{"id":375385,"date":"2026-08-19T06:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/375385\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T06:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:56:13","slug":"orange-county-mayor-tiffany-moore-russell-and-chris-messina-head-to-a-runoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/375385\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County Mayor: Tiffany Moore Russell and Chris Messina head to a runoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrat Tiffany Moore Russell<\/a> and Republican Chris Messina<\/a> will battle in a November runoff after no outright winner emerged in Tuesday\u2019s election in the crowded field to be the next Orange County Mayor.<\/p>\n

Moore Russell, the previous Orange County Clerk of Courts, received about 32% of the vote while Messina earned 28% of the vote.<\/p>\n

They were the two highest vote-getters, surpassing the other two candidates former U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy who spent the most money in the race and Orange County Commissioner Mayra Uribe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel both humbled and gratified,\u201d Messina said Tuesday when reached for comment.<\/p>\n

Moore Russell, Murphy and Uribe appeared to split the Democratic vote which gave Messina the advantage to come in second to qualify for the November runoff. Murphy and Uribe received about 26% and 15% of the vote, respectively.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI think more was that there\u2019s just such a clear distinction between me and the other three,\u201d Messina said. \u201cI have a new vision and the others are recycled politicians looking for the next political job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Messina, a businessman, called himself an outsider and pointed he was the only one of the four candidates who supports Amendment 3 to overhaul local property taxes to reduce local government.<\/p>\n

The Orange County Mayor is an open race since incumbent Jerry Demings, who has led the county since 2018, is term-limited. The job pays $271,658 a year for the 2027 fiscal year.<\/p>\n

Several leading voices in Central Florida haven\u2019t publicly weighed in. Demings, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost and state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who is running for Orlando Mayor, were quiet and did not make public endorsements ahead of Tuesday\u2019s contest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moore Russell made history as the youngest Orlando City Commissioner elected onto the board in 2006. She served until 2014. She next ran to be Orange County Clerk of Courts, a position she\u2019s had ever since. She became the first Black woman in Florida to become a Clerk. <\/p>\n

Moore Russell also faced criticisms about her lack of oversight monitoring the guardian program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe audit<\/a>\u00a0from the office of Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond started before a\u00a0statewide scandal<\/a>\u00a0erupted in 2019 involving Rebecca Fierle, a prolific Orlando-based court-appointed guardian for hundreds of incapacitated people who resigned and was later arrested on charges of abuse and neglect in the death of a ward,\u201d the Orlando Sentinel reported in 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Messina, who is highlighting his conservative Christian values, is an entrepreneur who started a medical marketing company<\/a> and was founding director of a trade association<\/a>. He previously challenged Demings for County Mayor in 2022 and came in second place, winning nearly 22% of the vote.<\/p>\n

Murphy was elected to Congress after she defeated Republican U.S. Rep. John Mica in 2016, becoming the first Vietnamese American woman ever elected to Congress. She went on to serve three terms then pivoted to become a business analyst for strategy, risk management and growth. She is a former defense analyst. The Orlando Sentinel reported Murphy<\/a> spent $1.5 million in the race and received support from Walt Disney World, billionaires J. Hyatt Brown and Michael Bloomberg, and Avalon Park developer Beat Kahli.<\/p>\n

Uribe has served on the Orange County Commission since 2018. She has been known as an outspoken critic of Visit Orlando<\/a> and for advocating to help people who are homeless.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Uribe made headlines for refusing to resign from her County Commission seat until December to run for County Mayor. The move angered some Democrats<\/a> who fear Gov. Ron DeSantis will appoint someone in her place instead of Uribe resigning early enough to automatically trigger a Special Election. <\/p>\n

Uribe is also under investigation<\/a> by the Florida Ethics Commission over a 2024 scandal when she passed on hundreds of concerts and sporting event tickets to her husband\u2019s nonprofit. Uribe called the ethical complaint against her a political attack coming from the tourism industry that she has been clashing against.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrat Tiffany Moore Russell and Republican Chris Messina will battle in a November runoff after no outright winner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[147646,64912,1335,118970,139,141,140,130248,118972],"class_list":["post-375385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-chris-messina","tag-mayra-uribe","tag-orange-county","tag-orange-county-mayor","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-stephanie-murphy","tag-tiffany-moore-russell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375385","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=375385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}