![\"Jaylen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6d1b5b1c-a0f8-4487-b902-c29c12294d18_1763750529.jpg\")
<\/a>CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\nCape Coral Mayor John Gunter\u2019s campaign signs have been vandalized and stolen, with police investigating the incidents as the primary election approaches. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, actually, we’ve had about 12 signs throughout the city. That has been vandalized and, you know, a portion of them stolen. So that’s happened over the last week, actually,\u201d Gunter said. <\/p>\n
The vandalism has become a hot topic on the campaign trail as Gunter seeks re-election<\/a> in this year\u2019s primary. Some backlash from residents has led to his campaign signage being destroyed. <\/p>\n \u201cI surely don’t think that anyone should kind of, you know, go to this extreme. You know, if you don’t agree with the candidate or you don’t like it, can it just vote for someone else, not commit a crime?\u201d Gunter said. <\/p>\n Some residents have taken to social media to support the destruction of Gunter\u2019s campaign materials. Cape Coral resident Thomas Johnson said he believes the signs deserve to be taken down. <\/p>\n \u201cObviously, nobody likes him. You know, you didn’t do a good job here. You’re not doing a good job. You’re throwing money away like it belongs to you. And you don’t really care what people say,\u201d Johnson said. <\/p>\n Others believe the political discourse is getting out of hand, both online and at public meetings. <\/p>\n \u201cI would tell them to stop doing it, that’s all. It’s not right. That’s money that they put out for these signs,\u201d Cape Coral resident Clark Shimp said. <\/p>\n Gunter said the person responsible for the vandalism has been identified and admitted to the crime. Cape Coral police reportedly found campaign signage at the suspect\u2019s residence, and Gunter said an arrest is forthcoming. <\/p>\n \u201cIt’s simple. Use your voice on election day. That’s when it matters. So go to the polls and vote for whoever you feel is the best candidate,\u201d Gunter said. <\/p>\n Gunter faces multiple challengers in the upcoming primary election and hopes voters will use their voice at the polls rather than resorting to criminal acts.<\/p>\n DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cape Coral mayor\u2019s campaign signs vandalized amid primary race CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014 Cape Coral Mayor John Gunter\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[136712,136714,4320,209,211,19411,210,265,1178,2811,104,20347,24128,213,1375,136711,22306,22438,136715,136713,2171,19149,8073,45821,221],"class_list":["post-331280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-campaign-sign","tag-campaign-signage","tag-candidate","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-mayor","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-crime","tag-damage","tag-election","tag-entertainment","tag-gunter","tag-john-gunter","tag-late-news","tag-mayor","tag-mayor-race","tag-poll","tag-primary","tag-primary-election-approach","tag-primary-race","tag-resident","tag-signs","tag-vandalism","tag-voice","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331280","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=331280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}