Janelle Irwin Taylor
Four years ago, Charlie Justice narrowly held onto his seat on the Pinellas County Commission. Now, in what feels like the blink of an eye, he’s facing another tough challenge from the right, this time from government watchdog Vincent Nowicki.
The back-to-back challenges from Republicans are part of a broad GOP effort to capitalize on changing demographics that have slowly been shifting Pinellas County into the red column.
Justice won re-election four years ago by less than a percentage point against Republican challenger Tammy Sue Vasquez, a local pet boutique owner. Whether this year will be as close remains to be seen. But there are signs to suggest that while it will probably still be close, Justice may have a little more breathing room this time around.
The biggest difference? Justice’s last re-election campaign was waged amid the COVID pandemic, which saw Republicans capitalize on anger surrounding mask mandates and local restrictions seen largely by conservatives as attacks on personal freedoms and economic vitality. That’s not the case this year.
Here’s what to expect this year in the race for Pinellas County Commission, District 3:
The challenger
Justice is facing Nowicki, a candidate best known locally for his oversight of local government. Nowicki ran for St. Pete Mayor in 2021, but he’s better known for efforts to hold local elected officials accountable.
His personal investigation into former St. Pete City Council member Lisa Wheeler-Bowman led to her resignation in September. Nowicki hired a private investigator, who uncovered that Wheeler-Bowman was residing outside her district.
Nowicki also filed an unsuccessful ethics complaint against Mayor Ken Welch over his appointment of James Corbett as City Development Administrator.
Nowicki’s 2021 run for Mayor was short-lived. He failed to gain traction amid a crowded field of candidates and withdrew from the race before the qualifying deadline. A now-closed political committee, Friends of Vince Nowicki, shows he raised $17,200 from March 2021 until his exit from the race in June of the same year.
The incumbent
Justice’s district covers parts of west St. Pete and Lealman. Justice, for years, has been a staunch proponent for the Lealman community, which has long faced poverty and, in some cases, blight.
This year, Justice is touting his work protecting beaches and local estuaries, preserving green spaces, investing in infrastructure and making public safety a priority. At the time of his campaign announcement, last October, there had been a 59% decline in serious crime countywide.
Justice prides himself on avoiding the type of partisan gridlock seen in Washington, nodding to that directly in his re-election announcement last year. He said such partisanship “stands in the way of getting things done.”
Justice was first elected to the at-large District 3 seat in 2012. He previously served one term in the Senate after being elected in 2006, and served three, two-year terms in the House, elected in 2000, 2002 and 2004.
Justice is a University of South Florida alumnus and previously served as an assistant director for leadership programming at the school’s St. Petersburg campus.
The race
On paper, the contest is close. Justice and Nowicki have raised about the same amount, with Nowicki having a slight edge in fundraising.
As of Oct. 18, Justice was less than $4 shy of hitting six figures, while Nowicki had raised about $10,000 more, just shy of $108,000. With less than a month before Election Day at that point, both had spent about the same — nearly $94,000. Heading into the final two and a half weeks of the election, Nowicki had about $14,000 left on hand, while Justice had about $6,000.
The race may well boil down to partisanship and turnout, though there is at least one indication that Republicans may not be all that excited about Nowicki.
Before the Primary, former St. Petersburg City Council member Robert Blackmon rescinded his endorsement of Nowicki in favor of a last-minute Republican entrant to the race: activist David Leatherwood. Leatherwood ended up dropping out of the race, leaving Nowicki without a Primary challenge, but sources told Florida Politics at the time that some GOP leaders had been hopeful about an alternative to Nowicki.
Even if those sources were correct, Nowicki has significant GOP support remaining, including endorsements from Pinellas County Commissioner Chris Latvala; Reps. Kim Berfield, Linda Chaney and Berny Jacques; Clearwater Mayor Bruce Rector; Redington Shores Mayor Lisa Hendrickson; St. Pete Beach Mayor Adrian Petrila; Belleair Beach Mayor Dave Gattis; Seminole Mayor Leslie Waters; Redington Beach Mayor David Will; Pinellas County School Board members Stephanie Meyer and Dawn Peters; former St. Pete Mayor Rick Baker; and others.
And voter registration is on Nowicki’s side, with about 35,000 more Republicans in the county than Democrats (242,526 compared to 207,386). But those numbers look only at active voters. When including inactive voters — who are still eligible to vote — Democrats chip away at that advantage by more than 12,000 voters.
There are also more than 166,000 active no-party voters, and more than 51,000 additional inactive no-party voters, which could give Justice a boost.
Voter turnout could also play a big role in the race. There, Justice appeared off to an early disadvantage, though there’s no way to know how voters cast their ballots.
Republicans, as of Friday morning, had cast more than 124,000 ballots, while Democrats trailed at just over 110,000 ballots returned either through vote-by-mail or early voting. No-party voters had cast nearly 65,000 ballots.
As an incumbent — and one who has served largely from the middle and often in consensus with Republican colleagues — it’s possible Justice is drawing at least some Republican support. He has endorsements from firefighters unions in St. Pete and Palm Harbor, which could help persuade conservative voters. He also has nods from former Republican colleagues who previously served on the Commission in Susan Latvala and Karen Seel.
In her endorsement, Latvala praised Justice for his ability to bridge the partisan divide currently plaguing most politics.
“We can trust Charlie to put politics aside and put people first,” she said. Latvala herself was known for sometimes bucking party. And her ex-husband, Jack Latvala, was often seen as a friend to Democrats in the Senate, where he sometimes blocked what his political foes saw as dangerous legislation.
Implications
Democrats lost ground on the County Commission in the 2022 cycle, with Pat Gerard losing her seat and Republicans claiming a 4-3 advantage. They are now looking to expand that advantage, with Republicans running against Justice and in the open race for countywide District 1, which Democrat Janet Long is vacating.
It’s widely believed that if the GOP picks up either seat, it will be next to impossible for Democrats to win back their advantage in less than 10 years. If Democrats manage to keep both seats blue, party operatives are hopeful the pendulum will swing back in Democrats’ favor within the next two or three election cycles.
