and personally drafted the ballot-access paperwork that the Florida Department of State deemed legally sufficient, according to the same report. The county's qualifying officer confirmed he is the first recognized third-party candidate in Collier County's history. Davis also founded the Collier County Jeffersonian Executive Committee, which the paper describes as the only local third-party committee recognized by the county supervisor of elections.
Davis Builds a Platform Around Growth and Land Use
Davis grew up in Illinois and moved to Naples full-time in 2019. His platform centers on protecting Collier's character, ensuring fairness in land-use decisions, and favoring incremental, walkable development over unchecked sprawl, per Naples Daily News. He speaks regularly at county commission meetings on growth management and Conservation Collier, and the Jeffersonian Party of Florida's broader platform focuses on bottom-up local self-government and strict adherence to constitutional law.
Davis's family has ties to RJW, a national logistics company founded by his grandfather, a legacy he says allows him to devote himself full-time to political organizing and his campaign independent of special interests, the outlet reported. Hall, meanwhile, has lived in ten states — Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Indiana, North Carolina, Alabama, Maryland, Utah, South Carolina and Florida — and was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He holds an industrial distribution degree from Texas A&M, has ten years of experience in electrical distribution, and survived a 2013 airplane crash attributed to a faulty fuel pump. He and his wife built careers in network marketing, real estate investing and managing buy-and-hold assets, according to the same report.
Conservation Collier Funding Fight Takes Center Stage
The most consequential policy flashpoint of Hall's term has been Conservation Collier, the land-preservation program Collier County residents voted to tax themselves for in 2002. Hall led an effort during the board's September budget hearings to cut the program's tax rate for the coming year, arguing that not raising taxes on residents was a campaign promise, Naples Daily News reported. Hall said the program would still receive $30 million even with the cut, which he estimated would reduce property taxes by about $5.5 million.
That figure differs from the account given by WGCU, which reported commissioners voted to reduce Conservation Collier tax collections from about $35 million a year to $30 million — a cut closer to $5 million. WGCU's reporting also names Hall among the commissioners who voted for the reduction, alongside Dan Kowal and William McDaniel. The discrepancy between the two figures remains unresolved in available reporting.
This was not Hall's first attempt to pare back the fund. The previous September, WGCU reported that Hall had proposed gutting Conservation Collier's land acquisition fund by $25 million, and pushed for a sharp reduction in the program's millage rate. That proposal failed to gain enough traction, and the board ultimately approved its 2025-26 budget by a 3-2 vote, leaving roughly $34 million in the fund and setting the millage rate at 0.2096 — below the 0.25 ceiling the board is authorized to set. For fiscal 2026, Gulfshore Business reported the commission instead kept the existing millage rate in place, a move that could raise tax collections by up to 3% as property values climb.
Other Board Actions Shape Hall's Record
Beyond the conservation fight, Hall has been involved in other notable board actions during his term. He advocated in 2022 for priority-based budgeting, which led the county to hire ResourceX, a Tyler Technologies company, to help implement the approach. In October 2025, Hall proposed a memorial to Charlie Kirk, and the stretch of Immokalee Road from Oil Well Road to U.S. 41 was subsequently named the Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway.
The board also approved Hall's request to install an environmentally safe baby box at an EMS station in 2025, a device that allows a mother to anonymously surrender a newborn. Davis's campaign, meanwhile, has leaned on his standing as a political outsider and frequent voice at commission meetings on growth and conservation issues as he makes his case to North Naples voters in a district watching closely how its next commissioner will balance development pressure against the preservation program residents created more than two decades ago.
