![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Ken-Welch-Charlie-Crist.png\")
Ken Welch (L) and Charlie Crist Credit: Photos via cityofstpete\/Flickr and Charlie Crist campaign<\/p>\nKen Welch (L) and Charlie Crist Credit: Photos via cityofstpete\/Flickr and Charlie Crist campaign<\/p>\n
The upcoming St. Petersburg mayoral race is getting dirty, personal and expensive.<\/p>\n
This morning, incumbent St. Pete Mayor Ken Welch asked former governor and opponent Charlie Crist to condemn a recent post from Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch, who spread rumors that Welch had an affair with a former staffer, something Welch denies.<\/p>\n
Welch shared a video<\/a> to social media denying the rumors and asking Crist to condemn Schorsch. \u201cPeter Schorsch, the husband of Charlie Crist\u2019s campaign manager\u2014the same guy who just last weekend introduced Charlie Crist at his office opening\u2014has crossed a disgraceful line,\u201d Welch said in the video.<\/p>\n \u201cCharlie, Peter is your guy,\u201d Welch continued. \u201cStop hiding. Condemn the lie publicly, and unequivocally.\u201d<\/p>\n Schorsch is married to Crist campaign chair Michelle Todd Schorsch, whose political consulting business is the second largest recipient of funds from Crist\u2019s PAC. Extensive Enterprises Media, the parent company of Florida Politics, has also received over $24,000 from Crist\u2019s PAC, according to campaign finance records.<\/p>\n Florida Politics, which has been criticized in the past for \u201cpay-to-play\u201d<\/a> policies, has not shied away from constant attacks on Welch.\u00a0<\/p>\n Screenshots appear to show a now<\/a>\u2013deleted<\/a> Facebook post on Peter Schorsch\u2019s page made at about 10 p.m. last Thursday, July 23. The initial post contained nothing but the name of a former deputy mayor who resigned. Her resignation followed accusations from now-Florida Politics Senior Political Editor Janelle Irwin Taylor who accused the former deputy mayor of creating a hostile work environment.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow up comments in the screenshot appear to show Schorsch saying that Welch cheated on his wife with the former staffer. \u201cPlease (prove) me wrong,\u201d reads a comment attributed to Schorsch in the screenshot. \u201cTake me to court and let\u2019s do discovery. Please!\u201d<\/p>\n Schorsch\u2014who deleted the post\u2014has used his personal Facebook page to post frustrations and campaign fodder over the last several months. He\u2019s also been the subject of attack videos portraying him as Shrek. <\/p>\n \u201cThis campaign cycle has been brutal,\u201d Schorsch posted to Facebook on Saturday, in text overlaid on a picture of Matt Damon as Odysseus. \u201cAI videos of me. Hurtful memes. Lies while calling me every name in the book. And so I\u2019m at that moment, returning home, and being asked if I am bringing vengeance?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI AM BRINGING IT ALL,\u201d Schorsch\u2019s post concluded.<\/p>\n Last week, candidate Brandi Gabbard made a Facebook post saying that even though she\u2019s running against Welch, she believes a Crist ad attacking him over hurricane response was unfair as Crist was in Minnesota during the 2024 hurricanes. Schorsch commented, calling her a \u201cpick me,\u201d <\/a>a term typically used for women who deride other women for male attention. It\u2019s unclear what he meant by this.<\/p>\n Peter Schorsch issued this statement to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n \u201cThe video Welch posted today is as lackluster and as unfocused as his campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yes, I made a comment about Ken Welch and Stephanie Owens on social media. Yes, I deleted it. But ONLY out of a courtesy to a community leader who is neutral in the mayoral race who asked my wife to ask me to delete it in order to lower the temperature in the race. Yes, I lost my temper posting that comment because a County Commissioner was attacking my wife, while also diminishing my wife\u2019s work in the mayoral race by inferring that I am more involved in the campaign than she is. It was incredibly upsetting to see someone, another woman no less, ignoring my wife\u2019s accomplishments in furtherance of attacking me. Michelle deserves better, and I will always be her fiercest defender.