Cord Byrd, Clay Yarborough maintain fundraising leads in re-election bids
Cord Byrd and

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Freshmen Jacksonville-area Republican state Reps. Cord Byrd and Clay Yarborough continued to maintain strong cash leads over their Democratic challengers through the first half of September.

Byrd, whose majority-Republican House District 11 includes coastal Duval and all of Nassau County, brought in $3,500 of new money between Sept. 1 and 14, pushing his campaign account near $42,000 on hand. TECO and the Jacksonville Association of Fire Fighters were among the donors.

Byrd also has nearly $10,000 in his 1845 political committee.

His general election opponent, Nathcelly Rohrbaugh, mostly kept pace with Byrd when it came to early September receipts, bringing in $3,000 of new money, pushing his campaign account near $14,000 on hand.

Among Rohrbaugh’s donors: Rena Coughlin, CEO of the Non-Profit Center of Northeast Florida. Coughlin also had a role in the transition team for Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry.

Yarborough, running in Southside Jacksonville’s Republican-plurality House District 12, has started to deploy some of the $165,000-plus in hard money he’s raised over the last 20 months of his re-election bid.

The Arlington Republican raised just $2,500 and spent $17,645 between Sept. 1 and Sept. 14, leaving him with just over $101,000 on hand.

Yarborough’s Democratic opponent Tim Yost raised $1,890, with $1,100 from people with the Yost surname. Yost has just over $11,000 on hand.

Both Northeast Florida seats are considered safely Republican. Neither Byrd nor Yarborough faced a Democratic opponent in their 2016 campaigns, though the lawmakers they replaced, Janet Adkins and Lake Ray, each breached 70 percent of the vote in 2014.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. He writes for the New York Post and National Review also, with previous work in the American Conservative and Washington Times and a 15+ year run as a columnist in Folio Weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski



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