Jacob Ogles
Being suspended as State Attorney didn’t hurt Monique Worrell’s fundraising edge as she seeks a second term.
The Orlando Democrat raised upward of $147,000 over 2023, including nearly $15,000 in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, Republican opponent Seth Hyman raised just under $42,000 for the year, with just over $3,800 coming in between Oct. 1 and the end of the year.
While Worrell didn’t officially launch her campaign until last week, and fundraising since then wasn’t reflected in her most recent report, she raised money throughout the year.
While the bulk of Worrell’s money came in early in the year, she saw a massive surge in grassroots donations in the month of August, beginning the day Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended her, alleging she was soft on crime.
Out of nearly 2,000 individual contributions over the course of 2023, more than 1,500 individual contributions came between Aug. 9 and the end of the month. Those checks represented upward of $52,000, more than a third of her total for the year.
But the money didn’t stop at the end of August. She raised another nearly $15,000 over the last three months of the year, though she also spent upward of $13,000. More than $7,000 of that went to Fall Campaign, a fundraising consultant in Kansas.
Meanwhile, Hyman over the last quarter of 2023 raised more than $3,800 and spent more than $3,500 of it.
He has put $10,000 of his own money toward his campaign in the form of a candidate loan. Even with that, heavy spending has left the Republican with just over $2,700 in cash on hand at the close of the year to Worrell’s upward of $120,000.
We still haven’t heard from one potential candidate. DeSantis appointed Andrew Bain to serve as State Attorney in the 9th Judicial Circuit following Worrell’s suspension. But he has yet to file as a candidate for State Attorney this year.