\u00a0<\/p>\n All of this said, I am not a politician. My name is not on the ballot. I am a news publisher. And Ken Welch is attempting to intimidate a media figure who has called out the Mayor\u2019s lack of leadership in response to the devastating hurricanes that destroyed my neighborhood. I have questioned his leadership on many other issues. And now he is angry and desperate.\u201d<\/p>\n St. Petersburg\u2019s Mayoral Election could wrap on Election Day, Tuesday, Aug. 18 if any one candidate earns more than 50% of the vote. Otherwise, a fall runoff will take place between the top two finishers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since Crist\u2019s entrance to the race, Florida Politics\u2019 coverage has heavily criticized Mayor Welch and favored the former governor.<\/p>\n This month alone, the website\u2014one of the largest political news sites in Florida\u2014 has published at least 30 articles tagged \u201cKen Welch,\u201d with many slamming the mayor over his performance in polls, hurricane response and handling of the Rays deal. Others are personal complaints, like Welch refusing to shake Schorsch\u2019s hand<\/a> or how much of a \u201cdud\u201d Schorsch thought the July 4 fireworks show was.<\/a><\/p>\n Some of Schorsch\u2019s articles are \u201cdrafted with assistance from AI<\/a>\u201d; a disclaimer says editorial judgement, sourcing and final review are performed by him and the website\u2019s editorial team.<\/p>\n Peter Schorsch was the subject of an extensive joint investigation<\/a> in 2023 by NPR and nonprofit newsroom Floodlight for running Florida Politics as a \u201cpay-to-play\u201d publication: soliciting money in exchange for news coverage, without providing disclosures on his website.<\/p>\n The investigation found that Peter Schorsch frequently requested ad buys from candidates across Florida. If they failed to pay up, coverage would often stop or become negative, according to the investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cYou always knew when he had a boat ride \u2014 presumably a cruise \u2014 coming up, because he\u2019d hit you up for money,\u201d an anonymous Republican lawmaker told NPR and Floodlight of Schorsch\u2019s fundraising tactics. The Schorsches are known to embark on Disney cruises.<\/a><\/p>\n Peter Schorsch isn\u2019t shy about his involvement in Crist\u2019s campaign. He recently published a column<\/a> on the death of former state senator Jack Latvala, who resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment and trading legislative favors for sex.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything I know about campaigning \u2014 almost every tool I am deploying right now to help my wife in her effort to elect Charlie Crist Mayor of St. Petersburg \u2014 I learned, in part, from Jack Latvala, some 25 years ago,\u201d Schorsch\u2019s column reads.<\/p>\n Schorsch goes on to recall boarding a Disney cruise when he got a call from Latvala denying the accusations, a lie Schorsch said he will \u201cnever forgive\u201d the late senator for telling.<\/p>\n Florida Politics might still publish pro-Crist articles even if the Schorsch household wasn\u2019t receiving money from the Crist campaign. Michelle Todd Schorsch was Crist\u2019s aide when he was governor, and the Schorsches have long been supporters of the St. Pete High grad who was senior class president and starting quarterback for the school in the mid-\u201970s.<\/p>\n Peter Schorsch, who is a Republican, told NPR and Floodlight that he is more likely to focus on coverage when the subject matter is a donor or a friend. Every newsroom and every reporter has some bias\u2014even though some legacy outlets may want to claim they\u2019re objective\u2014but few fail to make a distinction between opinions they\u2019ve developed organically as people familiar with politics and those they\u2019ve been directly paid to promote.<\/p>\n In an article he published last month, Peter Schorsch criticized the Tampa Bay Times<\/a> for starting up a marketing company. \u201cHow can a publishing company court marketing clients\u2014such as the businesses and developers it covers\u2014while also covering them objectively?\u201d Schorsch wrote in the article.<\/p>\n He wrote that the move was hypocritical, as the Tampa Bay Times had previously accused Florida Politics of being pay-to-play.