St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch has again posted lackluster campaign finance reports indicating a campaign apparatus that has stalled.
Welch raised less than $4,300 combined between his campaign and affiliated political committee during the most recent period. That includes less than $3,800 raised to Welch’s campaign and just $525 raised to his political committee, St. Petersburg Progress.
To put that into perspective, Charlie Crist, Welch’s challenger in the Nov. 3 General Election runoff, raised more than $45,000 combined, including nearly $32,000 to his campaign and nearly $14,000 to his affiliated political committee, St. Pete Shines.
The numbers get worse for Welch; he has less than $25,000 remaining on hand between both funding sources, while Crist maintains nearly $400,000 across both his accounts.
Moreover, Welch’s fundraising struggles have become a trend. While his political committee raised just $525 in the most recent reporting period covering financial activity Sept. 5-11, the committee didn’t raise a dime during the period before that, covering Aug. 29 through Sept. 4. Welch did manage to draw $8,500 in the period covering Aug. 22-28, but Crist’s political committee raised more than $49,000 that same period.
On the campaign side, Welch has also been consistently, and significantly, trailing his opponent. The most recent report covered Aug. 29 through Sept. 11, when Welch’s campaign was outraised about $10,000. In the previous period, covering Aug. 14-28, Welch raised $6,750 to Crist’s nearly $37,000. The period before that, covering Aug. 1-13, Crist raised nearly $17,000, while Welch banked less than $7,000.
While some in Welch’s corner have been dismissing the funding disparity as a non-issue, it does present a particular problem for Welch. Based on past spending trends in both his campaign and political committee, Welch’s current cash-on-hand levels are barely enough to pay for staff and other overhead costs. Meanwhile, the Crist campaign not only has been covering its overhead and has the cash on hand to easily continue to do so, but it also has a major surplus to get Crist’s message to voters.
Where Crist has the ability to fund television ads, digital engagement, text blasts, mailers and more, Welch’s funds are dwindling, making his campaign’s ability to reach voters more difficult, and leaving his campaign only with a ground operation that has, sources tell Florida Politics, been only modest at best.
Welch does have one advantage as the incumbent, with his actions in office serving as earned media that his campaign cannot otherwise afford. But a spate of bad news for the city — losing the Rays, criticism about the Deuces Rising Project, Jabil’s decision to expand in North Carolina instead of St. Pete, and more — may be either neutralizing that advantage or completely eclipsing it.
Regardless, with every campaign finance report showing Welch being significantly outraised by his opponent, the incumbent’s path to re-election gets even murkier.
And polling supports not only that hypothesis, but offers insight into why Welch’s access to funds appears to be drying up.
A St. Pete Polls survey taken Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 among 509 likely St. Pete voters shows Crist with 52% support in the race, while Welch trails at 27%. And data from the poll show Crist has improved his position among several demographics, including erasing Welch’s edge among Black voters and Democrats while increasing his advantage among both Republicans and independent voters.
As of late July, when a previous St. Pete Polls survey was taken ahead of the Primary, Welch led Crist among Black voters by 26 percentage points. The new poll — the first taken since the Primary, in which Crist finished nearly 15 points ahead of Welch — shows Crist leading Welch among Black voters by 1 percentage point.
While that is well within the poll’s margin of error (4.3 percentage points overall, and considerably wider for a subsample of 86 Black voters), it shows a 27-point swing for Crist among Welch’s strongest demographic. And Crist could have room to improve, after two pillars of the city’s African American community endorsed Crist this week: retired St. Pete Police icons Cedric Gordon and Al White.
Crist’s polling has continuously improved since March, while Welch’s has generally declined. Welch polled at 31% support in a head-to-head against Crist in March, with his strongest showing in late June at 32% support. Welch’s current 27% is his lowest yet. Crist, meanwhile, polled at 36% support in March, jumping to 40% in June, 44% in mid-July, 45% in late July and now 52%.