{"id":375898,"date":"2026-08-19T20:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T20:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/375898\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T20:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T20:20:10","slug":"5-things-i-think-i-think-about-the-st-pete-mayoral-primary-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/375898\/","title":{"rendered":"5 things I think I think about the St. Pete Mayoral Primary results"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Gov. Charlie Crist is now one election away from gaining a new title<\/a>, after a resounding top finish in Tuesday\u2019s Primary for St. Petersburg Mayor, in which he delivered a major blow to incumbent Mayor Ken Welch.<\/p>\n

Crist won the day by more than 14 percentage points, with more than 35% of the vote to Welch\u2019s less than 21%.<\/p>\n

The race isn\u2019t over \u2014 the two will head to a runoff in the Nov. 3 General Election \u2014 but it might as well be. For an incumbent to lose by such a wide margin, it\u2019s hard to imagine a path to victory after that.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s one number that sticks out even more than a vote margin, and that\u2019s where we\u2019ll begin this edition of \u201cFive things I think I think \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly 80%<\/p>\n

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

That\u2019s how many St. Petersburg voters rejected Ken Welch<\/a> this Primary. He may have snuck into second place by edging out two other credible challengers \u2014 City Council Member Brandi Gabbard and former Fire Chief Jim Large, who each claimed nearly 18% of the vote \u2014 but only about a fifth of those who voted thought giving Welch another four years was a good idea.<\/p>\n

That means nearly 80% of the voting public thinks giving him another four years is a bad idea.<\/p>\n

Campaigning is hard work. And winning campaigns always run as if they are behind, even when they\u2019re clearly not. But if we\u2019re being honest, that 80% number probably makes Welch easier to defeat in November than any other candidate that ran.<\/p>\n

Why? Because it\u2019s a hell of a lot harder to convince voters who think you\u2019ve done a bad job that you\u2019ll do better, and it\u2019s really easy for a challenger to remind voters the incumbent did a bad job.<\/p>\n

Welch said during the Primary campaign that he was running on his record. Well, so did Crist. And Gabbard. And Large. And Kevin Batdorf. And Maria Scruggs. They all ran on Welch\u2019s record, subjecting the incumbent to an onslaught of criticism ranging from his hurricane response to his work attendance.<\/p>\n

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

There will inevitably be people who voted for a candidate not named Crist or Welch who just can\u2019t swallow a vote for Crist. Some of them might come back to Welch. Or maybe they just sit out the General Election. But it\u2019s more likely the majority of Gabbard, Large, Batdorf and Scruggs voters hop on the Crist train. And even if some don\u2019t, it likely won\u2019t be enough for Welch to bridge that 14-plus point gap.<\/p>\n

Simply put, if this were the U.K., that 80% number would be a vote of no confidence. Either way, Welch is probably out of a job come January. He\u2019d better start polishing his r\u00e9sum\u00e9.<\/p>\n

The poll no one knew about <\/p>\n

Before Crist ever jumped into the Mayor\u2019s race, he did what any credible candidate worth their weight in salt does: He polled it.<\/p>\n

The results weren\u2019t exactly brimming with optimism. The poll actually showed Crist a full 5 percentage points behind Welch. Given Crist\u2019s vote margin in the Primary, it\u2019s now clear Crist enjoyed a nearly 20-point swing from pre-launch to Primary.<\/p>\n

But the poll also showed something election results would eventually bear out: that no other candidate even came close. It\u2019s no wonder Crist decided to shoot his shot.<\/p>\n

Speaking of polling<\/p>\n

Our most recent poll<\/a>, from St. Pete Polls, was spot on. Taken in late July, the poll showed Crist at 34% and Welch at 19%, only a little more than a percentage point off on each candidate, and well within the poll\u2019s margin of error.<\/p>\n

It also predicted something else that happened on Election Night. Among those who already voted at the time, the poll found Crist at 51%, 16 points higher than where Crist ultimately landed.<\/p>\n

But anyone who knows anything about voting trends knew that number would go down once early voting started, and then possibly again as Election Day ballots were cast. As my team watched results roll in Tuesday night, that\u2019s exactly what we saw. Crist had an even larger lead when the first tallies dropped, which comprise vote-by-mail ballots. As the night went on and in-person ballots began reflecting in totals, Crist\u2019s margin of victory shrunk.<\/p>\n

Polls don\u2019t always get it right, but this one (mostly) accurately predicted not just the outcome, but how people would vote.<\/p>\n

A rare admission <\/p>\n

I was wrong. There, I said it. Wrong. Period.<\/p>\n

I genuinely believed Gabbard would be the one in the runoff, and that Welch would have gone home from his party early to start charting his next career move.<\/p>\n

Internal polling taken most recently overvalued Gabbard, and I\u2019m honestly not quite sure how she didn\u2019t live up to the polling suggestion.<\/p>\n

Obviously there\u2019s the issue of her funding \u2014 she didn\u2019t have much. But she had a little help from her friends, the REALTORS, who played in the race late with a batch of mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I think what may have ultimately tanked her chances of forcing a runoff likely was her vote on raising utility rates<\/a> and, even more so, her ill-advised decision to shine a spotlight on it the day before<\/a>. That handed opponents, including Crist, some low-hanging fruit.<\/p>\n

Ever hear the term someone \u201cBarbara Streisanded\u201d it? Yeah, well that\u2019s what Gabbard did with a vote that might have been quietly cast without an onslaught of bad press.<\/p>\n

Late-game paid media<\/a> suggested that was the case, by spotlighting her votes to raise prices for residents.<\/p>\n

Whether the outcome would have been different had she not voted in favor of the fee hike is anyone\u2019s guess, but one thing is pretty clear: The Dump Duke effort is now all but dead without its highest profile cheerleader on the ballot anymore.<\/p>\n

Good news abounds, but beware of the easy race<\/p>\n

One thing the Crist campaign cannot do is take its win for granted. Even at more than 14 points, margins can shrink badly and rapidly. Look no further than Stephanie Murphy in Orange County. Murphy, a former Congresswoman with the name ID to match the job, spent nearly $2 million to win the Mayor\u2019s race there, an Orange County record. She finished third in Tuesday\u2019s Primary<\/a> and won\u2019t even make the runoff.<\/p>\n

On the surface, this contradicts my first thing \u2014 that Welch has an 80% problem \u2014 but it\u2019s an important point to note because of something else I also pointed out, that winning campaigns always run as if they are behind. A drop in support is always just one campaign surprise away. Campaigns work hard to avoid them, and Crist\u2019s campaign is as top-notch as they come, but sometimes they happen without warning and at no one\u2019s direct fault.<\/p>\n

Ask Welch about that. A hurricane named Milton is largely to blame for his current predicament and, last we checked, Welch doesn\u2019t control the weather (that\u2019s Pudge, and you have to give him a peanut butter sandwich).<\/p>\n

As Mayor, though, Welch can control how he responds to the unexpected, and he beefed it.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, expect the Crist campaign to keep its pedal to the metal. And if you were a Gabbard, Large, Batdorf or Scruggs supporter or donor, expect a call.<\/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 is now one election away from gaining a new title, after a resounding top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[151455,3300,3347,71439,2346,72295,3175,202,204,3303,18455,203,7382,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-375898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-5-things-i-think","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-pete-polls","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\/375898","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=375898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}