<\/p>\n \u201cThe news relies heavily on editorial decisions \u2014 the choices that determine which stories get covered, which get killed and what angle is worth pursuing,\u201d Schorsch\u2019s article continues. \u201cAdding a marketing agency into the mix, simply put, thins the wall between revenue generation and news coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n Schorsch told NPR and Floodlight his publication was \u201csetting new rules\u201d by soliciting advertising from the subjects of Florida Politics\u2019 coverage. Pay-to-play is not a new business model, but an outdated one; advertiser-influenced editorial coverage was the norm<\/a> until newspapers established codes of ethics.<\/p>\n Former Crist ally: \u2018This is not the Charlie Crist of old\u2019<\/p>\n Stephen A. Smith (no relation to the ESPN anchor), executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, is an eyewitness to the influence of money on Florida politics. Smith told CL he praised Crist for standing up to electric utilities as Florida\u2019s attorney general decades ago. Crist\u2019s funding and involvement with Schorsch have led Smith to recant his praise.<\/p>\n Electric utilities are one of the top sources of money and lobbying in Florida politics, spending nearly $80 million on political contributions alone from 2017-2025 according to a report from the CLEO institute.<\/a> Some of that money has found its way into the pockets of Peter Schorsch. An invoice he shared with reporters from NPR shows that Florida Power & Light paid Schorsch at least $43,000 in 2021 alone.<\/p>\n Since then, Schorsch has published a number of articles in support of investor-owned utilities. Two of his articles are heavily promoted<\/a> by the Pinellas Energy Alliance, a dark money group connected to Duke<\/a> that uses the articles as \u201cexpert opinions\u201d justifying a contract renewal with Duke.<\/p>\n Smith has been on the opposing side of utility money for decades and said he is disappointed by the influence he believes the money now has over Crist\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were hoping that the Charlie Crist that we\u2019d known over the years and worked for would be who was running for mayor in St. Pete,\u201d Smith told CL. \u201cSomeone who had been a champion for consumers and for citizens has, it appears, lost the fire in his belly to protect the consumers and is, in turn, cashing in on relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not the Charlie Crist of old,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThis is a compromised version of Charlie Crist.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith criticized St. Pete Shines, Crist\u2019s PAC run by Michelle Todd Schorsch, calling it a \u201cfundraising machine\u201d that shakes down corporate interests for money. Peter Schorsch routinely boasts Crist\u2019s fundraising advantage<\/a> over Welch as a positive, despite a large portion of it coming from large donations from PACs, lawyers and industry interests.<\/p>\n Much of the money donated to Crist\u2019s campaign goes back to the Schorsches. St. Pete Shines has paid nearly $140,000 to Michelle Todd Schorsch\u2019s political consulting business, All Too Strategic LLC. This makes her firm the PAC\u2019s second largest single expenditure, behind media production firm Waterfront Strategies. An additional $33,000 has gone to Michelle Todd Schorsch directly in reimbursements.<\/p>\n Over $24,000 has gone to Extensive Enterprises Media, the parent company of Florida Politics. Over $16,000 went to direct mail, more than $4,000 went to media production, and $120 went to \u201cyard sign placement.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a love triangle, so to speak, of money and grift that people need to be aware of before they go to the polls,\u201d Smith told CL. \u201cThis is the kind of stuff that does not lead to electing somebody who is looking out for the people. It\u2019s somebody who\u2019s looking out for corporate interests.\u201d<\/p>\n Charlie Crist did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.<\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0BlueSky<\/a><\/p>\n UPDATED 07\/27\/26 5:11 p.m. Updated Janelle Irwin Taylor\u2019s title at Florida Politics and make clear that she accused Welch\u2019s former deputy mayor of creating a hostile working environment. <\/p>\n This article appears in July 23 \u2013 29, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n \t