Brevard County August 2026 Primary Election Guide For Libertarian And NPA Voters

In preparing this analysis, I systematically reviewed the August 18, 2026 Brevard County primary ballot, along with available candidate questionnaires, campaign platforms, news coverage, public records, and any other governing documents I could access. My primary aim is to assist voters—particularly those registered with the Libertarian Party, other minor parties, and the significant population of no party affiliation (NPA) voters—in making informed choices for the upcoming primary election.

Rather than focusing on party labels or culture-war rhetoric, I examined issues related to freedom and fiscal restraint. While this is not a voter guide for Libertarians, I aim to offer useful information for registered voters participating in the August 18, 2026 primary. I have made every effort to be fair and impartial, though I acknowledge a slight libertarian perspective. I do not endorse any candidate, but rather seek to inform voters.

There are 10 truly nonpartisan races on the August 18 ballot, plus one unusual Canaveral Port Authority Republican universal primary that Libertarian voters can also participate in. (2026 Primary Election Q&A, 2026)

Not every voter will see every race on their ballot. The judicial races are countywide. School Board races depend on your district. Palm Bay and Titusville races depend on where you live, and the Port race depends on your Port Authority district.

For the nonjudicial races, I mostly looked at six issues: taxes and spending restraint, private property and economic freedom, civil liberties and privacy, free speech and transparency, individual and parental choice in education, and limits on government power.

Judges require a different test. In those races, I looked more for judicial restraint, due process, equal application of the law, separation of powers, and respect for precedent.

I don’t want to turn all of that into some fake-precise score where Candidate A gets an 83 and Candidate B gets a 76. Politics doesn’t work that neatly. Someone can be excellent on taxes and terrible on privacy. Someone else can be good on free speech and perfectly happy to spend more public money.

So this isn’t a “vote for these people” list. It’s where I think the actual evidence points.

And one last disclaimer before we begin: yes, AI did help in writing this article.

A few candidates stand out because they’ve taken unusually clear positions on particular liberty issues.

On surveillance and privacy, Elizabeth Baker in Titusville Seat 1 and Christopher Childs in Titusville Seat 5 are the easiest examples.

Baker flatly describes Titusville’s Flock license-plate cameras as unconstitutional and a privacy violation. Childs opposes expanding the system, favors warrant-based access with narrow emergency exceptions, and wants audits, limits and more transparency.

That’s considerably more specific than the usual campaign language about “balancing privacy and public safety.”

On judicial restraint, Larry Freeman in Circuit Group 4 and Timi Tucker in County Judge Group 3 also stand out.

Freeman says judges are supposed to apply the law, not legislate from the bench. Tucker stresses separation of powers, stare decisis and the idea that changing social policy is the job of lawmakers, not judges.

Fiscal oversight is another area where some candidates have offered something more concrete than “I’ll protect taxpayer dollars.”

Kenny Johnson in Palm Bay Seat 4 has an actual record advocating for an independent inspector general and operational audits. Kelly Wentworth talks about School Board audit findings, internal controls and financial oversight. Darcia Bair wants a forensic audit in Titusville, which goes a long way with me, particularly given the irregularities she says deserve a closer look.

Christopher Childs also calls for more scrutiny of vendors and contracts while talking about keeping taxes under control.

Education is where things get messier.

Kyle Savage, Kelly Wentworth and Cecilia Trotter have some of the clearest statements favoring individualized parental choice when books are challenged. In other words, parents should have meaningful control over what their own children can access without giving a handful of parents the power to decide what every child in the district may read.

That doesn’t make any of them across-the-board libertarian candidates. There are plenty of other things in their platforms that libertarians could disagree with, particularly on taxation, public-school spending and school-choice programs.

With that out of the way, here’s how I see the individual races.

Larry Freeman vs. Robert Alan Segal

Freeman gives one of the cleanest statements of traditional judicial restraint in any of these races.

