Scott Powers
Everyone in Orange County politics, it seems, is waiting to see if Sheriff Jerry Demings will run for county mayor, and he’s about to let people know.
Demings, a Democrat, said Thursday he will be announcing soon whether he intends to run for Orange County mayor in 2018, an announcement that has set up dominoes for that and other Orange County races.
In fact, 17 months out from the 2018 general election, no major candidate has filed or announced to run for mayor, an unusually powerful position for the county that is being vacated next year because incumbent Mayor Teresa Jacobs faces term limits. Other races, too, are awaiting major candidates who might opt for the mayor’s race, or might settle for something else.
Insiders say everyone is waiting to hear what Demings wants to do.
“I’ll make an announcement on that soon,” Demings told FloridaPolitics.com Thursday morning. He would not comment further on what prospects he might be weighing.
Demings, husband to Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings of Orlando, stands on the precipice as the likely early frontrunner, with sky-high name identification, two and a half terms behind him as sheriff and a 36-year career in law enforcement, including a stint as Orlando chief of police, and a stint as Orange County director of public safety.
If he runs, there would be two Demings on the 2018 ballot, again.
The Orange County mayor’s race is non-partisan, but both parties desperately want the seat, and make little effort to hide partisan efforts during elections. There also is the prospect that could change. Orange County Tax Collector Scott Randolph and Property Appraiser Rick Singh, both Democrats, sued to overturn a charter amendment that had made their offices and some others, including the sheriff’s office, non-partisan. Randolph and Singh won that suit last year, and Circuit Judge Keith White‘s ruling appeared to leave open the prospect that other county offices, including the mayor’s job, also could have been wrongly declared non-partisan.
Republicans reportedly are waiting for his decision so they can announce their own campaigns without being caught up in the wake of Demings announcement. Among those said to be seriously considering runs are Orange County School Board Chairman Bill Sublette, former Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty, Orange County Commissioner Pete Clarke, and businessman Rob Panepinto, an active member of the Orlando Economic Partnership board of directors.
Other Democrats reportedly are waiting to see if Demings declines the race. Orange County Tax Collector Scott Randolph has said he might run only if Demings does not. Orange County Property Appraiser Rick Singh has been testing the waters all year, but has not yet declared.
Some insiders had speculated that Demings was awaiting the end of his term as president of the Florida Sheriffs Association, which concludes in late July. However, he just accepted another commitment Wednesday night in Reno, Nev., when he was elected to a three-year term on the board of directors of the National Sheriff’s Association. And he dismissed either duty as having any bearing on his potential campaign for Orange County mayor.
“Either way, whether I run for county mayor or not, I’ll be sheriff for quite a while longer, at least the next year and a half. So I’m not gong to stop being the sheriff whether I run or not,” he said. “But I’ll make an announcement soon.”
