Former Tallahassee Mayor blasts Corey Simon as an ‘election-denier’

Tallahassee honors former two-term Mayor Dorothy Inman-Johnson.

Former Tallahassee Mayor Dorothy “Dot” Inman-Johnson is criticizing Senate District 3 Republican candidate Corey Simon for refusing to say President Joe Biden was legitimately elected.

Simon’s statement instead that the “election is done” came during a debate last week between Simon and Democratic Sen. Loranne Ausley. As Ausley, perhaps the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent in the Florida Senate, hopes to defend her seat, her campaign published Inman-Johnson’s response to Simon’s remarks.

“Last week, Corey Simon refused to say that Joe Biden is the duly elected President, unacceptably denying the results of our free and fair election,” Inman-Johnson said in a statement.

“As an election-denier, who’s to say Corey Simon will accept the results of his own race for SD 3? This kind of dangerous behavior so popular amongst Republican extremists is a threat to the very foundation of our democracy, and a slap in the face to our forefathers who fought for Black Americans’ near-sacred right to vote.”

Inman-Johnson was the first Black woman elected to the Tallahassee City Commission. In her role as Commissioner, she later became the first Black woman Mayor of Tallahassee.

She continued her opposition Simon’s comments, which could place him in the camp of people who believe former President Donald Trump’s lie that he won the 2020 election:

“Sadly, this should come as no surprise because Corey Simon is on the side of Republicans who fought against restoration of rights, tried to take away our voting rights, and have worked to erase Black History from Florida classrooms. It comes down to values, and Corey Simon will not vote with the values of the Black community. Corey Simon cannot be counted on to protect the rights so hard won by the Black Community. His denial of the legitimacy of the 2020 election is just the latest example of whose side he’s really on.”

After the debate, in comments to Florida Politics, Simon blamed distrust in the 2020 election in the national media and the media in general. Specifically, he blamed the media for coming from a partisan position and journalists rushing to be first rather than to be correct.

“I saw, like a lot of people saw, at the 11th hour where screen started going up at polling places and people didn’t want them to see their ballots being counted and all of these things that happen on Election Night, and then the national media gets out there and you all push this story that the Democratic Party sends you, and then folks are then put in a position to now have to choose, ‘Well, I don’t really believe the media but I guess I should believe them in this instance,’” Simon said.

Ausley’s campaign and the campaign arm of Senate Democrats, Senate Victory, are escalating their attacks on Simon over his remarks. Meanwhile, Senate Victory and Ausley have come under fire for a campaign mailer that depicted pictures of Simon and children on shooting targets, a move some have deemed insensitive at best and racist at worst.

The Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Republican counterpart of Senate Victory, has hammered Democrats hard over the comments the last two weeks. And on Monday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist appeared to tell a conservative outlet, Florida’s Voice, that Democrats “could do better” than the ad. However, the Crist campaign says the comments were directed at the reporter’s question, which came as Crist was dropping off hurricane relief supplies.

Simon is a former Florida State University and NFL football player and former CEO of Volunteer Florida who is in his first campaign for office. Ausley served in the House from 2000 to 2008 and 2016 to 2020 and was elected to the Senate in 2020. Both live in Tallahassee.

Senate District 3 covers Dixie, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lafayette, Leon, Liberty Madison, Suwannee, Taylor and Wakulla counties.