He says personal values should not replace the law, that judges have to apply the federal and Florida constitutions and laws enacted by the Legislature, and that judges shouldn’t turn the courtroom into another policymaking body.

He also identifies delay, expense and inconsistency as barriers to justice. His background includes civil litigation, engineering and small-business ownership.

Segal, though, has much more judicial experience.

His career includes roughly 23 years involving the Public Defender’s Office and private practice, four years as a magistrate and about eight years as a circuit judge.

He talks more about precedent, impartiality, and keeping personal political or social views out of decisions. He also puts some emphasis on treating self-represented litigants fairly, which is worth noting. Courts can be difficult enough to navigate even when you have a lawyer.

The difference, at least from this perspective, is fairly simple.

Freeman gives the more explicit separation-of-powers argument. Segal has much more experience actually operating inside the judicial system.

Both describe restrained judicial philosophies.

Andrea Fant vs. George Cole Gaspard

Fant says judges should decide cases according to law rather than personal values.

Her career has also put her on several different sides of the system. She has practiced family and civil law, worked on child-support matters, and currently serves as an assistant public defender handling criminal cases ranging from misdemeanors to cases carrying potential life sentences.

Due process comes up repeatedly in her answers.

Gaspard makes many of the same philosophical points. He says political and cultural opinions have no place in judicial decisions, judges must protect constitutional rights, and courts shouldn’t legislate from the bench.

His professional background, however, is much more closely tied to law enforcement. He previously worked as a prosecutor and now serves as legal counsel to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office. His work includes Risk Protection Orders and civil asset forfeiture cases.

That caught my attention.

Red-flag orders and civil asset forfeiture both raise obvious due-process and property-rights concerns for libertarians.

But there is an important distinction here: Gaspard working on those cases as an attorney for a government client does not establish his personal political position on either policy. I wouldn’t pretend otherwise.

Both candidates describe fairly restrained judicial philosophies.

Fant’s background gives her more direct experience defending people against state prosecution. Gaspard’s gives him more experience from the government and law-enforcement side.

That doesn’t settle the race by itself, but it is a real difference.

Rodney Antonio Edwards vs. Timi DeAnn Tucker

Tucker has more than 30 years of trial experience.

Her background includes criminal defense as an assistant public defender, child-welfare prosecution and private practice involving criminal, family, civil and eviction cases.

More important for this analysis, her questionnaire answers actually tell us something about her judicial philosophy. She rejects judicial policymaking and stresses equal justice, precedent and separation of powers.

Edwards has been an assistant Palm Bay city attorney since 2017 and has practiced law since 2009.

My problem here isn’t that I uncovered some wildly anti-libertarian philosophy from Edwards. I didn’t.

The problem is that I found much less material establishing what his judicial philosophy actually is. He didn’t answer the candidate guide, so there simply isn’t as much to evaluate.

That should be treated as insufficient evidence, not negative evidence.

Tucker just gives voters a lot more information to work with, and it ain’t just those huge signs of hers across the county.

Tara “Coach T” Gibson vs. Megan Wright

Gibson supports renewing the district millage and has criticized voucher programs that move money away from district schools.

Those positions don’t line up particularly well with the fiscal-restraint and education-market arguments libertarians usually make.

Her more interesting liberty-oriented position is on school security.

Gibson has questioned the psychological effects of metal detectors and what she sees as an increasingly armed, prison-like atmosphere in schools.

Wright talks more about parental rights, access to information, discipline and teacher support.

Her governing record also includes expansion of the Guardian Program, OpenGate weapons detection and partnerships with the Sheriff’s Office.

Her record on challenged books isn’t easily reduced to either “she bans books” or “she opposes bans.” She has voted on both sides of individual recommendations.

This race is a real tradeoff.

Gibson shows more skepticism toward school policing and security infrastructure but less support for school choice and tax restraint.

Wright uses stronger parental-rights language while supporting a larger security apparatus.

A libertarian who worries most about school surveillance and policing could reasonably view this race differently from one who puts education markets or parental authority first.

