St. Petersburg mayoral candidate Maria Scruggs has qualified for the race by petition, submitting more than the required number of voter signatures and allowing her to forgo the qualifying by fee process.
Scruggs submitted 1,429 petition signatures, 1,013 of which were verified and accepted. To qualify for the 2026 St. Pete mayoral election, candidates had to submit at least 1,000 verified petition signatures. Scruggs is the only mayoral candidate to qualify by petition.
The rest of the candidates must qualify during the prescribed qualifying period, which begins May 25 and runs through May 29 at noon. To qualify, candidates who have not successfully utilized the petition process must pay a $2,801.52 fee.
“This milestone reflects a campaign built on strategic planning, disciplined execution, and strong community engagement — achieved with limited financial resources. It also reinforces Scruggs’ reputation as a hard worker who follows through and delivers results.,” Scruggs’ campaign offered in a statement.
Scruggs has raised less than $18,000 to her campaign, as of the end of March, with another $7,500 to her affiliated political committee, The Shelynn PAC. To put that into perspective, incumbent Mayor Ken Welch has raised nearly $500,000, and has nearly $193,000 on hand.
“Despite being significantly outraised and commuting approximately 1,500 miles weekly for her current role in Orange County,” the campaign noted regarding Scruggs’ work as an administrative supervisor for Orange County Corrections. “Scruggs successfully mobilized a grassroots network of more than 40 volunteers to gather petitions ahead of the deadline.”
To be sure, Scruggs is an underdog in the race, but she’s polling near or ahead of most candidates in the race, except for Welch and former Gov. Charlie Crist, who has not yet officially joined the race.
In a late-March poll, Scruggs polled at 5%, 1 percentage point less than City Council member Brandi Gabbard and 1 point ahead of Jim Large, the city’s former Fire Chief. Former Shore Acres Neighborhood Civic Association President Kevin Batdorf had just 2% support in the poll.
While 5% support doesn’t seem impressive, it’s not as far behind Crist and Welch as one might think. They polled at 23% and 19% support, respectively. That’s because nearly 42% of those surveyed were still undecided.
Scruggs is banking on a people-powered grassroots push to draw support from frustrated voters who cast a ballot for Welch when he was first elected in 2021.
“The sense we get from different cross sections of voters is, anything that appears connected to traditional politics, they’re over it. They want people who are going to get results,” Scruggs previously told Florida Politics.
With qualifying a month away, and the Primary looming less than four months from now, campaigning is likely to pick up, and it will become clear whether Scruggs’ ability to gather petitions translates to more support.
But until then, she’s for now the only declared candidate who has officially qualified for the ballot.
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Ed. Note: Michelle Todd Schorsch is the Chair of St. Pete Shines, a political committee expected to back Crist for St. Petersburg Mayor. Todd Schorsch is married to Peter Schorsch, the publisher of Florida Politics.