A 28-year-old Palm Beach County nonprofit leader with a background in agriculture and political organizing is running for House District 87, where he’s training his sights on his party’s chosen candidate.

Jonathan Rubin, who founded and leads the Clean Earth Initiative, recently filed to run for the coastal Palm Beach County seat.

He faces a Republican Primary opponent in Jon Maples, a former Lake Clarke Shores Council member who lost the district’s March Special Election to Democrat Emily Gregory, despite support from President Donald Trump, the Florida House Republican Campaign Committee and a passel of GOP state lawmakers.

Rubin said Maples’ recent loss and a county-level defeat he suffered in 2020 betray a lack of support for him among the local electorate, Maples’ 2023 municipal victory notwithstanding.

“It’s nice that the party wants to come in and pick a candidate time and time again,” Rubin said. “But when someone keeps losing multiple races, that’s a pretty clear indication of where the voters are.”

Rubin, a self-described lifelong Palm Beach County resident and fourth-generation Floridian, holds a master’s degree in public administration with a focus on environmental science and policy from Columbia University.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Reichman University, during which he interned under Ron DeSantis while the Governor was a member of the U.S. House. In the leadup to the 2020 election, he worked through the Republican Party of Florida supporting Trump’s re-election bid.

It was around that time Rubin grew interested in vertical farming. He was completing his studies at Columbia, where he won federal grants to study aquaponics. And when COVID hit, he saw it as an opportunity to scale his research into a proper business.

Rubin launched Fresh Florida Farms, an indoor hydroponic operation that grew microgreens and lettuce, with the help of federal and state startup grants in late 2020. The business catered to local grocery chains. What the company didn’t sell, he said, it donated to local food banks.

He didn’t stray far from politics, however. In 2022, while still building the business, Rubin took a job with Teach Action Fund, a short-lived organization that advocated for universal school choice with a focus on Jewish education.

Through the group, he said, he helped run grassroots efforts for state Reps. Peggy Gossett-Seidman and Chip LaMarca.

Florida Politics contacted both lawmakers to ask for their thoughts on Rubin. LaMarca, a Lighthouse Point Republican, said that while he remembers the organization provided “some volunteers” for his re-election effort that cycle, he doesn’t remember Rubin.

Gossett-Seidman, a Republican and former Highland Beach Commissioner, confirmed Rubin worked as an intermediary between her campaign and Teach Action Fund.

Going green in a different way

By late 2024, when he said he sold his business for an undisclosed sum, Rubin was refocusing his efforts on environmental advocacy. He founded Clean Earth Initiative, a nonprofit that today promotes public policy, develops community outreach and conservation programming, runs youth environmental education initiatives and works to improve accessibility at Florida’s parks and wetlands.

Rubin said the organization has partnered with many like-minded organizations across the state, including Friends of Palm Beach, the Reef Institute, Friends of Jonathan Dickinson Park, BLUE Missions and Rescue Life, an animal rehabilitation and sanctuary center run by state Rep. Meg Weinberger.

In his capacity as President and Executive Director, Rubin has also hosted several environmental events and roundtables, with participants including Weinberger; U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, state Rep. Omar Blanco, Volusia County Commission Chair Jeff Brower, Palm Beach County Commissioner Gregg Weiss, Fort Myers Mayor Kevin Anderson and former state Rep. Mike Caruso, among others.

“I believe that everyone, on some level, is an environmentalist,” he said. “We have hurricanes, wetland issues, water issues, and everyone on some level has to be aware of everything affecting everything else. So, I said, ‘Hey, there’s really an opportunity here, with my skill set and the needs I’ve heard in conversation, to start this nonprofit.’”

During the 2026 Legislative Session, he said, the group advocated for three successful bills. Atop the list was HB 1019, a bill Blanco carried to passage that phases out cancer-causing substances known collectively as “forever chemicals” from firefighter foam and requires statewide monitoring of wastewater and biosolids.

Rubin said his organization won a grant to test drinking water at 100 locations across Palm Beach and Broward counties, found contamination and presented its findings — detailed in an October 2025 report — to more than a dozen state lawmakers.

Clean Earth Initiative is slated to present on the issue to Palm Beach’s Water Resources Task Force on May 28.