Kyle Savage vs. Gene Trent vs. Kelly Wentworth

Savage favors more professional autonomy for teachers, plain-language budget transparency and individualized procedures for reviewing challenged books.

His position on books is one I think is worth separating from the broader political noise around the issue: parents should decide what their own children read, and one person’s objection shouldn’t automatically become a blanket restriction on everybody.

On the other hand, Savage criticizes voucher-related enrollment losses, supports expanding public VPK, and favors school-resource officers throughout the district.

So, mixed bag.

Trent puts parents in the primary decision-making role and has questioned whether throwing additional federal money at education actually solves educational problems.

That’s one of the clearer spending-skeptical statements I found in these School Board races.

But he also supports metal detectors and the Guardian Program.

And in an earlier dispute over books, Trent proposed looking at decisions already made in other districts to speed up the removal of hundreds of titles instead of continuing Brevard’s slower book-by-book review process.

Wentworth talks a lot about financial oversight, audit findings, internal controls, professional flexibility, and a transparent process for reviewing challenged books.

Like Savage, she argues that individual parents should be able to make decisions for their own children without letting one parent’s objection determine access for the entire district.

She also supports renewing the millage and maintaining substantial existing school-security measures.

This may be the messiest School Board race from a libertarian perspective.

Savage and Wentworth have stronger individualized-choice positions on books. Trent has stronger rhetoric questioning government spending.

None of the three combines spending restraint, broad school choice, free expression and skepticism of expanding school security into one nice, internally consistent package.

Politics rarely gives you that anyway.

Tammy Dennis vs. Michele McCormack vs. Cecilia Trotter

Dennis talks about cutting administrative costs, tightening spending and resisting low-value unfunded mandates.

She also emphasizes parental access to curriculum, opt-outs and notification requirements.

There’s a substantial amount there that overlaps with limited-government thinking.

Her approach to school safety goes in a more interventionist direction. She supports OpenGate systems and additional sheriff-related deterrence measures.

McCormack favors a clear and consistent process for reviewing challenged books, with attention to the law, age appropriateness, and educational value.

She also emphasizes teacher support and additional educational programs, including expanding VPK.

Her campaign simply makes less of a fiscal-retrenchment argument than Dennis’s does.

Trotter has probably the strongest free-reading position of the three.

She argues that simply being offended by a book shouldn’t give someone the power to decide what everyone else can read. She favors requiring challengers to read the entire work, keeping books available while a review takes place, using a committee process, and giving parents tools to control what their own children can access.

She also supports fuller recording of meetings and more public participation.

The counterweight is fiscal. Trotter supports the one-mill levy and favors additional guardrails on voucher programs.

So I see this one as fairly straightforward in terms of the tradeoffs.

Dennis has the stronger fiscal-restraint and parental opt-out case.

Trotter has the stronger free-expression and public-access case.

McCormack sits more in the procedural middle.

Carol Craig vs. Randall “Randy” May

This one technically isn’t a nonpartisan election.

It’s a Republican universal primary, which means eligible voters in the district can participate regardless of party registration because the primary itself determines the winner.

Craig, appointed to the Port Commission in December 2025, talks about responsible growth, business opportunities, infrastructure, efficiency, transparency and accountability.

The Port is self-supporting and hasn’t collected ad valorem property taxes since 1986, although it still retains taxing authority. (Government of Brevard County, Florida, 2024)

May’s campaign is more focused on practical management, smart investment, safe operations, responsible stewardship, and his lengthy private-sector and port-industry experience.

I wouldn’t pretend I can draw a confident ideological conclusion from that.

Neither campaign gives me enough detail on taxation, debt, eminent domain, subsidies, procurement, regulation or government land use to make a meaningful libertarian distinction.

At least based on what I found, this one is low-confidence.

Alfy Agarie vs. Michael J. Bruyette vs. Kenny Johnson

Johnson has the strongest actual governmental record to examine.

