An official portrait of Rep. Jessica Baker.
Rep. Jessica Baker (R-Jacksonville) [Provided by the Florida House]

Republican incumbent Jessica Baker has garnered enough votes to keep her seat and will usher in her second term serving southeast Duval County. 

She defeated Democratic challenger Bryson Kade Morgan.

Florida House District 17 covers a portion of Mandarin and a portion of Southside south of Beach Boulevard.

Baker has worked as an attorney and a government affairs consultant with Ballard Partners and was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Morgan listed affordable housing, insurance costs, public education and addressing attacks on marginalized groups as his top concerns.

You can see full results below of every Florida House race.

Nichole Manna is The Florida Trib's Senior Investigative Reporter. She has been with the organization since 2023 and has covered the criminal justice system for more than a decade.

Nichole has extensively covered conditions at the Duval County jail and in 2024 received first place from the Green Eyeshade Awards in online investigations for her reporting of medical neglect at the facility. That series of stories was recognized with awards at the local, regional and national level. She took home the first place prize for a feature story in a small newsroom from the Online Journalism Awards in 2025 for her series, ‘Cold-Blooded’, which dissected a 1993 death penalty case and questioned whether the defendant received a fair trial.

Prior to joining The Trib, Nichole was an investigative reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas where she was a Livingston Award finalist for a series of stories about a neighborhood with the lowest life expectancy in the state. Her work helped get residents access to free pop-up clinics and they continue to receive help with food disparities.

She is currently working with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network to produce an investigative project.

You can reach her at nichole@floridatrib.org.