{"id":338713,"date":"2026-07-13T18:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T18:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/338713\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T18:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T18:34:08","slug":"doing-the-right-thing-ben-diamond-backs-charlie-crist-for-mayor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/338713\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Doing the right thing\u2019: Ben Diamond backs Charlie Crist for Mayor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former state Rep. Ben Diamond is backing Charlie Crist for St. Petersburg Mayor, adding another notch on Crist\u2019s list of local endorsers.<\/p>\n

In a video<\/a> over the weekend, Diamond described Crist as a \u201cgood friend\u201d and said he\u2019s \u201clooking forward to voting for (Crist) as Mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been friends with you, Charlie, for a long time. And I will just say that I am so excited that Charlie wants to take on this role in leading our city because I know how much he cares about public service and doing the right thing for people, and that has always been your ethos,\u201d Diamond says sitting on a couch with Crist in the video.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was privileged to work with you when you were Governor and when you were our Congressman, and can\u2019t wait to see you in action as our Mayor,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Diamond, a lifelong Democrat, served in the Florida House from 2016 until 2022. It\u2019s not surprising that Diamond would support a candidate other than incumbent Ken Welch. Diamond had briefly mulled challenging Welch himself, even message testing a possible bid<\/a>. He ultimately decided not to run<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Crist thanked Diamond for his support, describing him as a \u201cwonderful human being\u201d and \u201ca great member of the Legislature\u201d who has \u201ca bright future in public service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you choose to, St. Pete\u2019s lucky to have had you, and we\u2019ll be lucky to have you again,\u201d Crist said.<\/p>\n

Both men encouraged voters to cast a ballot either during Early Voting, which runs Aug. 8-16, by mail or on Election Day Aug. 18.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease vote. It\u2019s important. It\u2019s democracy,\u201d Crist closed in the video.<\/p>\n

Diamond\u2019s support comes just after former St. Pete Mayor Rick Baker, a Republican, backed Crist<\/a>. The former Governor also has support from state Sen.\u00a0Darryl Rouson. Rouson had initially endorsed Welch, but later added Crist in a dual endorsement. Last week, Rouson announced that he has\u00a0decided to vote for Crist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Crist also recently earned key support from within City Hall. St. Petersburg City Council Member Gina Driscoll this week became the first on the board to back Crist<\/a>, a decision that bucked both the incumbent and Driscoll\u2019s colleague, Brandi Gabbard, who is also running for Mayor.<\/p>\n

Crist also previously unveiled a larger slate of Democratic leaders<\/a> supporting his campaign for Mayor, including U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, former U.S. Reps. Cheri Bustos of Illinois and Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania, former Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary and former state Rep. Frank Peterman, current and former Tampa and St. Petersburg City Council members, and other political leaders.<\/p>\n

Endorsements aren\u2019t the only area in which Crist is performing. A St. Pete Polls survey<\/a> conducted in the final days of June found Crist 12 percentage points ahead of Welch overall.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s potentially worse news for the incumbent is it found him bleeding support among the Black community, dropping from 55% support in March to just 42% in late June. Where Welch dropped 13 percentage points, Crist climbed 14 percentage points, from 16% support in March to 30% in the more recent poll. Now, Welch is just 12 percentage points ahead of Crist among the city\u2019s Black voters.<\/p>\n

And Crist continues to dominate fundraising<\/a>. Crist maintains a nearly $1 million cash advantage over Welch.<\/p>\n

Also running in the race are former Shore Acres Neighborhood Association President Kevin Batdorf, former St. Pete Fire Chief Jim Large and former St. Petersburg NAACP President Maria Scruggs. All are polling in the single digits.<\/p>\n

If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in the Aug. 18 Primary, the top two finishers will advance to a runoff in the General Election on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former state Rep. Ben Diamond is backing Charlie Crist for St. Petersburg Mayor, adding another notch on Crist\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3174,3347,2346,202,204,3303,18455,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-338713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-ben-diamond","tag-charlie-crist","tag-ken-welch","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-mayors-race","tag-st-pete-mayoral-election","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\/338713","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=338713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}