He has pushed for an independent inspector general and operational audits. Those are meaningful accountability measures, not just campaign slogans.

His record also contains a tension from a libertarian perspective.

Johnson has opposed state-level property-tax proposals that he believes would seriously reduce municipal revenue, framing the issue partly around local control and maintaining city services.

Agarie’s campaign emphasizes commercial development and infrastructure.

That could fit a pro-growth, limited-government approach if it means reducing barriers to business.

But I couldn’t find enough detail on taxes, permitting, zoning or regulatory reform to put much confidence behind that interpretation.

Bruyette also advocates commercial development, but he has proposed a temporary halt to residential building permits, roughly 40 additional police officers and another police facility.

Those are much easier to evaluate.

A residential permitting moratorium restricts private development. Adding dozens of officers and another police facility expands government spending and capacity.

So Johnson has the most concrete record on fiscal oversight.

Agarie is still difficult to classify.

Bruyette has the clearest property-rights and government-growth problems from a libertarian standpoint.

Mike Jaffe vs. Eduardo Macaya vs. Santa Isabel Wright

Jaffe describes himself in limited-government and fiscally conservative terms and has supported lower millage targets.

The biggest contradiction I found in his record has nothing to do with taxes.

It concerns public participation.

Jaffe sponsored a policy limiting general public comment at council meetings primarily to city residents and business owners, arguing partly from the cost of public meetings.

I don’t think that fits especially well with broad ideas of open government and political participation. Restricting who may speak to government is still restricting who may speak to government, whatever the fiscal justification.

Macaya emphasizes disclosure, transparency, infrastructure, scrutiny of spending, public participation and resistance to special interests.

He has also expressed concern about the pace of development.

That phrase can mean almost anything in local politics.

“Responsible growth” can mean coordinating roads and utilities sensibly. It can also become a nicer-sounding way of saying government should decide more aggressively what gets built and where.

I don’t think the material I found resolves that ambiguity.

Wright emphasizes accountability, independent auditing and transparency.

Her public record is thinner when it comes to taxation, regulation and property rights, so there isn’t as much to work with.

Jaffe gives us more fiscal evidence, but he also has a genuine open-government problem.

Wright has strong accountability rhetoric but fewer detailed policy positions.

Macaya has the broadest transparency and anti-special-interest message, but less clarity about how large a role he thinks city government should play.

Darcia Bair vs. Elizabeth Baker vs. Herman Cole vs. John Dacko

Bair has made transparency and accountability major parts of her campaign.

She wants a forensic audit going back at least two years because she believes the public hasn’t been given enough information through the existing internal audit process.

She also acknowledges the obvious drawback: a forensic audit itself costs taxpayers money.

Still, given the irregularities she says deserve examination, the proposal gets my attention.

Baker has one of the clearest civil-liberties positions anywhere on the ballot.

She directly attacks Titusville’s Flock automated license-plate-reader system as unconstitutional and an invasion of privacy.

There’s very little ambiguity in that position.

She also supports a forensic audit aimed at uncovering fraud, waste and abuse.

Cole focuses more on environmental protection and measured growth.

He has discussed the fiscal problems proposed property-tax reductions could create for Titusville, although his questionnaire doesn’t support flattening that into a simplistic “pro-tax” label.

Dacko argues that reform and accountability should come before tax increases, utility-rate increases or additional debt.

That’s one of the clearer fiscal-restraint positions in this particular race.

His broader program also includes infrastructure projects and seeking outside government grants.

Of course, that creates the usual libertarian question: if local taxes are kept down by getting money from another level of government, did government actually get smaller, or did the bill just move?

This race divides the issues unusually cleanly.

Baker has the strongest explicit privacy argument.

Dacko has one of the clearest arguments for restraint on taxes, utility rates and debt.

Bair has the most aggressive audit proposal.

Cole’s focus is more on measured development and environmental policy.

Christopher Childs vs. David Hobart vs. Kayla Manning

Childs has one of the more detailed combinations of libertarian-relevant positions I found anywhere on the local ballot.

