William March: Victor Crist’s campaign for Hillsborough Court Clerk gets T-boned

If Republican Victor Crist loses his race for Hillsborough Clerk of Court, will it be because a young man driving at night without headlights T-boned his car at high speed, putting him into intensive care and leaving him unable to go to campaign events?

“Probably,” Crist first said, then revised — “I don’t think so.”

“A campaign, especially a close one, is about people,” he said. “The more you’re in public and people see you, the easier it is for people to draw their own conclusions, regardless (of)what your opponent says about you.”

But, he said, “I’m not going to be an invalid. I’m more than capable of getting back to the campaign and more than capable of doing this job.”

Crist is challenging Democratic incumbent Clerk Cindy Stuart.

But he hasn’t been able to make public appearances since July 25, three weeks before he easily won a Republican Primary against a political newcomer.

That night, Crist appeared at a Keystone Civic Association candidate forum at an American Legion post off Gunn Highway. He said he helped stack the tables and chairs afterward, then left at about 9:30, driving up the unpaved entry road to the highway.

It had been raining and was drizzling as he left.

“It’s a rural area, and I looked around and thought to myself, it’s so dark out here,” he said. “I looked both ways and saw nothing but black. I pulled out to turn left and bam, an explosion.”

The last thing he remembers is feeling the car spinning and seeing the hood fly off. When he came to, “people were screaming and yelling, ‘He’s alive!’ and there were emergency vehicles everywhere.”

His head had gone partially through the window. He had a severe concussion and multiple fractures in each of six ribs. His Ford Flex was totaled.

Crist was hospitalized for eight days, five in the ICU, and put on pain medication that still makes him unable to drive — “But I’m weaning myself off,” he said.

“The level of pain was unbelievable, with every breath you take, every yawn or stretch,” he said. “But every day, I’m getting stronger and more independent.”

Crist said the other driver, whose name he doesn’t know, was cited, but he’s not sure for what.

He said his own cautious driving, “like a little old man,” is a running joke in his family.

Before the accident, Crist had expressed total confidence of victory in the race, considering his long history as a state legislator and County Commissioner and voting trends.

After 18 years in the Legislature and four as Commissioner, Crist lost a countywide race for Commissioner in 2018, the first of two Democratic-dominated election cycles in Hillsborough.

But the 2022 Republican sweep has boosted Republican confidence.

Crist entered the race when former state Sen. Tom Lee chose not to and urged Crist to run. Crist said Lee provided him with polling and voter data suggesting a GOP win.

“A Republican is going to win this race and it should be somebody with some experience and know-how,” he said at the time, citing his experience with legislative budgeting, including financing clerks’ offices, and as a Commissioner.

But Democrats say the voter turnout will be different in a presidential election year, especially when their voters are energized by abortion and marijuana issues on the ballot and by Kamala Harris.

Crist said he normally goes to every event he’s invited to when campaigning – “I go everywhere, anybody who invites me,” he said. But for the time being, supporters and his wife are acting as surrogates, making appearances in his stead.

He hasn’t been seen publicly since the accident and a Sept. 20 Tiger Bay Club forum with Stuart will be his first campaign event since the wreck. He said he has now scheduled a dozen appearances over the next two weeks.

And he said he’s still confident.

“I have a 40-year record of tangible, significant accomplishments,” he said.

SOE’s inundated with data requests

The national trend of harassment and distrust of election officials in the wake of the 2020 election hasn’t passed over the Tampa Bay area, despite the absence of evidence of significant fraud and Donald Trump’s win statewide.

In Pinellas, Elections Supervisor Julie Marcus’ office has been “inundated” with public records requests, many of them seeking large and complex data drops, since 2021, said Deputy Supervisor Dustin Chase.

The office has had to hire additional personnel, including an in-house lawyer and communications coordinator, to deal with the requests.

In addition, Marcus’s office is being sued by election denier Christopher Gleason, who ran against her for the post. He has made numerous requests for voluminous amounts of technical data from the office while accusing Marcus of a “pattern of corruption and official misconduct.”

In a universal Primary Aug. 20, Gleason lost to Marcus by 84-16% of the vote, leaving her unopposed for re-election.

In Hillsborough, Supervisor Craig Latimer’s office has received about 350 public records requests in 2023-24, compared to an average of about 100 a year from 2016-2019, according to figures supplied by spokesperson Gerri Kramer.

In an interview, Chase said the nature of the requests plus his own interactions with some of the requesters suggest they are “in general, material apparently intended to disprove the validity of the election.”

Many requests concern the 2022 Election, a local and statewide Republican sweep and the 2024 Primary.

Chase said some of the requests are so technical the office has had to confer with other counties’ elections offices or the state Division of Elections on how to respond and that, in some cases, identical requests are being made to offices in multiple counties.

He said the figures for the number of requests understate the volume because the requests sometimes include demands for multiple documents.

The requests have included demands for “cast vote records,” a record of every vote cast in the election, where and for whom; and “machine audit logs,” which would include records of every change to the computerized voting system since the office began programming it for the election – “millions of rows of data and thousands of pages.”

Chase said that before the 2020 Election, the office depended solely on the county attorney’s office for legal advice, but that was no longer possible.

“Unfortunately, it’s going to mean more litigation, costs to the taxpayers, and distraction for elected officials who need to be preparing for the election,” he said.

2027: Shaw out, Hartfield maybe

You can add one name and subtract one from the long list of those giving early consideration to the 2027 Mayor’s race in Tampa: Sean Shaw says he’s definitely out, and community activist and entrepreneur Gary Hartfield says he could be interested.

Shaw, currently running for a countywide Commission seat, carries Democratic hopes of retaining the seat being vacated by term-limited Pat Kemp in the party’s 3-4 board minority.

But in the past, he’s expressed interest in the Mayor’s race, so some Democrats have been asking him to promise that if he wins the Commissioner’s race, he’ll serve out his term rather than jumping in for Mayor.

“I’m sick of getting asked about it,” Shaw said recently. “I’ve said it multiple times to multiple people that I’m not running for Mayor.”

Hartfield, 54, a FAMU graduate with a master’s in business from the University of West Florida, is an insurance agent, public speaker and author. He would be a political newcomer but has a long list of volunteer involvement on civic and government boards.

He lives in Lithia and acknowledges he’d have to move to run for a city office.

He’s now on the HART and CareerSource boards and the St. Joseph’s-Baptist Health Board of Trustees, a past board member of Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce and CEO Council of Tampa Bay, and founder of the Tampa Organization of Black Affairs Leadership Institute.

“I’m flattered that individuals may have mentioned my name,” he said, “but I’m not 100% sure at this point … if the opportunity presents itself, I am not going to rule it out.”

Even though the election is two and a half years off – Spring 2027 – there’s been widespread insider speculation in Tampa about potential candidates to succeed Tampa Mayor Jane Castor.

Names being bandied about include City Council members Bill Carlson, Lynn Hurtak and Luis Viera, former Mayor Bob Buckhorn, County Commissioner Harry Cohen and others.

Property Appraiser Bob Henriquez, also a subject of speculation, is currently running for another four-year term, and County Commissioner Kemp is running for Congress. Cohen, who ran for Mayor in 2019, has said he’ll decide next year whether to seek another term as Commissioner or look at the Mayor’s race.

Why the early speculation? In part because an open Mayor’s seat is sure to draw a crowd and in part because the Council’s conflicts with Castor have raised some Council members’ profiles while angering her allies, including Buckhorn.