Orange County Republican leaders Charles Hart and Randy Ross have a history of knocking heads. This summer, they are taking their fight to the GOP primary for a state House seat.

Hart, Ross and Apopka Vice Mayor Doug Bankson are the three Republicans in the race for House District 39.

The winner of the Aug. 23 party primary will face Democrat Tiffany Hughes in November. Hughes, Orange County’s NAACP president, is running unopposed in her primary.

The newly drawn district in northwestern Orange County, which includes Apopka and Winter Garden, is an evenly split between the parties. President Biden won the new district by 1.6 percentage points in 2020, while Gov. Ron DeSantis won it in 2018 by 0.3 points.

Bankson, 59, who founded Victory Church Apopka and Apopka Christian Academy, is a past chair of the Apopka Chamber of Commerce and an Apopka city commissioner for six years, including serving as vice mayor.

“That’s what political office is supposed to be, getting back to our foundation as public servants,” Bankson said. “So when this open seat came up, it really appealed to that part of my heart. … Having lived here in the district for 30 years and being an advocate here on the local level, I just really believe it’s a wonderful opportunity to take our voice up to Tallahassee.”

Hart, 47, of Apopka, is an attorney and has served as chair of the Orange County Republican Executive Committee since 2018. This is his first run as a candidate.

“I looked at this race, and I wanted a conservative to run and win,” Hart said, comparing his potential role in Tallahassee to an offensive lineman in football. “Ron DeSantis has been carrying the ball for all of Florida, and he needs blocking.”

Ross, 57, of Orlando, has worked in advertising and fitness and served as the Donald Trump campaign’s Orange County chair in 2016. He has previously run unsuccessfully for Orlando City Commission in 2015 and has made three unsuccessful bids to become chair of the Orange County GOP, including two hard-fought challenges to Hart in 2018.

He said he would move to the district if elected, as required by law.

Ross said he was spurred to run by the treatment of his mother, Betty, in a senior living facility.

He said the first bill he would file would be “Betty’s Bill,” named after his mother, that would overhaul the Florida Guardianship program, create a mobile team to help seniors navigate technology, require cameras in all nursing home rooms and help caregivers with tutorials.

“One of the things I think that separates me from the candidates running against me is I have a platform issue that I’m already ready to go with. … I’ve lived this life with my mom. I know how hard it is to navigate the healthcare system, to be on the phone for two or three hours just trying to make an understanding with Medicare. But Betty’s Bill is not about Betty. It’s about seniors who don’t have caregivers.”

Ross also said that any Orange County Republican lawmaker needs to be able to work with Democrats, as he has done.

“I can talk to Democrats, which I’ve got to work with if I want to work in this county,” Ross said. “I’ve been able to accomplish things with Democrats in this town long before these two folks that are running against me even gotten involved in thinking about politics.”

Ross has raised about $6,000 for his campaign.

He blamed Hart for the Republican Party’s poor showing in Orange County in recent years.

“Who’s responsible for that? That’s Charles Hart,” Ross said.

Hart did not bring up Ross when asked about his opponents, though he called himself “the real conservative the race.”

“I was there with Ron DeSantis on day one,” Hart said. “I notarized the paperwork that created the DeSantis-Nunez ticket. I sued Jerry Demings over masks in Orange County.”

While he is a rookie candidate, “I’ve built relationships with people so that when I go to Tallahassee, I’m going to be able to hit the ground running. There’s not going to be that learning curve that you’re going to see from a lot of candidates that get involved in these races.”

Hart said he supported DeSantis’ “parental rights” campaign in schools and wants to keep taxes low. He’s raised about $67,000 for his campaign.

Bankson, who has raised $77,000 for his campaign, said he would support a stricter ban on abortion. So far, DeSantis has been mum on whether he wants to go further than the recently passed 15-week ban, which has no exceptions for rape or incest.

“I believe that should start at the moment of conception, that’s when life begins,” Bankson said. “DNA is a roadmap, that’s an absolute individual. This is an individual human being. And therefore, we have to respect life at that level.”

Hart also said he would support stronger measures, saying abortion “should be illegal.”

Ross saying while his opponents “believe it should be criminalized, I look at it a little bit differently. I say that in the case of rape and incest, or the life of the mother, those would be legitimate reasons.”

Bankson also called for an end to the perpetual raiding of the Sadowski affordable housing fund, citing the need for more workforce housing.

“I’m very pro-business, and we have businesses that are struggling to find the workers,” Bankson said. “And when we do have the workers, they’re struggling to find a place that they can afford to live.”

Ross also said he was also against raiding the affordable housing fund “so we can appear to have a balanced budget.”

Hart cautioned that the issue should be addressed to head off “some of the policies of the extreme left, like rent control. Those and other policies are going to hurt our ability to create housing for the people who need it most.”

Bankson added that more must be done to address the spiraling costs of property insurance. “Insurance companies are becoming insolvent,” he said. “We’ve got to head this off.”

Asked about property insurance, Hart said, “my fear is that with government, if you’re not careful, it’s a slippery slope. Whenever you have government starting to legislate and make rules, if you’re not careful, it always goes too far.”