Qualifying for judicial races<\/a> happened in April.<\/p>\nAs it stands now, nearly every city, county and School Board race has at least two filed competitors, though that could change by the time qualifying ends.<\/p>\n
County Commissioner Bill Proctor and School Board member Darryl Jones are the only local incumbents who have not yet drawn a challenger. Two other incumbents, County Commissioner Nick Maddox and School Board member Alva Smith, both have opposition but only from write-in candidates.<\/p>\n
Leon Circuit Judges Tiffany Baker-Carper and Steven Everett and Leon County Judge Nina Ashenafi-Richardson were automatically re-elected in April after they qualified without opposition.\u00a0Circuit Judge Jason Jones is facing challenger Stephanie\u00a0Cager in Group 7 while Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh is facing opponent Rashad\u00a0Green in Group 13.<\/p>\n
Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley called candidate qualifying “a critical part of our elections” in a June 8 news release.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the final step that establishes who will appear on our ballots,” he said. “Anyone planning to run for local office must make sure to carefully follow the required steps to qualify. Recent legislation made changes to qualifying paperwork, so candidates should ensure they are using current forms and following the latest laws.\u201d<\/p>\n
Below are candidates for local and legislative office who have filed to run, with those who have qualified in bold. The list will be updated throughout the week.<\/p>\n
Leon County Commission at-large Group 2<\/p>\n
Mehwish\u00a0Rashid, qualified as a write-in<\/p>\n
Leon County Commission District 1<\/p>\n
Bill Proctor (incumbent): Qualified<\/p>\n
Leon County Commission District 3<\/p>\n
Charles Bryan Lorch: Filed<\/p>\n
Rick Minor (incumbent): Qualified<\/p>\n
Leon County Commission District 5<\/p>\n
David\u00a0O’Keefe\u00a0(incumbent): Qualified<\/p>\n
Tallahassee City Commission Seat 3<\/p>\n
Talethia\u00a0Edwards: Qualified<\/p>\n
Tallahassee mayor<\/p>\n
Loranne Ausley: Qualified<\/p>\n
Jeremy\u00a0Matlow: Qualified<\/p>\n
Tallahassee City Commission Seat 5<\/p>\n
Dot\u00a0Inman-Johnson: Filed<\/p>\n
Bernard Michael Stevens II: Filed<\/p>\n
Dianne Williams-Cox (incumbent): Qualified<\/p>\n
Leon County School Board District 1<\/p>\n
James Richard\u00a0Billingsley: Qualified as a write-in<\/p>\n
Alva Smith (incumbent): Filed<\/p>\n
Leon County School Board District 3<\/p>\n
Darryl Jones (incumbent): Filed<\/p>\n
Leon County School Board District 5<\/p>\n
Marcus Nicolas (incumbent): Filed<\/p>\n
James Reilly Jr.:\u00a0Qualified<\/p>\n
Florida House District 7<\/p>\n
Jason\u00a0Shoaf\u00a0(Republican, incumbent): Filed<\/p>\n
Angela Tracy Wiman (NPA): Filed<\/p>\n
Florida House District 8<\/p>\n
Gallop Franklin (Democrat, incumbent):\u00a0Qualified<\/p>\n
Aaron\u00a0Ruddell\u00a0(Independent Party): Filed<\/p>\n
Florida House District 9<\/p>\n
Jibiri\u00a0Knight (Republican):\u00a0Qualified<\/p>\n
Tracy\u00a0Latroy\u00a0Robinson: Filed<\/p>\n
Allison\u00a0Tant\u00a0(Democrat, incumbent):\u00a0Qualified<\/p>\n
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: 2026 Tallahassee, Leon elections: Candidate qualifying updates<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Candidates running for state and local office are turning in their paperwork this week to get their names…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[49663,19596,1289,4183,12207,65273,47541,126443,4043,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-301101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-bill-proctor","tag-darryl-jones","tag-leon-county","tag-leon-county-commission","tag-leon-county-school-board","tag-nick-maddox","tag-qualifying","tag-qualifying-period","tag-school-board","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301101","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=301101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}