St. Petersburg City Council member Brandi Gabbard will run for Mayor against incumbent Ken Welch, she told the Tampa Bay Times Tuesday.
Saying her “commitment to run for Mayor is firm,” Gabbard told the Times her decision was not necessarily based on opposition to Welch — she endorsed him in his first election as Mayor — but rather on “a clear difference in approach to governing.”
Gabbard had previously denied being behind a poll sent to voters asking about a potential bid, which framed Gabbard as a “proven leader in business and the community” and “committed to ensuring St. Pete residents can get affordable flood insurance.”
The poll also claimed Gabbard would be unafraid “to push back on the Republican-controlled Legislature’s seemingly never-ending attacks on home rule,” a poignant point considering recent efforts at the state level to remove street murals at various locations and to audit the city’s finances in a push to lower property taxes at the municipal level through ad valorem reductions.
Gabbard has not officially filed to run, as of Tuesday afternoon. But neither has Welch, though he has already begun campaigning and raising funds. His political committee has more than $200,000 on hand. Welch is the city’s first Black Mayor.
The only candidate filed so far to run for Mayor in 2026 is Maria Scruggs, whose third quarter funding reports showed her raising a mere fraction of what Welch had raised.
Former state Rep. Ben Diamond considered a bid, but ruled it out this Summer.
While it’s not uncommon for a St. Pete Mayor to face credible re-election opposition — Welch’s predecessor, Rick Kriseman, a Democrat like Welch, faced a tight race against former Mayor Rick Baker, a Republican — such opposition typically comes from the opposite political party, even though the Mayor’s race is nonpartisan.
But Welch is up against a series of missteps that have, at least quietly, raised the specter of unseating him. A September poll from St. Pete Polls commissioned by Florida Politics found Welch only barely above water in voter approval ratings, with less than 38% approving of his job performance and more than 34% disapproving, a difference within the poll’s margin of error.
As Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch pointed out after that poll was conducted, the last time an incumbent Mayor lost a re-election bid in St. Pete was in 2013. Kriseman defeated former Mayor Bill Foster, who was polling with higher favorability than Welch is now, above 54% in 2012. Foster lost to Kriseman the following year by 12 percentage points
Welch faces several potential negatives, including the breakdown of the deal with the Tampa Bay Rays to keep the team in St. Pete. There were also reports of Welch’s absenteeism at City Hall, and Welch faced criticism over his administration’s response to last year’s back-to-back hurricanes, with some residents referring to mounds of debris that remained uncollected for weeks as Welch piles.
Like Welch, Gabbard is a registered Democrat. As a real estate professional sympathetic to property rights and small business protections, she could offer a more moderate option to Republicans and other conservative voters who don’t see their values reflected in the Welch administration.
Gabbard is a managing broker for Suncoast Realty Solutions and has been a licensed realtor since 2005. She was named Realtor of the Year for the Pinellas Realtor Organization in 2015.
Gabbard was first elected to the City Council in 2017 and is now facing term limits.