{"id":417342,"date":"2026-10-03T01:50:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T01:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/417342\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T01:50:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T01:50:18","slug":"ken-welchs-late-election-fundraising-surge-appears-to-be-a-blip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/417342\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Welch\u2019s late-election fundraising surge appears to be a blip"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch, in his last reporting period, outraised challenger Charlie Crist for the first time since Crist entered the race.<\/p>\n

But it appears to have been an outlier, with new reports showing Welch returning to his lackluster fundraising. After developer John Catsimatidis dropped $25,000 last reporting period<\/a>, and Blue Sky Communities, another developer, donated $10,000, Welch is back to reporting just much smaller figures in the most recent report covering financial activity from Sept. 19-25.<\/p>\n

Welch\u2019s political committee, St. Petersburg Progress<\/a>, raised just $4,500 in the period, even less than his campaign haul<\/a> of just under $7,000, in a period covering activity from Sept. 12-25.<\/p>\n

Combined, Welch raised less than $11,500 between both accounts in the most recent periods. Crist\u2019s combined haul: $103,800.<\/p>\n

In one period, Crist and his political operation managed to erase Welch\u2019s surprise fundraising surge and to grow the campaign\u2019s resource advantage significantly.<\/p>\n

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

Crist\u2019s campaign raised $36,800 in the most recent period, bringing total campaign fundraising to more than $238,000. Welch\u2019s campaign has raised less than half that, at just over $104,000. In fact, Crist\u2019s remaining campaign balance is more than Welch\u2019s campaign account has raised all cycle, with nearly $150,000 still on hand. Welch\u2019s campaign has less than $16,000, roughly one-tenth of his opponent\u2019s balance.<\/p>\n

The outlook isn\u2019t much better on the committee side.<\/p>\n

Crist\u2019s committee, St. Pete Shines<\/a>, raised $67,000 in the most recent period, nearly 15 times what Welch\u2019s PC raised in the same period. The committee has brought in more than $2.1 million to date, compared with the $456,000 Welch\u2019s PC has raised.<\/p>\n

Crist maintains more than $267,000 in his committee account, while Welch is down to less than $20,000.<\/p>\n

Overall, Crist\u2019s access to resources dwarfs Welch\u2019s, with more than $417,000 available between both accounts. Welch\u2019s combined cash on hand total is just under $35,000, a remarkable disparity for an incumbent.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Welch\u2019s army of defenders, which is small but mighty, has frequently pointed to campaign finance reports with a \u201cnothing to see here\u201d attitude, arguing Welch has the resources needed to defend his seat and accusing Crist of accepting money from special interests \u2014 many of whom had previously donated to Welch \u2014 while ignoring Welch\u2019s own fundraising surge from two prominent developers.<\/p>\n

But the data doesn\u2019t support the defense that Welch will have the resources to defend his seat, at least not to the same degree the Crist operation has been and will continue to be able to attack it.<\/p>\n

Crist\u2019s PC spent nearly $68,000 in the most recent reporting period, more than $36,000 of it on direct mail. There was also more than $5,000 dropped on text message blasts to voters. Welch spent less than $23,000 from his committee, almost all of it on mailers.<\/p>\n

With Welch\u2019s funds dwindling, and Crist\u2019s political operation showing no signs of slowing its fundraising, that gap is likely only to continue growing with just over a month until Election Day and ballots already landing in voters\u2019 mailboxes.<\/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":"St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch, in his last reporting period, outraised challenger Charlie Crist for the first time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3347,2346,202,204,3303,203,37378,199,201,200,102069],"class_list":["post-417342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-charlie-crist","tag-ken-welch","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-mayors-race","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-pete-shines","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-st-petersburg-progress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417342","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=417342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}