{"id":31050,"date":"2025-11-03T10:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T10:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/31050\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T10:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T10:07:08","slug":"jim-gray-fights-to-keep-his-seat-from-challengers-tom-keen-and-sunshine-linda-marie-grund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/31050\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Gray fights to keep his seat from challengers Tom Keen and Sunshine Linda-Marie Grund"},"content":{"rendered":"

Incumbent Orlando City Commissioner Jim Gray<\/a> is facing challenges from former Rep. Tom Keen<\/a> and two others in Tuesday\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

With a war chest of more than $122,000 Gray out-raised Keen, Sunshine Linda-Marie Grund<\/a> and Manny Acosta.<\/p>\n

Gray also picked up some big endorsements from the Orlando Sentinel\u2019s editorial board<\/a>, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Orlando City Commissioner Tony Ortiz and the Central Florida Hotel and Lodging Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Keen has been an underdog before and won. He was an upset victor when he flipped state House District 35 in a Special Election last year although he later lost his bid for re-election.<\/p>\n

Turning his sights on Orlando City Council this time, Keen has won the endorsements of several Democratic leaders, including U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost,\u00a0state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith and state Rep. Anna Eskamani.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gray, Keen, Grund and Acosta are competing in Tuesday\u2019s election for District 1<\/a>, which includes Lake Nona, the Orlando International Airport, Visa Park and Sunbridge.<\/p>\n

Early voting ends<\/a> 3 p.m. Sunday. Polls on Election Day open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. <\/p>\n

If no one wins with more than 50% of the vote, the race will go to a runoff in December.<\/p>\n

Even though the City Council race is non-partisan, politics are still at play.<\/p>\n

The Republican Party of Florida sent out a mailer in support of Gray, calling him \u201cthe last Republican standing\u201d on the city council who is \u201csurrounded by liberals,\u201d according to the Orlando Sentinel.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The ad slammed Keen for being a \u201cliberal extremist\u201d although Keen, a Democrat, has pointed out District 1 is Democrat-leaning. Other officials complained the mailer was homophobic, the Sentinel reported.<\/p>\n

Keen and Gray have squared off against each other before.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Gray beat Keen for City Council with 53% of the vote in what was a three-way race.<\/p>\n

Gray, who was first elected to City Council in 2012, is the Orlando Managing Director for CBRE<\/a>, a commercial real estate services and investment firm.<\/p>\n

He supports adding more parks, pointing to four parks he said he spearheaded in District 1, according to his website.<\/p>\n

\u201cJim believes in the principles of smart growth and holds developer\u2019s feet to the fire to make sure they don\u2019t run over neighbors,\u201d the website also said.<\/p>\n

Keen, a former Navy officer, is running on a platform that includes increasing public safety, fixing Orlando\u2019s traffic problems and other issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur city has historically allowed unfettered development, leading to traffic jams, unstable housing and communities that are disconnected from our city,\u201d his campaign website said. \u201cAnnexation should not be used as a handout to developers and corporations. It\u2019s time to hold developers accountable by forcing them to develop new areas with a community first focus and prioritize multiple modes of transportation to help people move around our city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grund, a real estate agent and managing director of Sweet Dreams Realty, said she wants to\u00a0 focus on more community policing, improving traffic and adding more affordable housing, her campaign website said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She previously unsuccessfully ran for Orange County Supervisor of Elections last year and for Gray\u2019s seat in 2021.<\/p>\n

Acosta doesn\u2019t not appear to be actively campaigning. He did not set up a campaign website or show up at an Orlando debate last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Incumbent Orlando City Commissioner Jim Gray is facing challenges from former Rep. Tom Keen and two others in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,7509,22253,22254,139,7511,7512],"class_list":["post-31050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-jim-gray","tag-linda-marie-grund","tag-manny-acosta","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-city-council-district-1","tag-tom-keen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31050","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=31050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}