Voters looking for an alternative to incumbent Rep. Daniel Webster and professional provocateur Laura Loomer would do well to take a look at Gavriel E. Soriano, 27. He is one of the “renegade farmers” behind Heph’zibah & Beulah Farms and L’Chaim Brewery Kombucha, the sustainable family farm and brewery he operates with his two sisters and brother in Bushnell. Traditionally Jewish and Hispanic — his father’s family comes from Puerto Rico; his mother’s family from New York — Soriano describes himself as “a man of God, family, country.”

He’s strong on the Second Amendment, with plans to focus on the mental health aspect of the nation’s gun violence epidemic, even as critics of that approach note that other nations have mental illness without the staggering death rates from gun violence because guns aren’t as plentiful or available. (It’s estimated that removing mental illness would lower gun violence by just 4 percent.)

He says he’s strong on education too, and while he does throw some buzzwords around describing public schools as “breeding grounds for socialist reform”, in a change of pace from what we’ve been hearing from Republicans lately, he’s not interested in altering how American history is taught for anyone’s comfort level.

“When it comes to teaching history, I believe we have to show everything, all the aspects of the good and bad,” he said in a phone interview with VoxPopuli. “History is there for us to glean from and learn how to build a foundation to create a better society.”

Deeply religious, Soriano’s Jewish faith informs his stance on abortion, but not in the expected ways. “In Judaism, abortion is encouraged in situations, and that’s where I stand. I believe there should be exceptions for when a woman’s life is in danger — and not just her physical health but her mental [health] as well. And in cases of rape and incest. I make concessions for abortion ‘when it’s needed.’ When it comes to the life of the mother, it doesn’t matter what week it is. If her life is in danger, her life is more important at that moment.”

Soriano says he would vote against a national abortion ban and believes the abortion issue should be decided by ballot measure by the people of Florida — not legislators.

The one thing you won’t hear from Soriano is any mention of Trump, Biden or his two primary opponents. Soriano is running a clean campaign and spends his time talking about who he is and what he wants to do for his constituents — who he calls “patriots”— if elected.  

Some of his positions remain a bit vague and some ideas perhaps not feasible, but it takes hard work and patience to run a farm with goats, cows and chickens and grow vegetables -- qualities that could serve him in Congress.