Candidate Profile: Amanda Ballard

Amanda Ballard, a local attorney specializing in child welfare and foster care, is the Republican candidate for the newly-redrawn Manatee County Commission District 2 seat. She faces incumbent Democrat Reggie Bellamy in the November election.

Ballard grew up in a small South Carolina town and earned a BA in Political Science from the College of Charleston. She went on to earn her Juris Doctor degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law, where she met her husband. After law school, the couple moved to Bradenton and started a family.

Ballard is currently a senior attorney with Children’s Legal Services. She also serves as a precinct committeewoman for the Manatee Republican Executive Committee. She is a board member of Feeding Empty Little Tummies (FELT) and volunteers with the Junior League of Manatee County.

"It’s freedom that empowers families, not bureaucrats sitting in an ivory tower looking over bloated budgets," said Ballard in a statement on her campaign website. "Today, the woke left is trying to replace parents with public school administrators, handcuff cops instead of criminals, and systematically redistribute wealth through higher taxes. My opponent has done nothing to slow them down. I am running to change that.“

Ballard has so far run a grassroots campaign and has raised less than a quarter of the amount of campaign money as her opponent. Throughout the election cycle, she routinely campaigned with two other far-right candidates for the board, Jason Bearden and Mike Rahn, both of whom upset more moderate Republican opponents in August’s primary.

District 2 has been the only Democratic stronghold in the county since it was created in 1990. However, it was redrawn last year and has become somewhat more favorable to Republican candidates.