With vote-by-mail ballots landing in St. Petersburg mailboxes, Charlie Crist is telling voters he’ll actually show up.
St. Pete Shines, the political committee backing the former Governor’s mayoral bid, this week launched “Know,” a 30-second spot running citywide across broadcast, cable, streaming, connected TV and digital platforms. The launch is timed to Pinellas County’s mailing of ballots to St. Petersburg voters ahead of the Aug. 18 election.
The ad makes a direct case on the issue voters raise most often: they’re working harder than ever, and City Hall has stopped working for them. It opens with a simple statement that City Hall is out of touch, then lays out the case against the incumbent — housing has slipped out of reach while property taxes climb, city spending has grown year after year, and residents who work hard every day are represented by a City Hall that hardly shows up for work.
Crist answers with his plan: cut property taxes, take care of the people who live here, and slam the brakes on runaway spending. The spot closes on the line that has become the most talked-about promise of the race: “And one more thing. I’ll show up at City Hall.”
“This city has been on pause,” Crist said. “Bills go up, service goes down, and people who have lived here their whole lives are being priced out of the neighborhoods they grew up in. A 92-year-old woman got a water bill for thousands of dollars on a house nobody was living in. That should never happen anywhere, and it should never happen here. We can fix this. It takes a mayor who takes it personally. I do. Help is on the way.”
Crist has built his affordability agenda around costs the city itself controls. Central to it is the deployment of Advanced Metering Infrastructure, which would end the surprise water bills that hit thousands of St. Petersburg households after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, let residents see their usage in real time instead of finding out weeks later, and recover the roughly $4 million a year the city loses to un-billed water through faulty meters. Pinellas County began its rollout in 2023, and Pinellas Park residents already have a customer portal — while St. Petersburg has been studying the question for years as residents paid the price for the delay.
The ad lands with Crist holding the advantage in the race to unseat Mayor Ken Welch, who is seeking a second term. The most recent St. Pete Polls survey found Crist with nearly 28% support, more than 12 percentage points ahead of Welch, with City Council member Brandi Gabbard the only other candidate reaching double digits at 10%. Former St. Pete Fire Chief Jim Large, Maria Scruggs and Kevin Batdorf round out the field in single digits.
The money tells a similar story. St. Pete Shines has raised more than $1.2 million with roughly $1.1 million on hand at the end of the First Quarter, while Welch raised just under $220,000 over the same period, leaving him with about $193,000 in the bank. If no candidate clears a majority on Aug. 18, the top two advance to a November runoff.
Watch the ad here: https://youtu.be/ypqFL39APGk
— Ed. note: Michelle Todd Schorsch is the Chair of St. Pete Shines, a political committee backing Crist for St. Petersburg Mayor. Todd Schorsch is married to Schorsch, the publisher of Florida Politics.