He opposes expanding Flock surveillance, favors warrant requirements for access except in narrowly defined emergencies, wants strict auditing and transparency around the system, advocates reviewing vendors and contracts for waste, and talks about keeping taxes under control.

That’s a lot more specific than “I support privacy and fiscal responsibility.”

Hobart’s focus is on making local government easier for ordinary people to understand and access.

One particularly concrete proposal is eliminating what he considers excessive charges for obtaining public records.

That may not be as attention-grabbing as taxes or surveillance, but it matters. Public records aren’t very “public” if ordinary people are effectively priced out of obtaining them.

Manning emphasizes transparent and accountable government, infrastructure, natural-resource protection, thoughtful growth and more community input.

What I found less of was detail on taxes, surveillance, permitting, debt or regulatory limits.

That doesn’t mean she takes anti-libertarian positions on those issues. It means there’s less evidence to judge.

Among the three, Childs has the broadest documented material across privacy, warrants, spending and taxation.

Hobart has a very specific and worthwhile transparency proposal.

Manning’s campaign is less ideologically specific.

After going through all of this, the issues I found most useful weren’t the slogans candidates put on their signs.

Nearly everyone can call themselves pro-parent, fiscally responsible, pro-public-safety, transparent or in favor of “responsible growth.”

Those phrases don’t tell you much until they collide with an actual government decision.

Take privacy.

Flock cameras are a very good example because the claimed government benefit is easy to understand. Police want a faster, more efficient way to locate vehicles.

But the civil-liberties problem is also easy to understand. You’re creating a large system for automatically collecting people’s location information whether they’re suspected of a crime or not.

Baker and Childs stand out because they actually address that collision.

Property rights create the same kind of problem.

A candidate can promise lower taxes all day long and still support telling people they aren’t allowed to build housing on their property.

Bruyette’s proposed Palm Bay residential permitting hiatus is a pretty clean example of why “fiscally conservative” and “limited government” aren’t automatically the same thing.

The school-book fights are similar.

Everybody talks about “parental rights.”

What I care about is what happens when Parent A wants something different from Parent B.

Does parental control mean deciding what your own child is allowed to read?

Or does it mean getting the government to decide what everyone else’s child is allowed to read too?

Savage, Wentworth and Trotter give relatively clear answers to that question.

Transparency matters for the same reason.

Audits, affordable public records, open meetings, understandable financial information and the ability to scrutinize public decisions all put constraints on government power, even if none of them immediately cuts a tax rate.

Johnson, Wentworth, Bair, Hobart, Childs, Wright and others have concrete proposals in that area.

Jaffe’s restriction on general public comment deserves attention for exactly the opposite reason. It makes public participation narrower.

And then there are the judicial races, where I think people sometimes apply the wrong political test altogether.

I’m much less interested in whether a judicial candidate can sound “libertarian” than whether that person understands the limits of the job.

A judge who applies constitutional protections consistently, respects due process, treats people equally under the law, and refuses to invent policy from the bench is performing a completely different function from a city council member deciding whether to raise taxes or buy more surveillance equipment.

In the end, I don’t think there is a clean libertarian slate hiding on this ballot.

There are candidates with serious, documented overlaps with libertarian principles. There are also contradictions. And there are races where the evidence just isn’t good enough to make a strong ideological call.

If privacy is your first priority, you’re probably going to read some of these races differently from someone whose first priority is taxes.

If educational freedom matters most to you, you may reach a different conclusion from someone primarily concerned with public spending.

That’s not a problem with the analysis.

That’s the point of doing it.

Campaign branding tells you how candidates want to be seen.

The harder question is what they actually want government to do.

References

(July 28, 2026). 2026 Primary Election Q&A. Brevard County Supervisor of Elections. https://www.votebrevard.gov/Election-Information/2026-Primary-Election-Q-A

(2024). Government of Brevard County, Florida. Brevard County Government. https://brevardfl.gov