St. Pete Shines<\/a>, a political committee created in October to gauge support for Crist\u2019s potential run for St. Petersburg mayor, reported that it raised $725,145 from Oct. 28 to Dec. 31.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m overwhelmed and humbled all at the same time,\u201d Crist said. \u201cI\u2019m enormously grateful for all of that and all the people that have shown such kind support.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, $336,458 of that sum came from Friends of Charlie Crist, a political committee created when Crist unsuccessfully challenged Gov. Ron DeSantis in a 2022 bid to return to that office.<\/p>\n
In about the same time period, Welch raised $48,225. His political committee has raised $282,800 since it was created a year ago.<\/p>\n
By comparison, Welch raised $801,012 from 2019 through winning his first mayoral election in 2021.<\/p>\n
This time, Welch\u2019s political committee has even less cash on hand. An accounting report released Monday disclosed more than $200,000 in unauthorized transactions between August and October. Its chairperson, Adrienne Bogen, accused its treasurer of both past and present political committees of misspending the funds.<\/p>\n
Neither Crist nor Welch have officially filed to run for mayor.<\/p>\n
Donors to St. Pete Shines include George LeMieux, Crist\u2019s former chief of staff who turned on Crist after he changed party affiliationfrom Republican to Democrat; former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer; Charles Bronfman, former owner of the Montreal Expos whose son led a charge for the Rays to split home games between St. Petersburg and Montreal; and Tampa Bay Buccaneers legends Jimmie Giles and Derrick Brooks.<\/p>\n
Retired U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia gave $10,000 through his Country Roads PAC and Tallahassee-based lobbying firm Ballard Partners gave $25,000. A political committee named We All Should Help gave $45,000 and Barbara A. Stiefel, the Coral Gables heiress of the Stiefel Medicinal Soap Co. fortune, gave $50,000.<\/p>\n
Local donors include former state Rep. Ben Diamond, who was exploring his own run for mayor through polling last summer; attorney Matt Weidner, who has railed against the city for a water billing fiasco in which residents received hefty unexpected assessments; and Trevor Burgess, a private flood insurance company CEO who also donated $25,000 to Welch\u2019s committee in September.<\/p>\n
Oil executive Bud Risser and local investor Irv Cohen also donated to Crist\u2019s political committee. They both funded a poll assessing public support for building a new Rays stadium<\/a> and other city issues in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A political committee for former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who is eyeing a mayoral bid for his hometown,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3347,2346,3821,58608,9867,412,202,204,203,199,201,200,2964,3815],"class_list":["post-116102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-charlie-crist","tag-ken-welch","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-pete-shines","tag-political-committee","tag-ron-desantis","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-tampa-bay-rays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}