
Wilton Simpson won a second term as Florida’s agriculture commissioner on Tuesday, concluding a well-funded campaign bankrolled by many of the companies and business owners that Simpson oversees.
The Republican egg farmer defeated Democratic challenger and lawyer Joey Atkins.
Simpson’s campaign emphasized his track record expanding the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program, which pays farmers to give up their right to develop their land while allowing them to continue farming. Simpson also touted his agency’s investment in wildfire prevention, his support for a statewide lab-grown meat ban, his cooperation with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and his efforts to reduce wait times for concealed weapons licenses.
Simpson, a former Florida Senate president, raised $6.1 million through his campaign and four related political committees this year, a 50-to-1 fundraising advantage over Atkins. Simpson’s biggest backers included Florida’s biggest sugar producers, U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals, as well as the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Florida Power & Light parent company NextEra Energy, and Enrique Tomeu, a landowner who recently sold Simpson’s agency a $10 million conservation easement on his ranch.
The defeated Atkins ran a campaign that emphasized his opposition to data centers and tariffs and promised to reform guest worker programs that bring foreign farmworkers into the state on short-term visas.

