Janelle Irwin Taylor
Incumbent Democratic state Rep. Lindsay Cross is releasing a new ad promoting her re-election campaign to St. Petersburg-based Florida House District 60.
Cross is facing a tough challenge from St. Pete City Council member Ed Montanari, a Republican.
In her ad, produced for the home stretch heading into the Nov. 5 General Election, Cross touts her work as an environmental scientist and ensuring access to clean water while juxtaposing that work with her work “cleaning up Tallahassee.”
“As an environmental scientist, I was proud to help clean up Tampa Bay. Now, I’m cleaning up Tallahassee, taking on corporate polluters who contaminate our water, opposing bailouts for big insurance who raise our rates, standing up to developers who are increasing traffic and decreasing our quality of life,” Cross narrates in the 30-second spot over images of her collecting trash from local waterways and, alternatively, dressed in business attire and speaking with voters.
Cross also adds in the advertisement that she “will never stop fighting for abortion rights, birth control and IVF,” topics Democrats hope will drive voter turnout this election as Floridians grapple with the post-Roe v. Wade reality and contemplate Amendment 4, which would enshrine abortion access into the state constitution.
“I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty for a better Pinellas,” Cross ends in the ad.
Cross faces a credible challenge from Montanari, a moderate Republican who has enjoyed cross-party support as a local official.
However, Cross may still have the edge as an incumbent in a district that still favors Democrats.
Democrats enjoy a voter registration advantage of a little more than 3,000 voters, with 40,285 registered Democrats compared to 37,248 Republicans, according to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Election’s most recent district voter registration data from July. That’s an advantage for Cross of a little less than three percentage points.
Those numbers factor only active Pinellas County voters. When looking also at inactive voters, who are eligible to vote, Cross’ advantage gets bigger. There, her advantage increases to about six percentage points.
Voters are declared inactive if there is reason to believe their address has changed (usually through information provided by the U.S. Postal Service when a person provides change-of-address information) and they don’t respond to a request for updated information or if the voter has not voted in the past two federal General Elections.
While Republicans see a shrinking advantage for Democrats in the district based on active voter totals, Democrats hope voter engagement in a presidential election year and with the abortion amendment and another seeking to legalize recreational marijuana will help reengage voters who have been moved to inactive rolls.
An internal poll from Cross’ campaign also shows a big advantage for the incumbent Democrat, with a double-digit lead over Montanari. Her 12-point lead in that poll overperforms the top of the ticket, where just 43% of respondents favored a generic Democrat, compared to the 50% who said they support Cross.
Republicans see an opening to gain another seat in the House, where they already enjoy a supermajority.
Montanari has been lining up support from prominent Republicans in and out of the district, including House Speaker-elect Daniel Perez.
Other endorsers include state Sen. Nick DiCeglie; Republican state Reps. Kim Berfield, Linda Chaney and Berny Jacques; Pinellas County State Attorney Bruce Bartlett; Pinellas Clerk of Court Ken Burke; Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri; Pinellas Tax Collector and local GOP Chair Adam Ross; Public Defender Sara Mollo; Pinellas Tax Collector Charles Thomas; Pinellas Property Appraiser Mike Twitty; Pinellas County Commissioners Chris Latvala, Dave Eggers and Brian Scott; Pinellas School Board member Stephanie Meyer; former state Sen. Jeff Brandes; and former St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster.