The other two bills, SB 302 and HB 441, respectively, created a statewide framework for nature-based coastal resilience projects and mandated public notice before the sale or major-use change of state conservation lands.

Rubin also traveled to Washington, D.C., and the Florida Capitol, where he said he met with more than 20 federal lawmakers and 25 state legislators about the bills. Multiple state lawmakers confirmed they spoke with Rubin at their Tallahassee offices.

Republican state Rep. Jim Mooney, who represents Monroe County and sponsored SB 302’s House companion, told Florida Politics he remembers Rubin’s support of the bill, but couldn’t recall any specifics about their conversation.

“Certainly, I was impressed by his support as well as the other groups,” he said. “I do know his Clean Earth Initiative.”

But Tallahassee Democratic state Rep. Allison Tant, who sponsored HB 441 with St. Augustine Republican state Rep. Kim Kendall, said she had spoken to Kendall and confirmed neither of them had heard of — or from — Rubin.

One would expect that, considering Rubin’s hyperfocus on environmental issues, that environmental conservation issues would be front-and-center in his campaign. But they appear only peripherally as “Beach Renourishment and State Parks” on his list of “top priorities” alongside other valence issues like quality education, affordability, lowering insurance, tax relief, public health and government transparency.

Rubin said the omission is strategic.

“Unfortunately, conservation — even though the word comes from the word ‘conservative,’ even though Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican when he founded the National Parks — is painted a little more to the left,” he said. “In the Primary, we’re going to focus on more conservative issues.”

Addressing a sharp rise in antisemitism is also high on Rubin’s to-do list. In late March, he hosted a first-of-its-kind discussion on the issue, featuring rabbis and elected officials, including Weiss, Caruso, Palm Beach County Mayor Sara Baxter, State Attorney Alexcia Cox, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, County Commissioner Marci Woodward, County Administrator Joseph Abruzzo, School Board Vic Chair Matthew Lane and former Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer.

Taking on the establishment pick

Rubin is a first-time candidate entering a race already shaded to some degree by Maples’ March defeat at the hands of Gregory, whose upset victory in HD 87, by a 2.3-percentage-point margin, drew national attention to Trump’s home district.

The narrow victory came despite the district’s Republican tilt. Caruso — whom Gov. Ron DeSantis tapped for Palm Beach County Clerk last August, prompting the Special Election — won re-election by 19 points in 2024. Trump, meanwhile, carried the area by about 9 points the same year.

Rubin believes that Republican institutional support hasn’t translated into local enthusiasm. He noted that most of the donations Maples took through his campaign account and political committee — 65.6% of all contributions and 68.5% of the total dollar amount — came from outside of Palm Beach County.

He also contended that the Special Election results suggest Republican voters in the district have generally abandoned Maples, not just that Democrats turned out with a higher share of support from independents.

“People locally are not encouraged by (Maples in) this race,” Rubin said. “Money is important. It pays for staff and mailers. But at the end of the day, he couldn’t win with half a million dollars.”

Maples refiled for the General Election less than a week after the Special Election. He immediately received an endorsement from the Florida House Republican Campaign Committee (FHRCC), an encouraging statement from Florida GOP Chair Evan Power and, within two days, had stacked $63,500.

The Florida Medical Association PAC also re-endorsed him.

Maples’ gains came, in part, through contributions by the FHRCC, Weinberger and Republican state Reps. Tiffany Esposito, Mike Giallombardo and John Snyder, among others. None of them has endorsed him in the General Election.

Rubin, who filed to run the same day as Maples, raised close to $34,500 over the same period, though 72% of that sum was self-loaned.

While he may lag in the money race now, he said, he has cross-aisle appeal and bona fides that match the district and its needs more than his Primary foe.

“With the right candidate, Gregory’s beatable, but I don’t think Jon can beat her. I can,” he said. “The demographics of the district match my background. I have real policy expertise through my nonprofit and previous work, and a lot of the issues I care about are ones Democrats can get behind.”

HD 87 runs up the coast through Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, Juno Beach and Hypoluxo. Before Gregory’s win, the district trended reliably Republican in recent cycles.

Across Palm Beach County, Democrats have a narrow but shrinking voter lead of about 13,000.

Statewide, Republicans continue to hold a significant registration advantage — a 1.48 million-voter edge as of last month.

The Primary is Aug. 18, followed by the General Election on Nov. 3.

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