Johnny Austin Thompson is a 25-year-old candidate for Florida House District Two and a current Harvard Law School student. A Pensacola native, Thompson’s road to politics has taken him from an upbringing shaped by financial hardship to a run for office in the community where he was raised. The HPR sat down with Thompson to discuss his political evolution from Republican to Democrat, his age and readiness for office, and his vision for representing Northwest Florida.
Harvard Political Review: Would you mind introducing yourself?
Johnny Austin Thompson: I’m running for Florida House District Two. If elected, I would be the youngest state legislator in Florida. I’m running in a place that I have grown up in my entire life. I was born down the road at Sacred Heart Hospital. The only times I’ve ever left were to get my undergrad education and to go to Harvard Law School and get a master’s in public health from Harvard.
HPR: You grew up in Pensacola under some pretty difficult financial circumstances. What did poverty actually look like for you growing up, and how much does that experience shape the way you think about politics today?
JT: Times got tough, and it’s not something that I’ve gone on the record too deeply into before. But I was a product of a lot of different state programs because when I was younger, I was in a car accident with my mother that left her partially disabled throughout my life, and my father worked as a TV salesman repairman, which was a dying trade. So around the 2008 recession, he became unemployed, and there were some dark times in our family’s past. I got my first job at 15 years old at Great American Cookies to help pay the bills, and my brother did the same thing. We were on SNAP; we were on different welfare programs at times. My parents used government aid for insurance, and so I actively saw how different programs were affecting people.
When I was in high school, I was only able to get lunch at certain times because of changing school lunch regimes, and I was able to complete a four-year degree program at the University of Alabama in only three semesters because I had access to dual enrollment, which is a state-funded program. Whenever I was with my opponent on stage, he told me that he saw people’s needs because he’d knocked doors. I’ve knocked plenty of doors, but I didn’t have to knock doors to find people’s needs. I’ve lived through it. I’ve seen it because I’ve been here my entire life.
HPR: And you used to be a Republican, correct?
JT: That’s true. I grew up in a very red area, and for a very long time, I thought I was a Republican. When I was an undergrad, I would tell people that I was socially liberal, but I was a fiscal conservative. As I more and more saw the Republican Party preying on the lower and middle class and giving tax credits and write-offs to the wealthy — tell me why in the big beautiful bill we have private jets that are able to be written off, but we’re cutting SNAP — I realized that I didn’t have any of the values of the conservative party left.
HPR: So was it your own beliefs changing, or was it the Republican Party shifting that made you switch and become a Democrat?
JT: I think it’s a mixture of both. Growing up, I was under the impression I was conservative. But the party did shift. As a child, I liked the idea of small government conservatism. I thought it would be great to have the government play a small role in people’s lives and get the government out of people’s bedrooms, out of their houses. But if you don’t regulate certain entities, it actually decreases the amount of freedom you have. We have big corporations taking advantage of people. Well, then guess what? You have less freedom, and so you have to have the government step in. When I started law school at Harvard, I thought I was an originalist, which is that the Constitution should be interpreted the way it was written. I think that’s ideal, but it’s inherently problematic, and you can’t functionally do that. So that was one of the driving factors.
HPR: You mentioned that the district you’re running in is incredibly conservative. I believe about 54% are registered Republicans. What do you think Democrats misunderstand about voters in this district?
JT: I think Democrats misunderstand how open the Republican Party is currently. At least the voters here in Northwest Florida are open to having another official who is transparent and accountable take the torch. I show up to the Republican events even when I’m not invited. I try to go to every single Republican forum that I’m able to. Sometimes I’m uninvited; they don’t really want to let me speak, or they meet me at the door and try to see what’s going on. But I push in because I’m not going to say I’m winning the minds and the hearts of Republican voters at this point, but we are winning their votes. They’re not changing their voter registration for me, but they’re shaking my hand and telling me they’re glad they have a candidate that they actually put faith in and get behind because I’m from here, unlike my opponent, and I’m not backed by these big corporations and corporate interests. I’m backed by a bunch of little people all gathering around.
