Tallahassee City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow has maintained a small lead over former lawmaker Loranne Ausley in the race for Tallahassee mayor, the city’s most expensive, closely watched and consequential contest of 2026.
With 47 out of 80 precincts reporting, Matlow was ahead with 50.50% of the vote compared to Ausley’s 49.50%. Matlow has maintained a lead all night, though it has steadily shrunk since the first returns were posted. He is currently up by 691 votes.
Matlow, a two-term city commissioner and leader of the local progressive movement, is running for the city’s top elected post against Loranne Ausley, who spent 14 years in the Florida House and Senate.
The candidates, both Democrats with a history of electoral victories in Leon County, offered to bring change to City Hall, though Matlow, who ran with a slate of fellow progressives, promised to shake things up far more than Ausley, whose grandfather served as mayor in the 1940s.
Loranne Ausley and Jeremy Matlow
Matlow, first elected in 2018, found himself largely marginalized over the ensuing years by a 3-2 majority led by Mayor John Dailey, who opted not to run for a third term.
Should he and another member of the progressive slate prevail on election night, the balance of power at City Hall would flip to a voting bloc led by Matlow that includes City Commissioner Jack Porter. That in turn could lead to major changes in city management.
Ausley, who served a combined 12 years in the House and two in the Senate, promised to bring civility back to City Hall, where the 3-2 divide fueled years of bitter infighting among commissioners. She blamed Matlow in part for the discord.
If she were elected, she would become Tallahassee’s first woman mayor since it became an elected post in 1996. Should Matlow win, he would become the first progressive to hold the keys to the mayor’s office over the same time.
While outside political action committees spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on mailers, commercials and mass texts, many aiming negative attacks at Matlow, the candidates themselves tried to make the case that they were best able to bring change to the city commission.
Ausley said in one of her commercials that City Hall was “a mess” and “it feels like everything in our city is a fight.” She added that she “knew a thing or two about fights” from her time in the Legislature.
“In the Legislature, I picked the right fights,” she said, “like fighting for our kids, for good jobs, for better housing, for Cascades Park. I’m running for mayor because our leaders need to stop bickering and with each other, and start fighting for Tallahassee.”
Candidates for mayor Loranne Ausley and Jeremy Matlow shake hands before a debate hosted by the Capital Tiger Bay Club at the Tucker Civic Center on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026.
Matlow in one of his commercials criticized “selling off city property,” including Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare’s hospital and Capital City Country Club’s golf coarse “for pennies on the dollar.”
“The people who think I’ve been too tough on developers and too loud in challenging the closed network of City Hall influence want you to think I’m some crazy radical. I get it,” he said, adding “darkroom dealmakers” don’t want him to be the next mayor.
Ausley raised $662,359 — far more than any other local candidate — while Matlow collected $318,320 through his own campaign and another $253,750 through his political committee, Friends of Jeremy Matlow.
Matlow’s committee money included a late-in-the-game $200,000 donation from the Green Advocacy Network, a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(4), in what might be the single biggest political donation in county history.
Most of the negative campaigning came by way of political action committees, some formed just in time for the 2026 election to oppose Matlow and City Commission Seat 5 candidate Dot Inman-Johnson, who’s trying to unseat City Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox.
Tallahassee United, a PAC behind multiple waves of mailers and mass texts critical of Matlow, raised nearly $448,000 as of Oct. 29, according to the latest campaign finance reports.
Its biggest donors include Ghazvini family development businesses; Citizens for Balanced Growth, a political committee controlled by Jeff Phipps; and Local Economic Solutions Committee, a PAC funded largely by Florida State University officials and alumni.
Matlow made multiple appearances at Florida State University, even voting early there with P.J. Perez, progressive candidate for City Commission Seat 3, in hopes of energizing student voters. FSU led the state in early voting turnout, with 5,535 people voting at the Student Union.
He made appearances with the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, Angie Nixon, who endorsed him, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who made a late campaign visit to Tallahassee. He also picked up endorsements from County Commissioner Bill Proctor, former City Commissioner Debbie Lightsey and others.
Ausley tried to improve her primary performance among Black voters, picking up endorsements from Daryl Parks, who came in third in the primary for mayor, and the Rev. R.B. Holmes Jr. and cutting as radio ad with former U.S. Rep. Al Lawson.
She picked up endorsements from groups including the Big Bend chapter of the Florida Police Benevolent Association and the Board of Realtors.
Check back with Tallahassee.com for updates.
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Ausley, Matlow in close contest for Tallahassee mayor | Results