A.G. Gancarski
Palm Coast Rep. Paul Renner is on the track to the House Speaker post. And Northeast Florida’s brightest hope in the House is also favored by donors outside the region.
Proof positive: the impressive October hauls of Renner’s two political committees, “Florida Foundation for Liberty” and “Conservatives for Principled Leadership.”
The former brought in $70,500; the latter, $37,500 … adding up to a tidy sum of $108,000 — much more than an incumbent running in a deep-red seat against an underfunded Democrat needs for re-election.
FFL has roughly $285,000 on hand as of the end of October, while CPL has $64,000 — pushing the aggregate cash on hand close to $350,000.
At least in October, there wasn’t much donor overlap between the two committees.
Florida Blue, Pfizer, and Surterra (the medical cannabis company) were interested in Liberty, while prison-industry stalwart Geo Group and Comcast were among those entities interested in Principled Leadership.
Expenditures of note from Florida Foundation for Liberty included $1,000 donations to local candidates, including Justin Bean in St. Petersburg, LeAnna Cumber in Jacksonville, and Jeb Smith in St. Johns County.
Conservatives for Principled Leadership, meanwhile, anted up for Republican House incumbents, donating to the campaign accounts of Jayer Williamson, Cord Byrd, Bobby Payne, and Chuck Clemons.
October numbers were not available for Renner’s campaign account when this piece was written, but as of the end of September, his campaign account had just $34,000 in it.
The campaign account of his Democratic opponent Adam Morley, meanwhile, had reported October fundraising.
Morley brought in $363 of new money last month, pushing his cash on hand to $760.