HPR: So, to address the elephant in the room, so to speak, you’re only 25. You’re still technically in law school, and if elected, you would be Florida’s youngest legislator. Why do you think you are ready to be a state legislator now rather than five or 10 years from now? And how does your age impact your ability to serve and your own political priorities?
JT: I could go down a path talking about all the academic work that I have purposely done to gear up for focusing on Florida’s needs. I could talk about my work in Kenya on healthcare policy or the different law firms I’ve spent time at. But that’s not what makes me qualified as a candidate to be a representative of Northwest Florida. My experience comes from being a Panhandle citizen first and a candidate second.
HPR: What would you say to voters who might see Harvard Law on your resume and think you’ve perhaps become disconnected from the community you originally grew up in?
JT: What I’d say is that I’m trying to bring the talent home. To say that I’ve been disconnected from the community because I’m pursuing higher education would be the wrong method of inquiry. I’ve been gone for three years in total. I spend summers in town. I worked at a law firm over the summer, just because I care so much about these Pensacola roots, and I care so much about my hometown. I have been planning to bring the talent back, and so this education isn’t something that has changed my ideals. It’s just sharpened my ability to make a difference here in Northwest Florida.
HPR: What made you decide that running for office was the right way to act on your beliefs rather than working in law or activism?
JT: I think one of the issues in U.S. politics right now is we’ve let self-interest be a guiding path for people that want to get into politics. I’m not doing this for me. If I were doing this for me, I’d go get a cushy job after I finish up Harvard Law School that pays me $255,000 a year. A lot of people do’’t know this, but state representatives don’t get paid an awful lot. This is a job that’ll pay $30,000 a year. When I was gearing up to decide what I wanted to do, I had to make a choice: Did I want to do something for myself, or did I want to help other people? I only had this chance to help people because the community was there and I had resources that were provided to me by the state, so I had to make a decision. I chose to help people.
HPR: What do you think is the biggest problem or problems facing people in this district that Tallahassee is either ignoring or handling poorly currently?
JT: The number one thing that your state legislator, your representative, should be focused on is affordability. If it’s not, you need to elect someone else. Right now, we have families that have been here for decades getting priced out of homes. We have people that will no longer want to come to Florida because it is too expensive, and we have an entire legislative toolbox to take care of that. We’re just not dipping into it enough. We have state-funded programs like My Safe Florida Home that will weatherize houses in advance. We can be proactive, and that’ll lower the cost of insurance, and that makes affordability better for everybody. Instead, we’re pouring money into a security fund, so when we have hurricanes that take Floridians’ lives and then destroy their homes, we can fix it. We’ve got to start being proactive with our money instead of reactive.
Secondly, we have to invest more in our education. We are falling behind. We have teachers that are leaving Northwest Florida to go work in Alabama because the pay is so bad. Our healthcare is ranked 39th out of the 50 states. We are one of 10 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid. There’s a whole slew of things that Tallahassee needs to put focus on that they just haven’t been looking at.
HPR: And so this is your debut election, so to speak. What do you want your political career to be about or defined by beyond just this particular race?
JT: I want my career to be defined by transparency and accountability. I have pledged from the beginning of this race that I’ll make sure that everybody in my district knows what’s going on with me at all times. This is me meeting them where they are, whether it’s TikTok or Instagram or an email list or Facebook or a newsletter. I want to make sure everybody knows what’s going on and why. We need the representatives to hold town halls with the individuals. I want to be known for doing things the right way and not compromising on my beliefs, which I think is something that is abhorrently rare in politics today.
HPR: What would success look like for you after the completion of your term if elected?
JT: I would love to give an ambitious answer, like every bill that I wrote passed, but that’s unlikely. A successful first term for me would be everybody in my district knowing what I was doing and why. A second pledge I have made is to meet everybody in my district. So if everybody in my district feels like they have been heard and is aware of what I’ve been doing, I think I’ll be successful on the stage in Tallahassee.
