Ken Welch’s coalition isn’t cracking. It’s crumbling

Ken Welch’s path to re-election runs through the coalition that made him St. Petersburg’s first Black Mayor in 2021.

Four years later, with mail ballots already landing in voters’ hands, that coalition is coming apart in public view, one former ally at a time.

The latest is Rev. Andy Oliver, the Allendale United Methodist pastor and one of the loudest progressive voices in the city. On Friday, Oliver took to the pages of the Tampa Bay Times to accuse the Mayor of misleading voters about the city’s 287(g) agreement with ICE.

Welch told a debate audience the agreement “was an order from the Governor” and “was not a choice at the local level whether to comply with that or not.” Oliver walks through the statute and calls that what it is: not true. The law requires “best efforts.” It does not require a municipal Police Department to sign anything. When pressed, Oliver wrote, the city’s own legal adviser couldn’t point to any language saying otherwise.

“‘We had no choice’ is not leadership,” Oliver wrote.

That’s not an attack from an opponent. That’s a eulogy from a friend.

And Oliver has company. Start with Sen. Darryl Rouson, the dean of South St. Pete politics, who let Welch’s campaign tout his endorsement and then endorsed Charlie Crist the same day. The dual endorsement was damaging enough. Rouson has since resolved the ambiguity, saying in a video that his choice is the one he knows “will take St. Pete to the furthest.” That choice is Crist.

The Democratic establishment that elevated Welch is drifting in the same direction. Former Rep. Ben Diamond, the St. Petersburg Democrat and a fixture of that downtown world, was part of Crist’s June rollout of Democratic endorsements and followed up with a video calling Crist a “good friend.”

Susan McGrath, the former Pinellas Democratic Executive Committee Chair whose job was once holding the county party together, is now volunteering for the Crist campaign.

There are quieter signals, too. Scott Wagman, the businessman and 2009 mayoral candidate, hasn’t made a public show of it, but he wrote Crist a maximum check. And former Mayor Bill Foster, who backed Welch four years ago, has turned up on Jim Large’s mail this time.

Neither moves votes by the thousands. But incumbents in good shape don’t shed names like these.

Then there is the silence closer to home. Brother John Muhammad, the South St. Pete organizer who held the District 7 Council seat until last year, declined to endorse anyone.

When an organizer from the district that anchors the Mayor’s base decides neutrality is the safest place to stand, that tells you something.

And where is Charlie Justice? The former Pinellas County Commissioner was once one of Welch’s closest friends in politics. He’s nowhere to be found in this campaign. One source says the two men hardly speak.

To be fair to the Mayor, he still holds real assets: the police and fire unions, SEIU Florida, Equality Florida Action PAC as of this week, Pinellas County Commissioner Rene Flowers, Woodson African American Museum of Florida Executive Director Terri Lipsey Scott, and Council Members Copley Gerdes and Deborah Figgs-Sanders.

Institutional labor and institutional LGBTQ+ groups have stuck with the incumbent.

But look at what the defections have in common. Rouson and Muhammad are South St. Pete. Diamond is the Democratic establishment. McGrath is the party’s own machinery. Oliver is the progressive faith left. Wagman and Foster are smaller breaks, but they come from the business community and the crossover vote.

Welch isn’t losing one wing of his coalition. He’s losing a piece of every wing.

Incumbents win by giving their supporters no reason to look elsewhere. Each of these breaks is a permission slip, a trusted validator telling some slice of the Welch 2021 coalition that it’s OK to consider a change.

The most recent public polling suggests voters are taking them up on it.

St. Pete Polls found Crist at nearly 28%, more than 12 points ahead of the Mayor, with Welch’s support among Black voters falling from 55% in March to 42% in late June.

An incumbent with universal name ID polling in the mid-teens is already in trouble. An incumbent whose own coalition is supplying the testimony against him is in something worse.

The Primary is Aug. 18, and the ballots are in the mail. Some people who know Welch best keep telling voters what they think.

And for anyone who backed the Mayor in 2021, or who has stayed carefully neutral this cycle, there is still time to join them. Every new break hastens his demise.

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Ed. notes: Michelle Todd Schorsch is the Chair of St. Pete Shines, a political committee backing Charlie Crist for St. Petersburg Mayor. Todd Schorsch is married to Peter Schorsch, the publisher of Florida Politics. This story was drafted with assistance from AI. Editorial judgment, sourcing, and final review were performed by Peter Schorsch and the Florida Politics editorial team.