Florida Republican says opponent's Humanism "should disqualify her" from office

Republican David Smith is desperately targeting Sarah Henry's advocacy for church/state separation

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One of the more exciting campaigns I’m paying attention to this November is that of Sarah Henry in Florida. She’s a Democrat running to defeat an incumbent Republican for a seat in the State House, and it’s a rematch from two years ago. Her opponent is David Smith, a Ron DeSantis ally who’s been in the legislature since 2018 and who, over the course of three elections, has won by the slimmest of margins, never getting higher than 52.3% of the vote even in two-way races. In 2022, as a first-time candidate, Sarah came within a couple percentage points of defeating him. Now she’s trying again.

The reason I’m captivated by her race is because she’s someone who shares so many qualities I’ve come to admire. She was politically conscious as a teenager and knew she wanted to help create a better world. So when she graduated from college, she worked in the non-profit world, even serving for a time as a communications associate for the American Humanist Association.

In 2019, when the AHA went to the Supreme Court to argue that a state-sponsored Christian war memorial was unconstitutional, Sarah was the person tasked with explaining to FOX News’ Laura Ingraham, in studio, why taxpayer-funded war memorials should also represent veterans who aren’t Christian. (She handled herself very well.)

Then Sarah took an even bigger swing, running for office herself, and she came so close to winning in 2022. Remember that, in a place like Florida, there’s a desperate need for pushback against the climate denial, revisionist history, medical ignorance, and outright censorship by DeSantis and his Republican allies. The more Democrats in positions of power, the better it’ll be for people across the state, because right now, Republicans have a super-majority that allows them to pass any law they want.

Neither candidate in the District 38 race had a primary challenger, so they’ve both spent the past several months gearing up for November 5. And while there’s very little public polling for State House races, it must be close, because David Smith’s campaign is frantically and desperately attempting to paint Sarah as pure evil.

They’re doing so by twisting past comments she made.

Just consider her comments on FOX, where she argued—on behalf of the AHA and not herself, it must be noted—that a Giant Christian Cross honoring veterans would be fine on private property, but it didn’t legally belong on public property. (She was right.) Or when she said, also for the AHA, that public school football and softball coaches shouldn’t lead prayers before games because it was coercive and put pressure on non-Christian athletes to join in. (She was right.) Or when she pointed out, during a 2019 interview with a researcher who specialized in misogyny, that “religious dominionism, white nationalism, and male supremacy are inextricably intertwined.” (As we’ve seen with Project 2025 and the rising threat of white Christian Nationalism, she was damn near prophetic with that one.)

David Smith uses all that material to argue that Sarah hates Christians. Which, of course, is a lie.

You can see from those mailers that they’re painting her as an “avowed atheist activist” (ha!) who’s trying to shut down prayer and hates Christians. That her beliefs “should disqualify her from holding office.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Hell, all of her views on those issues are echoed by many Christians! There’s nothing anti-religious about supporting church/state separation or saying that religious symbols shouldn’t be promoted by the government. Honestly, of all the groups in the broader atheist “movement,” the AHA might be the one that’s most welcoming to Christians!

It’s also laughable that the three-time Republican incumbent argues that Sarah, someone who’s never been in public office, is a “politician.”

A different mailer, sponsored by the Florida House Republican Campaign Committee, is even more blunt, claiming Sarah is a “radical ATHEIST activist” who “HATE[S] CHRISTIANS.”

Besides the statements I already mentioned, that mailer cites an article Sarah wrote for The Humanist (in 2018, not in 2014 as they claim) about how “Young people, and especially young women, have begun to turn to paganism and witchcraft in attempt to find identity, forge solidarity, and, sometimes to take political action.” That wasn’t an endorsement of paganism or witchcraft, just an admission that it was happening. In fact, Sarah writes in the same piece, “While I’m not convinced of the power of hexes, crystals, or tarot cards, I can certainly agree with the desire to protect those among us who lack power and to recognize the worth of those who hear from society that they have none.”

(The mailer also highlights as “crazy” an announcement that the AHA was going to advocate for “immigration justice,” as if that’s a bad thing, for some reason.)

A separate mailer twists her words entirely, falsely claiming that Sarah made “comments about witchcraft being something young girls should turn to.” Should?! Not only did she not say that, she stated the opposite. No one on Smith’s campaign team knows how to read, apparently.

The lies are so pervasive that WESH, a local NBC affiliate, just published an article calling out David Smith’s lies in a recent campaign ad that reiterates many of the same lies seen in his mailers.

Does Henry "repeatedly attack people of faith?"

We'll call that false.

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On the claim that she "called the cross a symbol of discrimination" that's misleading. [She wasn’t referring to all crosses, just a particular state-sponsored one on public land that was the subject of a Supreme Court case.]

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On the claim that she "called Christians white nationalists" we'll call that mostly false. [She wasn’t referring to all Christians.]

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On the last claim, "opposed optional prayer at school football games" we'll call that both false and misleading. [When she wrote that press release for the AHA, she was referring to staff-sponsored prayers at high school athletic events that students were pressured to join. That’s hardly “optional.”]

When the station asked Smith if he stands by the misinformation he’s spreading, he responded with word salad that amounted to a giant shrug:

In an emailed statement, Smith said, “After conducting a review of the original source materials, the quotes attributed to Sarah Henry are accurate."

That’s obviously bullshit. The words between quotation marks may be accurate, but they’re ripped out of context in order to mislead voters. Why do it? Because misleading voters is the only strategy Republicans have to run on. If they told the truth, they’d get no support at all.

When I spoke with Sarah about the smear campaign yesterday, she told me that the TV ad was the only one Smith was running and they were spending roughly $1.7 million on it. It’s been effective in the sense that voters have seen it, but that doesn’t mean it’s working.

When Sarah and her team have knocked on doors, they routinely get comments about the ads from voters who are shocked that Sarah doesn’t have devil horns on her head. “You look so nice! I can’t believe any of that,” they tell her.

It’s also surprising to me that this is the ad the Republican candidate is going with. You expect Republicans to run against Democrats by highlighting their liberal views. Maybe an ad saying Sarah supports abortion rights and human rights and voting rights and all those other things conservatives reject. But no. They’re running with Don’t vote for this evil lady because she’s not a Christian.

It’s such a low blow—both inaccurate and offensive—that it’s gone out of style. As someone who’s tracked those kinds of ads for years, I haven’t seen any other ad like it this cycle, even though there are more openly non-religious candidates running for state or federal office than ever before.

“It’s disqualifying,” Sarah told me, for her opponent to argue that her religious beliefs make her unfit for office. She added, “I’m really proud of the work I did with AHA,” but noted that her platform isn’t about advancing her personal religious views. She’s interested in affordable housing, reproductive rights, public education, gun safety, and protecting the environment. You know: Things that are good for Floridians regardless of their religious backgrounds.

You have to wonder if David Smith’s internal polling tells him attacking someone’s religious views and harmless work history (in the non-profit sector!) is a good idea—despite public polling showing the rise of Secular Americans—or if he’s just that much of an extremist that he believes it’ll work.

Meanwhile, Sarah has responded with an ad that opens with the cutting line, “Some people talk about ideas, and others talk about people. David Smith would rather talk about me than his ideas and his record.”

She closes by talking about her ideas. None of which involve attacking Christians. All of which are actually popular.

If you’d like to support Sarah, the best way to do so is by making a donation to her campaign. Help her counter the misinformation and help Florida’s Democrats flip enough seats to block DeSantis from ruining the state even more.

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