ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Former Florida governor and congressman Charlie Crist has won the race for mayor of St. Petersburg, unseating incumbent Mayor Ken Welch in a closely watched runoff election.<\/p>\n
The campaign focused on several major issues facing the city, including housing affordability, storm preparedness, infrastructure improvements, and the future redevelopment of the former Tropicana Field site.<\/p>\n
Welch, seeking a second term, campaigned on continuing redevelopment efforts and addressing rising costs for residents. Crist argued that his extensive experience in public service would bring a new approach to city government, with a focus on fiscal responsibility and economic growth.<\/p>\n
The result marks a political comeback for Crist and signals a leadership change for one of Florida’s fastest-growing cities as it navigates a period of significant development and investment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Former Florida governor and congressman Charlie Crist has won the race for mayor of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[85000,23311,23307,84998,84996,115,84997,807,202,204,203,199,201,200,84999,729,221],"class_list":["post-446718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-clear-channel-miami","tag-coast-to-coast","tag-glenn-beck","tag-hannity","tag-jimmy-cefalo","tag-news","tag-schnitt","tag-south-florida","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-the-weather-channel-wall-street-journal","tag-traffic","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446718","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=446718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}