Two-term City Council member Brandi Gabbard said she will run for mayor of St. Petersburg, giving her more than a year to wage a challenge against incumbent Ken Welch, her one-time ally.
“The commitment to run for mayor is firm,” she told the Tampa Bay Times on Oct. 14.
Welch has not yet filed to run but has started campaigning. Gabbard endorsed him when he campaigned for mayor in 2021. Her bid to unseat him is the latest sign of eroding support for Welch as he positions for a second term.
Gabbard said her decision to run for mayor is “not necessarily driven on opposition.”
“It’s driven by unwavering commitment and vision of the city of St. Petersburg,” she said. “We’re at a critical time, and I think we have some hard decisions to make if we want to move forward to be a sustainable city in the future.”
She also will face off against community activist Maria Scruggs, who is the only candidate who has filed to run for mayor.
“The core of my time on City Council has been working to tackle very complex issues. We still have a lot of work to do,” Gabbard said. “I believe that I am a collaborative leader who stands for accountability and transparency and very much believe that that is a very important leadership skill at this time in the city of St. Petersburg.”
Gabbard has represented District 2, which encompasses the neighborhoods of Riviera Bay, Gandy and the Gateway area, since 2018. She ran for reelection unopposed in 2021.
She has been backed by the Pinellas Realtor Organization, whose political committee in August spent $36,725 for a “St. Petersburg July 2025 Municipal Poll,” online records show.
Gabbard was once seen as an ally of Welch’s and has supported many of his initiatives, including a proposal for a Tampa Bay Rays stadium and surrounding redevelopment last year.
But recently, Gabbard has broken with Welch’s administration. She is against redeveloping the downtown waterfront into a cohesive “Center for the Arts.” She also pushed Welch to rekindle a deal that would help revive the Science Center, saying, “We really need a win as a city.”
Foreshadowing what was to come, Gabbard took shots at Welch Oct. 9 for “running in his own direction” on how the city should react to a state ban on street art. She had criticized council member Gina Driscoll’s approach to fly Pride and Black history flags with the city seal in honor of those murals.
Welch showed up in the council chambers to “set the record straight,” he told Gabbard, “since you made some accusations.”
“The theatrics up here, I’m not going to deal with it. OK? You’re setting up division,” Welch said. “We’re trying to move forward and make our city sustainable and respond to this strategically. So if you’re going to call out the administration with something that’s false, I’m going to counter that.”
Welch provided a statement through a city spokesperson that did not directly address Gabbard’s candidacy. In it, he spoke about how the city has strengthened its water and sewage systems — one of Gabbard’s key issues — supported youth and education, improved public safety and “built a more inclusive and accountable city government.”
“My focus remains on doing the job the people of St. Petersburg elected me to do, and the results speak for themselves,” he said. “I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished together, even through unprecedented challenges like the back-to-back storms of 2024. But there’s still more work to do.”