By: Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida<\/p>\n
Attorney General James Uthmeier raised $1.91 million in the first quarter of 2026, surpassing the $336,000 raised by Democratic challenger Jos\u00e9 Javier Rodr\u00edguez, according to numbers posted by the Division of Elections website.<\/p>\n
The quarterly total, generated through his personal account and a political committee, increased Uthmeier\u2019s overall effort to $8.26 million as he seeks to retain the Cabinet office he was appointed to by Gov. Ron DeSantis in February 2025. Of the overall haul, Uthmeier had $7.43 million on hand as of March 31.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Rodriguez, a former legislator from Miami who was assistant secretary for employment and training in the Department of Labor under President Joe Biden, has now raised more than $1 million. Of that, $489,700 was available on March 31.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe support we\u2019re seeing across the state makes clear Floridians are ready for accountability, to take on corruption, and to lower costs for families,\u201d Rodriguez said in a release.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez\u2019 quarterly totals include $137,163 raised through his personal campaign account and $198,900 through the political committee Floridians for JJR.<\/p>\n
The largest contributions to Floridians for JJR were $50,000 from the Miami Beach-based political committee The Florida Project, which has backed other Democratic candidates over the past year, and $75,000 from Jacksonville personal injury attorney Steve Pajcic.<\/p>\n
Another Democrat in the contest, Jim Lewis, a former state prosecutor from Fort Lauderdale, raised $1,600 during the quarter and loaned his campaign $3,000. Lewis earlier put $2,000 of his own money into the campaign.<\/p>\n
Lewis received 381,575 votes in the 2022 Democratic primary for the Cabinet office, 26.9 percent of the vote, finishing third in a three-way contest.<\/p>\n
The political committee Friends of James Uthmeier raised $1.62 million in the quarter, while Uthmeier brought in $288,843 for his personal campaign account in the same time.<\/p>\n
Uthmeier\u2019s quarterly totals included $125,000 from the political committee \u201cA Stronger Florida,\u201d which is linked to the lobbying firm Rubin Turnbull & Associates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The tobacco company RAI Services Company of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, wrote a check for $100,000, as did the Republican Party of Florida. The gun manufacturer Sig Sauer Inc., which was behind a failed effort in the 2026 legislative session to shield gun makers from liability lawsuits over a defect that isn\u2019t required by federal law, gave the political committee $50,000.<\/p>\n
Uthmeier\u2019s quarterly totals include $27,200 posted in his personal account from the RPOFD for in-kind consulting and staffing assistance.<\/p>\n
Another Republican that has filed for the statewide office is Steven Leskovich, a former assistant public Defender from Lee County. Leskovich didn\u2019t report raising any money during the quarter. Before the quarter he had raised $66,446, in addition to putting $50,000 of his own money into the contest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By: Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier raised $1.91 million in the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-230206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230206","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=230206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}