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<\/a><\/p>\nAs the incumbent, trouble for Welch was apparent from the beginning, as he drew a field of challengers all in one way or another running as a referendum on Welch\u2019s first term. Both Crist and Gabbard supported Welch in his first bid for Mayor, only to challenge him several years later. Large is retired now, but for much of Welch\u2019s first term Large worked closely with Welch as a member of his Cabinet.<\/p>\n
Batdorf, a local businessman who was President of the Shore Acres Neighborhood Civic Association when Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck two years ago, challenged Welch largely because of what critics perceive as an inadequate response by the Welch administration after the storms. And Scruggs\u2019 campaign message was largely in opposition to the current administration.<\/p>\n
For those reasons, and more, there was a question \u2014 that has now been put to rest \u2014 about whether Welch would survive the Primary.<\/p>\n
Now the question pivots to the General Election, where Welch will continue facing electoral challenges.<\/p>\n
Welch has been bleeding support this election cycle, with many who backed him in 2021 swapping allegiance to another candidate or sitting out of the race entirely.<\/p>\n
Such is the case for Sen. Darryl Rouson, long a Welch ally who first decided to endorse both Crist and Welch<\/a>\u00a0before announcing that he would be casting his ballot for Crist<\/a>. There\u2019s also John Muhammad, a former City Council member who previously supported Welch, but decided not to endorse anyone in this race<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Tampa Bay Times, which supported Welch in his first election<\/a>, bucked the incumbent not once, but twice this year. Times Publishing Co. Chair and CEO\u00a0Conan Gallaty<\/a>\u00a0recommended\u00a0Gabbard, while Tampa Bay Times Viewpoints Editor\u00a0Graham Brink<\/a>\u00a0chose to support Crist. They disagreed over who should replace Welch, but united around the conclusion that the city needs a change<\/a>.<\/p>\n More than all that, though, Welch will have to overcome a major funding disadvantage in November.<\/p>\n Welch has struggled to raise the kind of cash needed to win a competitive mayoral race in a mid-sized city. What\u2019s more, his campaign has been plagued with a series of unforced errors that could give voters the impression that Welch isn\u2019t ready to continue playing in the big leagues.<\/p>\n Overall, Crist has raised more than $2 million<\/a> for the race between his campaign account and affiliated political committee. Welch has raised less than a half million.<\/p>\n On top of that, Welch is now on his third political committee<\/a> since first running for Mayor in 2021. His first, Pelican PAC, was revoked by the state for consistently failing to file certain required documents. His second, The Pelican Political Action Committee, was abandoned after it became public that a former Treasurer, Yolanda Brown, had allegedly stolen $207,000<\/a> from it by making a series of unauthorized expenditures to a business she controls.<\/p>\n The current committee, St. Petersburg Progress PAC<\/a>, has faced its own challenges. In June, the committee missed a campaign finance reporting deadline<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, Welch heads to the General Election with far less cash on hand than Crist.<\/p>\n As of Aug. 13, Crist had more than $366,000 still on hand between his two funding sources. Welch, by comparison, had less than $56,000.<\/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":"Former Gov. Charlie Crist and incumbent Mayor Ken Welch will head to a runoff in the November General…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3300,3347,71439,2346,72295,3175,202,204,3303,18455,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-375194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-brandi-gabbard","tag-charlie-crist","tag-jim-large","tag-ken-welch","tag-kevin-batdorf","tag-maria-scruggs","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\/375194","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=375194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Razack728x90-May-15-2023-at-17.01.44-2.png\")
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