Candidate Profile: Tuan Le

Apopka engineer Tuan Le was skeptical when Erin Huntley, chair of the Orange County Republican Party, recruited him to run in the Sept. 2 special election for Florida House District 40, a Democratic stronghold. He had a lot to consider: his odds of winning, his work running multiple companies and his unsuccessful bid for a seat in last year’s Republican Congressional primary. 

But he said that Donald Trump’s presidential win, which resulted in local political shifts, combined with his ideas for the district that he’s considered home since he was a young boy, just might give him an edge this year. He’s even calling on Democrats to “vote for who can do the work.”

 ”That's why I think this time I have a good chance to win,” Le said in a July interview with VoxPopuli. “We need people to go out and really vote.” 

House District 40 encompasses Windermere, Ocoee, Pine Hills, College Park, Apopka, Maitland, Winter Park and parts of Orlando. Le is facing Democrat RaShon Young, who won the June 24 primary against former State Rep. Travaris McCurdy.

Young worked as chief of staff to Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis, who resigned her seat to run for state senate. Florida state representatives typically serve for two years, but the winner of this election will just serve out Bracy Davis’ term until next year's midterm elections. State representatives earn $29,697 annually. 

The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is Aug. 21. Early voting will take place Aug. 23 to 31, daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Click here for early voting locations.

This isn’t the first time Le has thrown himself into a race where Democrats are favored to win. 

He ran for Florida’s 10th congressional district in 2022 and 2024, but lost in the Republican primary both times. Democrat Rep. Maxwell Frost holds the seat. Le said Trump’s loss in 2020 motivated him to run for Congress to address U.S. dependence on China and the need for economic deregulation. 

Le, an Apopka resident, grew up in Pine Hills after he and his family immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam. He dabbled in numerous industries — wastewater, oil and gas and even aerospace — before launching several businesses, including the engineering firm, LeNgineer, and the technology investment business, Lennovation. 

Florida plan

Le has a three-prong plan for Florida: lower small-business taxes; bolster technical education; and change zoning laws. 

His proposed Zoning Equity Act would allow homeowners to subdivide their property and sell the divided lots to developers to build more homes. He pointed toward Pine Hills where zoning requirements allow property owners to build homes on 0.19 of an acre. According to his proposal, property owners with larger parcels could sell off portions of their land and use the proceeds to renovate their own homes to raise their property values. 

Subdivision applications are currently reviewed at the municipal level, and Orange County already has a process for subdividing lots that requires the county zoning manager’s approval and must fit with the county’s comprehensive plan. 

Le is also proposing an affordable housing program that would eliminate property taxes and mortgage interest rates for retired government employees and military veterans 65 and over on their primary residence. 

As Florida’s legislature debates eliminating property taxes, Le suggested extending his housing initiative that would also exempt first-time home buyers from paying property taxes and interest rates for the first 20 years of their mortgage payments. He said better homeownership opportunities for those who want a home will drive up employee productivity and bring workers to the state, resulting in companies generating more profits and paying higher taxes to offset the cuts. 

 ”If you own a house, you don't wanna lose a house, you’re working hard. So when you’re working hard, who benefits? The company,” Le said. “They will pay the tax.”

Le also has a plan that would save first-time business owners from having to pay employment tax for their employees for a year. Called the Small Business Credit Tax Act, his proposal would give new owners a 50 percent discount on their employment tax in the second year and a 25 percent discount in the third year.

On the health insurance front, Le advocates what he calls “open insurance.” He said open insurance would “kick in” as the alternative affordable option for those who stand to lose Medicaid coverage from the “One Big, Beautiful Bill’s” federal spending cuts (Florida is projected to lose around 20 percent of the $19.5 billion in annual subsidies for healthcare programs.) 

In this model, companies can offer an à-la-carte insurance menu where employees choose the size of their plan based on how much of their paycheck they want to dedicate to paying for their health insurance. 

“If you put 2 percent [of your paycheck toward insurance], you get a Packet A. If you put 3 percent, you get Packet B and if you put 4 percent, you get Packet C,” he said.

He added that employees who don’t use their health insurance monies should be able to recoup a percentage of their contribution at the end of the year. Le said the plan could also apply to home insurance to lower high premiums.   

Le worked his way through college as an electrical technician. Drawing on that experience, he wants to utilize 10 percent of public high schools as evening technical and vocational schools. He said that this will help Florida businesses retain technical workers who can operate factory machinery rather than outsource those jobs and save money by using existing publicly funded facilities. Le advocates that businesses apply for Small Business Administration loans to fund the costs of vocational training. Currently, Orange County is not lacking dedicated vocational and technical schools: Orange Technical College has six public campuses throughout the county while Orlando has two private technical colleges, Florida Technical College and Southern Technical College.

Immigration

Like the 79 percent of Florida Republicans who said in a recent University of North Florida poll that they approve of the current immigration enforcement actions, including detention and deportations, Le supports mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and wants to increase penalties for immigrants who commit crimes. 

But unlike the 23 percent of Florida Republicans in the poll who said it would be “acceptable” if some legal U.S. residents were “mistakenly” deported in the process, Le said he doesn’t support deporting legal residents unless they have committed a “certain level” of crime.

 ”If they do something here, and even they have come legally, but[sic] they have to send them back to the country where the citizen lived when they have a criminal problem,” said Le who immigrated with his family from Vietnam in the 1970s.  ”It depend[s] on the case, and the criminal level too.” 

In other words, if the crime is deemed bad enough, Le favors deportation of legal residents. 

Le would like to see asylum-seekers wait in other countries as they’re being processed and vetted before being permitted to enter the U.S. This is similar to Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy — keeping asylees in Mexico until the U.S. processed applications — which is now under a federal court injunction to prevent it from taking effect.

Regarding the state’s controversial detention facility in the Everglades, “Alligator Alcatraz,” Le said he has not visited and does not have much information about it, despite the ample news coverage that the facility has generated. He did claim that complaints about its ”unlivable” conditions are “exaggerated,” and said many low-income Floridians live in mobile homes under similar conditions as the immigrants detained in the facility’s tents, but that people living in mobile homes “[don’t] complain about it.” 

When asked about the reports of tortureNEED LINK by guards, Le said while he cannot speak definitively about these topics, he does “not  think the state of Florida would do anything that will be dangerous to people.” 

Keeping DeSantis’ Florida

Le supports many of the laws championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and passed by Republicans in the state legislature. They include banning access to gender-affirming care for minors, allowing concealed carry and looser restrictions on gun ownership, banning abortion past six weeks and limiting the duration of vote-by-mail ballot requests. 

In terms of gun safety, Le supports the state’s red flag laws that ban people with mental health issues or those who were institutionalized from purchasing guns. He also would support legislation to mandate the safe storage of guns for people living with minors. But he’s also on board with lowering the age for gun ownership to 18. 

 ”People will assume that everybody carr[ies] and, because of that, people will be more careful[sic] and they don’t create problems,” Le said.  

He said he also supports efforts to ban gender-marker changes on all identifying documents and greater parental control over school curricula and books in schools that include LGBTQ+ themes. Florida already bans making gender changes to drivers’ licenses, and requests for gender changes on birth certificates have been denied.

Additionally, Le said he supports investing in oil and gas production in the state and nationwide to lower dependence on foreign oil and keep gas prices low while also investing in clean energy solutions like hydrogen fuel.