{"id":346384,"date":"2026-07-20T19:41:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T19:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/346384\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T19:41:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T19:41:49","slug":"poll-charlie-crist-leads-ken-welch-by-nearly-14-points-in-st-pete-mayors-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/346384\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll: Charlie Crist leads Ken Welch by nearly 14 points in St. Pete Mayor\u2019s race"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new St. Pete Polls<\/a> survey commissioned by Florida Politics shows former Gov. Charlie Crist<\/a> opening a lead over incumbent St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch<\/a>, though a substantial portion of voters remain undecided with less than a month left before Election Day.<\/p>\n

Crist receives close to 31% support on the poll\u2019s initial ballot test, nearly 14 percentage points ahead of Welch, who receives 17% of support. More than a quarter of likely voters, 26%, initially say they are unsure or undecided.<\/p>\n

St. Petersburg City Council Member Brandi Gabbard<\/a> polls in third with 11%, followed by former St. Petersburg Fire Chief Jim Large<\/a> at 9%. Former Shore Acres Neighborhood Civic Association President Kevin Batdorf<\/a> receives nearly 4%, while Maria Scruggs<\/a> draws just over 2%.<\/p>\n

Crist\u2019s advantage widens after undecided respondents were asked which candidate they were leaning toward. With those voters included, Crist rises to 34.5%, compared with 18% for Welch, 12% for Gabbard, 9% for Large, 4% for Batdorf and 2% for Scruggs. Another 20% remain undecided even after being asked which way they lean.<\/p>\n

The former Governor also leads decisively in a two-way test that could resemble a General Election runoff. Crist receives more than 44% to Welch\u2019s 28%, while 28% remain undecided.<\/p>\n

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

Crist leads among Democrats, Republicans and independent voters in that matchup. Among Democrats, he leads Welch 44% to 36%. His advantage is wider among Republicans, 46% to 23%, and independents, 44% to 21%.<\/p>\n

The poll also found that 44% of voters favor Crist, compared with 28% who favor Welch, in a head-to-head matchup. The remaining 28% of voters remain undecided.<\/p>\n

The racial breakdown presents a more detailed head-to-head matchup picture. Crist leads Welch 52% to 23% among White voters, while Welch maintains a 47% to 19% advantage among Black voters. The candidates are tied at 35% among Hispanic voters, though that result is based on only 17 respondents.<\/p>\n

Crist also leads among men and women and in every age group measured in the two-way test. His strongest performance is among voters age 70 and older, who favor him 52% to 31%.<\/p>\n

The results reflect similar findings to earlier polling<\/a>, at least showing that Crist and Welch remain the front-runners in the race. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in the Aug. 18 Primary, the two leading candidates will advance to the Nov. 3 General Election.<\/p>\n

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

St. Pete Polls conducted the survey July 18 for Florida Politics using a combination of automated telephone calls and manual peer-to-peer text messages. The survey included 379 likely St. Petersburg voters and was weighted by political party, race, age and gender. It has a margin of error of 5 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Ed. note:\u00a0Michelle Todd Schorsch\u00a0is the Chair of St. Pete Shines, a political committee backing Crist for St. Petersburg Mayor. Todd Schorsch is married to\u00a0Peter Schorsch, the publisher of Florida Politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new St. Pete Polls survey commissioned by Florida Politics shows former Gov. Charlie Crist opening a lead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[47499,3300,3347,71439,2346,72295,3175,63435,202,204,203,7382,199,98044,201,15767,200],"class_list":["post-346384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-2026-elections","tag-brandi-gabbard","tag-charlie-crist","tag-jim-large","tag-ken-welch","tag-kevin-batdorf","tag-maria-scruggs","tag-polling","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-pete-polls","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-elections","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-mayor","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346384","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=346384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}