Running for change that helps you.
Jordyn Balderas is a 21-year-old community organizer running for State House because working families deserve a representative who has actually lived their fight. He is bringing grit back to politics.
This platform was not written in a boardroom. It was written by someone who has been uninsured, who has been homeless, and who has watched the people in power build their portfolios while his neighbors lost their homes.
Gifford's roads flood while Grand Harbor's gates gleam. That is not an accident. It is the result of a tax structure that rewards wealth and starves everyone else.
What Jordyn will doIndian River County keeps building luxury. It keeps losing the people who make it run. Lifelong residents and retirees on fixed incomes get priced out. The county calls this growth. Jordyn calls it displacement.
What Jordyn will doYour city council knows your streets better than a committee in Tallahassee. Your county commission understands your coastline better than a lobbyist's spreadsheet.
What Jordyn will doThe Indian River Lagoon is the beating heart of District 34. It is a $28 billion economic engine. It is also dying, and for four years District 34's representative has not filed a single bill to address it.
What Jordyn will doA retiree on a fixed income should not have to choose between connecting to sewer and paying for medication. A working family should not face a $20,000 assessment so that a developer upstream can keep building.
What Jordyn will doWhen a corporation comes to Indian River County with a project that threatens the lagoon, the question should not be whether we can afford to say no. It should be whether we can afford to say yes.
What Jordyn will doPublic money belongs in public schools, accountable to public oversight.
What Jordyn will doFlorida asks its teachers to do more with less and then wonders why they leave. Jordyn is done wondering.
What Jordyn will doJordyn knows this because he was one of them. A child who acts out is telling you something. The answer is a counselor, not a cop.
What Jordyn will doEighty-one percent of independent voters in this district want stricter gun laws. The current representative co-sponsored a bill to lower the purchase age. Jordyn stands with the 81 percent. He is not interested in taking anyone's Second Amendment rights away. He is interested in making sure that right comes with the responsibility to keep weapons out of children's hands.
What Jordyn will doThis platform was not written by consultants or focus-grouped by pollsters. It was written by a 21-year-old who has been uninsured, homeless, and told that people like him do not run for office. He is running anyway.
Join the FightBe the first to hear about events, volunteer opportunities, and how the campaign is growing. It starts with neighbors like you.
Jordyn Guadalupe Balderas dropped out of high school to keep his family alive. His mother, a nurse who raised six kids on her own, was diagnosed with amyloidosis and denied the disability benefits she had earned. The safety net did not catch them. Balderas spent his teenage years homeless, sleeping in cars, motels, and on friends' couches, working full time and serving as the primary caregiver for his disabled mother before he was old enough to vote.
He is not a career politician. He is not a lawyer or a lobbyist or someone who read about poverty in a textbook. He is a 21-year-old community organizer on Florida's Treasure Coast who has spent the years since getting his family off the streets doing the same thing for everyone else. He has built coalitions across Indian River County, partnered with local Democratic leadership, and shown up consistently for the families and individuals that Florida's government was supposed to help but never did. He is one of roughly 28 million Americans living without health insurance. He does not talk about these issues from a briefing book. He talks about them because he is still living them.
Balderas is running for the Florida House of Representatives in District 34 because he is tired of watching politicians who have never missed a meal decide who deserves help and who does not. He is running on affordable housing, healthcare access, and the basic idea that the people who represent working families should actually be one. His opponent is a landlord who owns more than 60 rental properties, rentals no working family can afford in the economy our representatives' votes have created.
He has been defying expectations since the day he was born, when a collapsed lung and a stay on life support were supposed to be the end of his story. They were not. Neither was homelessness. Neither was being told that people like him do not run for office.
He is bringing grit back to politics because grit is all he has ever had.