{"id":249560,"date":"2026-04-28T12:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T12:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/249560\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T12:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T12:57:16","slug":"charlie-crist-is-back-running-for-mayor-of-st-petersburg-%c2%b7-the-floridian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/249560\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Crist is Back! Running for Mayor of St. Petersburg \u00b7 The Floridian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrat Charlie Crist<\/a>, the former Florida governor and congressman, officially filed paperwork this week to run for mayor of St. Petersburg. Crist announced his filing outside City Hall.<\/p>\n

“Well, it\u2019s official. I’m now a candidate for mayor of St. Pete. God bless you all,” Crist said.<\/p>\n

Crist, 69, served as governor of Florida as a Republican from 2007 to 2011. He later represented Florida’s 13th congressional district as a Democrat from 2017 to 2022.<\/p>\n

He also served in the Florida Senate from 1993 to 1999, as Florida education commissioner from 2001 to 2003, and as Florida attorney general from 2003 to 2007, all as a Republican.<\/p>\n

Crist is running against incumbent Mayor Ken Welch and several other candidates, including<\/a> St. Petersburg City Councilwoman Brandi Gabbard, former NAACP St. Petersburg Branch President Maria Scruggs, and former St. Petersburg Fire Chief Jim Large.<\/p>\n

Welch has been mayor since 2022. He announced a run for a second term in February.<\/p>\n

St. Petersburg’s mayoral race is technically nonpartisan, and that is new for Crist, who became a Republican in the mid-1980s.<\/p>\n

But things changed.<\/p>\n

Crist switched his affiliation from Republican to Democrat in 2012 after a two-year stint as an Independent from 2010 to 2012. Before the switch, Crist ran in the 2010 U.S. Senate Republican primary against Marco Rubio<\/a>, but dropped out to run as an Independent.<\/p>\n

He lost to Rubio by 19 points. Crist also ran as a Republican for U.S. Senate in 1998 against Democrat Bob Graham, losing by nearly 25 points.<\/p>\n

Crist, after serving as governor, ran unsuccessfully for the job in 2014, losing to former Republican Gov. Rick Scott<\/a>, and again in 2022, losing to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a Democrat, Crist defeated former Republican David Jolly in the District 13 congressional election back in 2016. Notably, Jolly is running as a Democrat in the gubernatorial race.<\/p>\n

So, if you’re keeping track, Crist officially can’t win or lose as a Republican or Democrat, and instead has a clean slate to go 1-0 in the nonpartisan mayor’s race. Maybe that’s a good thing, despite Crist’s political leaning.<\/p>\n

St. Petersburg is located west of Tampa on the west coast.<\/p>\n

The mayoral election is on Aug. 18, 2026. If no candidate receives over 50% of the vote, a runoff election will take place on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrat Charlie Crist, the former Florida governor and congressman, officially filed paperwork this week to run for mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[11581,79195,3300,3347,1813,71439,2346,8877,3175,3856,412,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-249560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-2026-st-petersburg-mayoral-race","tag-bob-graham","tag-brandi-gabbard","tag-charlie-crist","tag-david-jolly","tag-jim-large","tag-ken-welch","tag-marco-rubio","tag-maria-scruggs","tag-rick-scott","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"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249560","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=249560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}