Kelly Hayes
Tampa’s first woman Mayor Sandy Freedman is set to host gubernatorial Democratic nominee Charlie Crist for a fundraising event in Tampa in late September.
Freedman, who served as Tampa’s Mayor from 1986-1995, will join Tucker/Hall chair Tom Hall and Ken Jewett at the event. The fundraiser is set for Sept. 22 starting at 6 p.m., with private pre-reception tickets ranging from $3,000 (co-host) to $10,000 (chair) and general reception tickets ranging from $500 to $1,500. Proceeds will go to Crist’s affiliated political committee, Friends of Charlie Crist.
The host committee is still being formed.
Crist has been doing well in the fundraising game, raising another $1 million for his campaign in the first 11 days of August. That’s on the heels of raising $2.3 million in July. But, he’ll need to keep up the momentum to compete with incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis, who faced no Primary challengers, holds more than $10 million in the bank for his candidate account and controls another nearly $120 million with a committee.
The Governor spent substantially leading into the August Primary despite not having his name on the ballot, plunking down more than $8 million in the month of August as he campaigned for endorsed School Board candidates. He slowed down expenses in the final week before the Primary, but only after sending a variety of mailers in counties around Florida.
Crist, on the other hand, spent big before the Aug. 23 Primary, in which he defeated fellow Democrat Nikki Fried by 25 points.
A Democratic Governors Association-commissioned poll by Impact Research showed DeSantis up by 5 percentage points. Liberal groups Progress Florida and Florida Watch published polling modeled on a Republican-leaning Midterm electorate and found DeSantis leading with 48% to Crist’s 45%. That closely matches findings for a generic ballot test showing 48% of voters feel inclined to vote Republican in the Midterms and 45% intend to vote Democratic. That puts the race within the poll’s 1.78% margin of error.
In the last week, Crist has made several headlines, first for announcing his running mate, United Teachers of Dade President Karla Hernández, and also for his resignation from Congress to focus on the Governor’s race.
Crist has represented Florida’s 13th Congressional District since winning the seat in the 2016 election. Crist was elected Governor as a Republican in 2006 but left the party and did not seek re-election in 2010, opting instead for a bid for the U.S. Senate.
5 comments
PeterH
September 1, 2022 at 12:55 pm
Ron DeSantis looked like a moderate when we voted him into office…….he’s been a MAGA nightmare since.
Why is Florida responding to the teacher shortage by lowering professional standards in the classroom? Why is Florida hiring college dropouts with two years of college to fill vacancies? Florida has about 9,000 vacant teaching positions in schools across the state, according to the most recent data from the Florida Department of Education.
While Florida has paid lip service to increase starting salaries, the state ranks 48th in the nation when it comes to average teacher salaries, according to an April report by the National Education Association. The teaching environment here is also worsening, as DeSantis and other Republicans have made grade schools and universities the latest battle grounds in partisan culture wars. Qualified teachers are professionals and certainly don’t want to be looking over their shoulder for the next unhappy legislator or parent ready to sue for financial gain.
If Americans want women to control their own bodies, qualified teachers to replace DeSantis’s culture wars in classrooms, intelligent teacher-student conversations concerning the social issues facing Americans in the 21st century, non-bullying discussion about classroom students who are different, common sense gun regulations, and a new honest approach on how best to address climate change……AMERICANS MUST VOTE ALL REPUBLICANS OUT OF OFFICE. REPUBLICANS ARE AMERICA’S PROBLEM.
Charlie Crist
September 1, 2022 at 1:18 pm
Vote for me. I’ll stop all the so called conservative Republican grifting being done here in Florida…and also hold the terrorists accountable.
Tina Broome
September 1, 2022 at 1:47 pm
We are voting and doing everything we possibly can so you can win Charlie great job? Will keep contributing to campaign sincerely Tina Broome. You will win you will be victorious through our heavenly father don’t give up the fight cuz us women we won’t the more women the more the fight. We 💘 you!🙂❤️🤗🙏🙏🙏🙏 We need DEATHSANTIS out? He’s a communion of Many Colors a liar a racist delusional in a Nazi.
PeterH
September 1, 2022 at 2:53 pm
The Democratic Party needs to maintain common sense policies with moderation and avoid extremism.
Independent voters are today’s voice of reason and decide elections.
Gallop has polled nationally asking a simple question of Party affiliation….. here are the results:
Democrats 27%
Republicans 27%
Independents 43%
In Florida there are a total of 14,256,184 registered voters. Of this amount 4,143,819 are unaffiliated independent voters, 5,157,343 are Republicans and 4,955,022 are Democrats.
Independent voters are generally moderate in fiscal issues, liberal in social issues and for the most part college educated. Appealing to the middle wins elections. Independent voters decide elections.
Earl Swann
September 2, 2022 at 6:49 pm
Taylor county will be strong DeSantis
Comments are closed.